Hey everyone! First post, but been lurking for a few weeks. I never new this forum existed so please excuse me if I break any forum rules in advance.

We are playing 1/3. I get dealt pocket 9s on the button. Good start. First to act raises to $10. Two other players call and I call. We go to the flop with $43 in the pot.

I have ~$430 and the villain has ~$900

Flop:
Q95

Checks around to me. I raise to $25. I get 1 caller.

Turn:
Ace

He checks to me. I raise $20. He reraises to $62 I snap call.

River:
Queen

He opens for $152. I tank

Mod edit: removed results and related commentary

On the flop when he called me I wasn't sure what he was calling with but before I made the bet he jokingly said, "Give the people what they want." Meaning, of course, that I should check. So I did not think he had much. His reraise on the flop suggested that he probably had an Ace in his hand and was trying to bump me off of my hand. But when the queen came i thought he could have nothing but AQ with that kind of bet.

What did I do wrong here? Did I do anything wrong? I am grateful for any help with this.

Morning. Please don't post results until people have had time to discuss the hand. It will bias what people say.

Having said that, but bigger on the turn. And consider 3betting the turn.
On the river it's at least a call. And might be a raise.

You didnt "raise $25" on the flop. You bet $25.
You didnt raise $20 on the turn and he didnt reraise.

Back to the hand

You said you got 1 caller on the flop after betting $25. It helps to know who the caller is. It can make a big difference what position that player is in because people play different hands from different positions. In this particular hand it doesnt change much though because Im doing whatever I can to get all my chips in the pot.

Your turn bet is way too small. You shouldve bet $65-$70. As you played it, I would reraise the turn to an amount that makes it easy to get all in on the river. Since you didnt do that and he bet $152 on the river, Im going all in now. With no straights or flushes to worry about, you should be getting all in when you have a set. In this case only AQ, Q9, QQ and Q5 beat you. If he has one of those, so be it but if you dont get all in with a hand like this you will be leaving tons of money on the table all the other times you have a hand this strong.

Flop bet depends on the board suits. If there is a flush draw possible bet more. If it's a rainbow then $25 into $43 is fine when the original raises checks. Who called you on the flop makes a big difference. If it's one of the two blinds your situation is better then if it's the original raiser, a blind is more likely on a draw and can have a much wider range of QX and other hands they didn't bet to begin with.

Turn bet of $20 into $93 is generally a mistake. You should either be betting more (at least $50-$75) or checking. And there is little reason to be checking in this situation. A small bet like that makes sense only if you know villain is spewy aggressive and likely to raise you with air when you bet small.

River is a call without a good read on villain. The possibility of AQ means that trying to raise villain is a mistake, even a good QX might find a fold if you shove over his bet. To shove you need to be confident villain will call with worse and to fold you need to be sure villain is a nit who is never leading without a boat.

Welcome the the forum. Can you describe your logic on a $20 bet size on the turn? Also, what was logic behind flatting the raise to $62 and not reraising here? Basically you’re turn action was terrible twice.

Shoving the river is barely more than a min raise. Very few people are folding a Q here.

Gladly! I knew this was immediately going to raise some eyebrows.

This is a play I will use probably 1/25 times when I am very confident I have the nuts and am waaaay ahead of my opponent. I can do it either turn or river. Essentially, I am trying to keep the villain in the hand and continue to raise the pot. It is such a weird action to make it gets called almost every time. It is not how I would normally play it.

I REPEAT... not a normal play for me.

As far as flatting the $62. This was basically exactly what I wanted him to do. Build the pot for me easily and keep it moving. Villain will bet the river 75% of the time, if he doesn't I will.

Queen was literally the only card that would cause me problems. And even that I am insta-calling any raise up to 3/4 pot on the river.

Helps to know the suits. See the different icons at bottom of box you post in? That allows you to do this: Q95 by clicking on the icon for the appropriate suit.

By keeping track of the pot size, you help out the readers. Would also be helpful if you raked the pot.

You can now copy/paste your flop from above & add the ace:
Q95A

Again, its not a raise on the river. The guy is betting. And why would you instacall? You need to be raising.

The board was a complete rainbow by the turn.

The caller was in seat 8. I was in seat 3. Seat 6 was the original raiser.

My flop read told me he hit absolutely nothing. He either had a low pocket pair and was willing to continue to chase or A + TJK or 234.

As far as his play type. Difficult for me to describe. I could say he was tight, but he played a lot, probably 40%-50% of hands, preflop and was willing to call even large bets ($30+ at this table). I could say he was loose, but he would fold a huge amount of those hands to any pressure at all on the flop. Obviously a gambler, but not even close to a maniac.

I had never seen him make a 3bet. I had never seen him bet greater than $85. He was not drinking alcohol.

Whatever he was doing was working very effectively. He was probably averaging $75/hour.

I can tell it is a pet peeve of yours and it makes me sound a little foolish repeatedly misusing the vernacular. I'll be sure to clean this up. haha thanks.


Why instacall? This play is so odd that when I reraise it always gets a fold. Folds are not terrible. They are great. But there is more money when I wait until the river.


That being said I don't think raising is the wrong play. But I generally save it for times when I think they have more outs.


Thanks man. I did not notice these the first time around.

As far as rake, I'm ashamed to say I do not know exactly what it is. I believe it is something like 3% with a max of $3 on the flop, $5 on the turn, and $10 on the river.

Okay looked up the rake. I was off. From pokeratlas.....

Rake
10% up to $5 Jackpot drop is $2; reduced rake when at 6 or fewer players.No Flop Rake

Bet more on flop, you're getting called a ton of the time on a flop like this so make it larger with the set.

Turn is probably not a good size despite your reasoning, unless you're really confident he will try to outplay you or something and raise turn. I don't see this happening a ton of the time. Also not a fan of snap calling the raise, don't snap do stuff in general and give away free information. Think about what you're doing and what he has.

As played I am shoving river, only AQ, QQ, AA are beating you. maybe A9s, A5s but just not a big part of his range. All those holdings are weirdly played as flop checks by him if he has them except the one-off A9s, A5s.

Edit: Thought river was A. Definitely going all in on river. Replace A9, A5 with Q9 in this case, doubt he is raising that pf.

Thinking more about it clicking back the turn is appealing to me as played.

He played that hand really soft pre and on the flop.I dont think you should put him on A Q like ever.You said player was playing over 50 % of the hands.There are three main hands i would put him on . First is ace 5 , flopping middle pair ,turning second pair and raising you since you bet really small.Altho once the river pairs his hand Ace 5 makes no sense ,atleast not for value hand.Second hand he could have and that makes most sense is Q 5 since he is playing lot of hands.He flopped 2 pairs, floated you on the flop and raised you on the turn to get value from your one paired hands(probalby in case you hit your ace).The river came queen which is perfect for him and he just ripped it in.3rd option is he flopped lower set, set of 5s .In my head only hand that beats you on the river by the way hand was played iS Q 5 so just let it be.If he has it he has it but i would call there.There were probably lot of bluffing hands in his range aswel but u didnt describe the suites of cards.
SMELLS like a bluff to me to be honest,id snap him off.

Looks like villain is loose/passive preflop but more tight/aggressive post. This can be an effective strategy but if he is calling bit bets preflop OOP he has to be bleeding money off post flop.

That being the case his range for calling out of the SB preflop is probably pretty wide but likely not total garbage. I think you are putting too many air hands in his range when he calls flop. Without a flush draw to go with it he probably folds most of his draws, only JT is sure to stick around.

Turn raise is hard to judge without a good read on villain. Your small bet may have provoked a raise with worse/draws or he may have what he thinks is the best hand.

When he raises turn and then continues on river he has to be pretty aggro before you can put a lot of bluffs in his range. Still, your play doesn't scream of Qx, it looks more like a mediocre AX or other pair hoping to get to a cheap show down. So he can both be bluffing and betting a worse hand for value.

Even though the raise is small and there is some dead money in the pot, I think with these deep stacks I'm cool with just taking a flop in position and seeing what happens. There are likely some good arguments for 3betting.

SPR is 10 against stacks our size, which means we need some PSBs going in if we want to play for stacks by the river (which we do). So I PSB the flop and make it $40.

I'm assuming the Villain isn't the original raiser so it's very unlikely they have QQ or AA, so we can be pretty confident in looking to stack off now.

We are betting way too small on the turn unless we're up against a very aggro opponent who'll be induced by this. Pot is $90 and we're only betting $20? The OESD is still out there plus it's possible he's made AQ. I PSB things again and make a $90ish bet.

As played, he check/raised us, which is a very strong play. If we just flat, the pot will be $210 with $335 still back; we're going to have a hard time getting that in by flatting. So I'd reraise to like $120 and just hope he has a hand; that'll create a $330 pot and leave us a very manageable shove of $275 (we could even go more on the turn to make a river shove easier).

On the river I think it's really read dependent. I think I mostly just call here. A Qx isn't check/raising the A turn without having AQ. But I think we still have to call due to 55 and maybe a flop floating Ax.

Your biggest mistake, imo, is not sizing bets correctly postflop in order to setup an easy play for stacks by the river (which we would want to do other than seeing a A/Q on the river).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Thanks everyone. I definitely learned a ton and appreciate the nearly unanimous feedback.

The way this turned out. I folded. He turns over....

K5.

Basically, I knew if I folded I was still up and if I call and lose I am down. This was by far the biggest factor influencing my decision. I was also getting a lot of respect at the table by this point. I had pretty much controlled every hand I was in and called a couple major bluffs on the river. I could not increase the bet size on the flop because of this.

I think this is a case of me projecting my own play style on the opponent. I was trapping and I assumed he was too. Every person at the table said they thought he had AQ after the hand so I was not alone in thinking that. Even the dealer made that comment.

Before I got to this table I had gotten beat on the river twice for $150+ each time. This definitely was also running around in my head and certainly impacted my decision. I have also had a hard time going all-in on the river without the stone cold nuts, historically. I had a bad stretch a while ago and it is definitely something I have to work on to get better.

I think my tricky trap on the turn was fine. Most disagree, but the play works for me. If I had been able to withstand the gut check and make the call on the river you can see how a play like this can work.

If I had one last question to ask it would be:
How do you deal with ranging your opponents pre flop, on the flop, the turn, and then on the river? My assumption tends to shift a lot and this time I could not keep it from moving all the way to beating me.

Very few people are check/raising the Ace turn with just a Queen.

ETA: Ha, results show he can actually be doing it with worse. OP, your turn sizing got you exactly what you wanted: someone to play back at you with a weak hand. Folding is not an option on the river, and the only question is whether we can raise for value (I think it's too thin, but I'm MUBSy like that).

GheshouldrarelyhavejustQx,imoG

This is pretty much the essence of poker, there's no easy way besides studying and gaining experience.

In general: Look at what people are playing, get a basic idea of how many hands they're playing, what kind of hands they're playing, etc. What hands are they limping/calling a raise? What are they raising with? U range people by paying attention at the table.

On this hand posted:

Hopefully you should have had some clues by now that villain is kinda wild, after all he raised K5 under the gun. Most players will have a raising range 88+, AJ+ sort of range from this position.

On the flop he checks. I put him basically on air at this point until proven otherwise. JT, KJ, KT, overpair, top pair, etc would be inclined to cbet. Check is pretty weak here and u have a set so combinations wise u are locking the board up a bit. When he calls the flop bet I put him on top pair, overpair played weird or straight draw, JJ, TT kind of stuff too.

Turn u bet so tiny, and in so doing could induce raises with worse hands. When he does raise I think he has a one or two pair hand, or random crap like gutshot that thinks u dont have anything good. After all you are not representing anything that makes sense right now with such a tiny turn bet.

River when he bets so large he looks polarized - meaning a hand he views as very strong, or a bluff. You're hand is so severely underrepresented and frankly I would be shocked if he beat you. Your tiny bets invited him to bluff, and then he did, and you folded. It was a pretty terrible fold to be honest. I don't mean to rag on you but you cant invite bluffs then fold to them. Good news is you will learn from it and be aware of what your play looks like to other people.

Also don't think about how much you're up/down in a given session, your poker career is a marathon.

He bet less than 3/4 pot on the river.

You have to be joking

Everyone at your table sucks including the dealer. LPT - never listen to a damn thing a dealer says about strat talk, ever. Whatever they say, do the exact opposite.


Obvious river shove is obvious. If he has AQ give him all the money. If he has 55/Qx/who cares whatever else the idiot wants to c/r on the turn, he's giving you all the money. People stack off with AT in this spot because they're very, very stupid. "Oh geez, I put in too much money. I know I'm beat but I can't fold. Ok I call." Never underestimate the stupidity of your average poker player (and dealer).

Why is this a "tough hand"? you flopped a set on a rather dry board you should be thinking about how to get your money in on the turn. Don't make little baby bets trying to trap.

Folding the river bc there are two hands that beat you is ludicrous. There are always gonna be other hands that can possibly beat us, we can't only bet or calls bets on rivers if we have the nuts.

This hand is a complete and utter disgrace. The vast majority of 1/2 players are terrible. It doesnt surprise me that they thought he had AQ. Most dealers are even worse poker players.

People use the term SMH all the time but I am literally shaking my head reading this. This is one of the absolute easiest hands you should ever play.

I simply cannot wrap my head around you folding this river. Sorry, OP, but I think you butchered every street except preflop and maybe the flop. I highly recommend reading many more of the threads here, particularly ones where tenured posters are commenting, to improve.

your perception of you getting a lot of respect at this table seems to be in your head only.
he played you like a fiddle.
read your post you said it yourself; YOU'RE playing SCARED money and he knew it