Two hands from 1/3 NL tonight that didn't sit well with me:

Hand 1

Second orbit at the table, there's been a lot of wild action pre-flop, half the hands have gone to the flop with multiple callers in raised pots.

Hero in SB w/ QQ, BTN straddles to $6, action is on me.

I'm raising 99% of the time here, but given the fact that I've seen every raiser so far get called by multiple players (and not one 3-bet yet), I choose to limp, expecting a chance to iso 1 opponent with a 3-bet.

Folds to lojack who makes it $15, BTN calls his straddle, hero 3-bets to $60. Initial raiser flats, BTN folds.

Flop ($133): K62

Hero leads out for $60. Villain calls.

Turn ($253): 8

Hero checks, villain insta-shoves for $150. Hero?


Hand 2

Table has slowed down quite a bit. Villain is a younger asian guy who was pretty new, only hand he tabled was a check-shove nut flush draw that got there. Effective stack size $300.

He makes it $12 from UTG+2, folds around to hero who flats the BB w/ AJ

Flop ($25): A98

Hero checks, Villain bets $10, hero calls.

Turn ($45): 4

Hero checks villain bets $30, hero calls.

River ($105): 2

Hero checks, villain bets $75, hero?

I’m checking flop hand 1, were never folding out better, and were not afraid of it checking back. I’m not too concerned check folding to a large bet, happy check calling turn if flop is checked back. As played I find a fold but it’s a crappy spot.

FWIW I like preflop given table dynamics, except for sizing. I like 3x raise plus 1x for each caller then I throw an OOP 1x premium on top (the only difference here) $75.

Hand 2 ehhh all we beat is busted draws and good on him barrelling 3 streets with busted draws, I don’t see it a ton at 1/3. Happy with flop and turn, think I fold river.

Also FWIW I think I prefer 3! Or fold pre a decent % of the time it’s jist such a mediocre hand to play OOP when we miss and even When we hit.

H1:

Assuming $300 stacks, preflop is completely standard for me at most tables (and especially at this one). ETA: Regarding sizing, assuming $300 stacks, I typically attempt to offer 8:1 IO here due to the fact I won't be able to fold an overpair postflop (so I don't want to offer decent ~setmining odds), which would be a raise to about $55 so $60 is right in that ballpark (especially considering sizing up a little bit with QQ which isn't nearly as robust as AA/KK is fine).

Postflop is a little tricky given that the SPR is < 2, we're OOP and it seems like we're probably against an unknown. Board is slightly drawy and a check may induce from worse (either thinking they are betting for value with worse, semi-bluffing a draw, or just flat out bluffing); I might just check/shove here although I usually like to know more about my opponent. I don't think betting is horrible either (especially since we're not quite WA/WB), but it does leave us in awkward spots on the turn.

Awkward spot on the turn. Really opponent dependent. We limp/reraised where most opponents put us on AA/KK or perhaps AK, and yet he's not caring; or is he putting us on what we have enough? The more gambol gambol this guy is, the more we probably have to call it off. The more he's simply ABC raise/calling AK here and never getting crazy with JJ the more we have to fold.

Gtoughspot,imoG

H2:

Trivial fold for me preflop facing an EP raise HU OOP against a somewhat tricky player with a pretty crap/dominated hand.

I play flop/turn the same way.

Have you ever seen this guy 3barrel air / busted draw? 3barrels with air are rare beasts, and against the majority of opponents we can check/fold the river. Against this guy, who knows. We beat almost no Ax (heck, does AT even bet the river to this action?).

Gpreflopwasourbiggestmistake,imoG

Hand1: Fold, if he is bluffing we have lots of hands to defend. Just remember to check AA,AK,KK once in awhile on turns in similar spots.

Hand 2:

Is a fold preflop. You have no reads and range to work with. As we develop those. AJ could be an easy call or fold preflop (but ATM we have no idea).

Thanks for the responses guys. I think that's definitely one of the bigger leaks in my game in Hand 2...putting myself in tough spots OOP by playing too wide a range of hands at times, especially when I've been running card dead and all of a sudden AJo looks a lot stronger than it is preflop.

h1 : fold unless guy is super agro postflop.
h2 : I'd call river if ep showed bluffs or high agression on the river before, in vacuum probably fold.
P.S. folding AJo from bb vs 4x open from UTG+2 is beyond nitty.

H2 pre is definitely an easy muck and I'd rather 3bet than call. I'd also just muck the turn as in my experience people slow down on this sort of board if they get called. I think call turn, fold river is a bad line. Very few players will give up on this river if they have no pairs, and if you're not hoping he has a bluff, why are you calling the turn? He could have AT but he might not have raised pre and might not have bet turn so it needs to be discounted somewhat. I don't think the amount he has AT justifies calling turn and folding river.

This is a pretty standard fold. If you think he's raising a loose range, threebet. If you don't, you shouldn't want to play the hand. Calling shouldn't be used as a halfway house in spots like this.

The actual hand is illustrative of what happens when we flop top pair and the PFR is interested in playing a big pot. The hand just can't stand up to positional disadvantage against a tight range. Even if you think you can scrape a profit out of it, which after taking rake into account I doubt, it's probably not worth the time you spent playing it. Fold and get dealt another hand.

This is pretty standard call preflop, people are not that tight from UTG+1 in offline 1/2-1/3, as you think they are. Without a question calling has a better expectation rather then -100bb/100 even in environment with a high rake.
3bet AJo from BB vs early open is a bad idea, unless villain is opening ridiculously loose(>25%).

It's not that the hand has super bad equity or anything, it's that positional disadvantage is maximised on a hand like this where we have a capped range and a hand that tends to top out at top pair good kicker. You're the only one ITT so far calling, anyone else reading this who calls feel free to chime in.

This is the beauty of NLH. "It depends". Vs standard villain(standard =medium/bad player) I'm calling here and playing poker. Vs good villain mucking preflop w/o thinking. IMO too much advice in this forum is preflop technical, while the real money made in live NL is postflop.

So with good postflop skills against medium-bad players we call here preflop, even OOP. There's just too many spots where we can evaluate villains hand postflop and steal with a worse hand/bluff. Or get villain to dump $ if we flop big and he can't fold. If we're not confident in our play against a particular villain and our abilities postflop we fold preflop

I agree generally that the forum is too nitty preflop and obsesses too much about it. I would call AJ against a player I thought I could outplay. But here, I don't think there's any reason to think you can outplay V. Young asian guy doesn't suggest bad, his sizing is fine, he check-shoved with a NFD which seems standard. Playing well against AJ doesn't require anything fancy from him, just raising with a tightish range and cbetting and barrelling with reasonable frequencies. The hand has a small range disadvantage plus a positional disadvantage, imo saying "I'll play poker" to overcome this is pretty handwavy against a reasonable-seeming villain where we have no idea how he plays and a hand which doesn't have a lot of scope for creativity.

Edit: Like, I mean,

Where do you draw the line on this? You could justify calling 98o with the same arguments. If the argument is really "AJ is too high equity a hand" then that's the rub; I think realizing all your equity in this spot postflop necessarily entails paying V off a lot.

I'm really in Chris's camp regarding trivial preflop fold of AJo here for all the reasons he gives. But I'm the forum super nit, so no surprise.

Gwe'renot10xbetterthaneveryoneelse,especiallyOOPG