10am Mohegan Sun $1/2 NL (8 handed)

Prehand Descriptions:

Button: Hero ($550): Playing since the night before. Been at this table for about 12 hours. Opening range is super tight (table may have noticed, but doubtful), but sees a lot of flops in position with suited cards, painted cards, etc. Probably a little more passive than a true TAG but TAG-esque.

CO: Villain ($400): Won a huge hand with a small flush 3ways. Has since literally blinded/called pre/flop and folded down from 600/700. Probably pretty poor.

Preflop: Hero limps with 97

6 way flop action

Flop ($12) 972
Someone bets $10, 2 people call plus villain, Hero flats behind FIX

Turn ($62) 5

Checks to Hero who bets $50, villain calls easily.

River ($162) 3

Villain checks.

Hero? There really aren't any hands I'm afraid of here, but I feel like he is never calling a 3rd bet here with worse. Getting raised here would be pretty ****ing gross.

I have read your two other posts and fon't see how you consider it TAG to limp crap hands.

Raise the flop. You have top 2 and the action looks like everyone has junk/draws.

I think it's a small bet on the river, like $50 and fold to raise.

You need to get more aggressive up-front when you flop awesome hands.

Why is the title "Hero flops top 2 from Button on wet board 6ways and hates every subsequent card" if you let those subsequent cards fall by not raising the flop? You're seeing monsters under the bed if you are trying to pot-control this hand OTF, and you are playing scared money if you're worried about inflating the pot on a drawy board. Anyways, once you get to the river, B/fold $90 IMO. I don't see any indication made that we are beat yet (although a raise likely confirms it), and I think you're wrong to assume there is no value in betting. LLs villains are notorious for making bad calls and never being able to fold a made hand, and they are also incapable of turning made hands into bluffs, especially when there is any chance "you have a flush draw?". I think the times he raises the river as a bluff is so vastly outweighed by the times he raises river w/ the nuts and calls our river bet w/ worse that checking back is downright bad. Being scared of getting raised and put to a tough decision is a poor reasoning for checking back IMO.

If you want reasoning why it's hard for villain to have us beat: It's hard for villain to have a set because of our blockers/for the same reason you should've raised the flop with Top 2, he should raise with all sets unless he's ridiculously bad/scared money. If he turned a straight, he's usually leading or c/raising it unless he's an idiot. He probably isn't calling the flop with 55 and definitely should never make it to the river with 33. The range of hands that beat you OTR are basically backdoor clubs, A4, 46, sometimes 68 that felt it had such a lock on the hand that it "had" to slowplay, and very poorly played sets (I say poorly played rather than scared money because it can't be scared money if he raises the river with a set because the board has gotten scarier, thus contradicting that theory). His line is fairly credible with those hands if he raises the river so we can just bet/fold and not be worried about getting raised until the situation comes up. We also have some protection from getting bluffed (assuming he can hand read at all) because we can easily show up with the straight given the way we played this hand.

Grunch:
Raise flop. Do you hate money? Top 2 is basically the current nuts. Your hand is still vulnerable and you need to get $$ in the pot for value. Most 1/2 tables are NEVER folding flops when they put money in.

Raise to 35 and bet bigger on the turn. I dont know why the turn is such a bad card unless CO has exactly 86. I would think an A would be worse as A2/A9/A7 just counterfeited you.

As played I bet 95 otr. If nitty idiot station raises me he only either has the nuts, or, the nuts and I can safely fold my 2 pr.

I expect to see A9 here a lot.

I don't iunderstand the title. The 5 is a little scary and the 3 isnt really scary at all unless he has exactly A4ss

Grunch:

I must ask you, why are you flatting this flop? You had a trash hand preflop and you just hit basically a dream flop. There is 4 villains with interest in the hand and a FD out there. Raise to $50.

The turn and river are not bad cards. a "bad card would be an ace or a spade. Those turn and rivers are fine cards, not sure what more you can ask for. 2 pair is a vulnerable hand, and this should be considered a decent turn and river. This explains more of why you should raise the flop.

OTR this is a clear $80 b/fold. The only flush that got there is a backdoor.

OP you have a leak of slowplaying your big hands, and see where it got you? (KK hand in another post too)

Moral of the story is go ahead and fast play your big hands. At 1/2 people pay less attention and have a leak of calling too often. Use this to your advantage.

I'm jealous that you are able to limp wiht crap hands and flop gin. Wish I had that problem. The title of this thread and the way you slowplay your good made hands are making you look like an "average 1/2 player". Not tag-esque

These made me lol.

Looks like you gave villain a cheap look at the turn with a flush draw. Given your read I have no problem with betting smallish on the river. See if you can get a curiosity call. The benefit of folding out a worse hand is not having to show yours!

grunch

i'd probably just check behind. like you said, i don't think you are getting value from much ... maybe a scared overpair like JJ or TT ... and if you get raised, you fold. you are missing value if you think he's a calling station, though.

ugh. check and be happy to take the pot.

River value bet situations have been a major leak in my game for years, dating back to my days at limit.

def raise flop, tons of value out there. river is definitely a spot to value bet too.

Tons of value but hate life forever if we get 3bet. We are deep and IP flatting isn't that bad. Close ish obv, but I can't fault either

Hating when we get 3b is not a good reason to call this flop (instead of raising), a 3b is either 22, the rare 77/99 combos or an overpair/bluff, and it isn't difficult to play against this range once we asses villain and if he is capable of b/3b random pairs and FDs here (probably not). We allow tons of hands to draw for cheap that will call a raise if we just call.

i'm usually a huge advocate of not being afraid to raise (or 3bet) for fear of getting 3bet (or 4bet). I just think calling here isn't horrible.

vs. the range you give (22/overpair/bluff) you just happily shipping 200bbs in a limped pot here?

We do allow hands to draw for cheap here by calling, how often do rando villains bet out draws?

Dude, raise flop to like $40 and bet turn. I don't know what you consider aggressive but most decent players would eat you alive. What more do you want with 97o? You made your hand, now get money in.

I never wrote anything about shipping 200bbs with top two vs. a bet/3b here. I would probably raise/fold this flop as the only hands that realistically b/3b are hands that beat us or something like T8ss/86ss which is essentially flipping with our hand. I think a flop raise is called more often by random pairs and pair + weak draws than it is b/3b by sets, etc.

Is raising the flop really 100% slam bang?

A bet and two callers is a decent amount of action on this board. If we raise to $60 (my preferred raise size, offering 2:1 to the first villain) that's going to probably create a HU pot of $160. If we then do a 1/2 PSB on the turn, that creates a $320 pot with villain only having $260 left, kinda sucky spot (I guess we can pot control the river by checking behind, if we're allowed to). If any other villains happen to come along for the flop raise, this pot is quicky going to get outta control.

I mean, I know we probably have the best hand here on the flop. But with all the draws out there against us, our equity will change hugely on the turn, and we can make people make a much bigger mistake by betting a blank turn.

Plus it's a limped pot and I don't feel like going broke.

I probably do raise this flop but I'm just wondering it it's slam dunk and not close.

As played, on the river I think this is an easy bet/fold of 1/2 PSB or so; lots of worse hands will put us on a busted draw, or just pay off cuz that's what payoff stations do.

GcluelessNLnoobG

A $35 - $40 raise seems like a waste of time to me. There's already $40 in the pot, even a $40 raise is offering fairly decent odds of 2.5:1 to the first of 3 possible train hoppers.

That is good thing when we have the nuts. Stop being such a GvarianceshynitG :-)

Seriously though, you are just giving up value to avoid sometimes having to fold in big pots because of some SPR commitment thing you have artificially created.

Lol, I think my long term goal is to actually have a 98% session win rate while rocking a $0.50/hr overall winrate.

GplayingforthebadbeatjackpotG

Ok finally this topic has been addressed (what we are doing on the flop after a raise/should we raise).

I think you are right that raising doesn't commit us and we really do have the nuts here ****ing always.

We are 200bbs deep, raising and getting 3bet, or getting called, leads us to a turn of tricky turn cards. the hand is wildly undefined and while we are likely to be a huge favorite picking a call over a raise is likely not atrocious.

That said, I raise.

I think raising this flop actually defines villains hands more than calling does. What happens if you call flop and the flop bettor fires again on the turn and there are 1-2 calls to you? Also, we don't have to always have made hands to raise this flop.

I do think calling here with 3 other players still in the pot with a very strong hand on a very vulnerable board is atrocious.

I definitely play way more aggressive/LAG than average (maybe sometimes it would be above optimal but I have confidence in my post-flop play), but I don't see a single reason why this isn't a fist-pump raise OTF. How many times a session do you hear the "you has teh flushy draw?? you has teh bluff? okay I call". This is the reason why... Also, just from a theoretical standpoint: What is the difference between calling down if the board gets ugly and raising and being committed if the board gets ugly? We get it in either way, but with the former, we allow worse hands to pay us off before the board gets ugly, we get money in as a favourite against their range, etc etc. There's no value in pot-controlling a hand that we're willing to stack off with on a subsequent street, or get most of our stack in on subsequent streets just hoping he checks and we save our half pot bet OTR or w/e. We're not slowplaying on this board. RAISE!!!!!!!

I'm probably not calling down if the board gets ugly; we have position, if a scare card comes and there's enough action in front of us (even so much as a bet and a call of a big bet) then that's probably enough for me to fold. Ditto for us raising and a scare card coming, we can probably still get away from our hand.

What I'm saying is that if all 4 of us see the turn (which a mediocre raise that some are suggesting will probably guarantee), we're probably going to the turn as a slight favourite against all the combined draws (assuming we're ahead). But is it more profitable to jump on this slight favourite now vs jumping on it on a safe turn? Sorta akin to in limit how SSHE sometimes recommends passing on our slim flop equity advantage to wait until a safe turn (where our equity will change drastically), course maybe that doesn't apply to NL.

GjustwonderingG

If you don't raise the flop and the turn is the 3, will villains be as likely to chase draws when there is only one more card to come and the pot isn't too big? You miss tons of value by not betting the flop, and building the pot. If the turn is a bad card, there is nothing forcing you to fire again.

Absolutely (we already had this +EV debate with the J8s facing blind shove thread), but I still don't understand the rest of your post.. Why would a raise get all the players to call anyways? What is the value in flatting, are you just trying to see a safe turn card before you make your move? What are the safe turns you expect to see? I can't think of any that don't boat us up, really. And even if they are "safe", they may not be "safe" to a villain holding 1010 when the turns J. Flatting is the mistake I see LLs players make in this spot and then they chuck their hands in the muck when they get rivered and curse the dealer saying "Why am I so unlucky?" I really can't see myself accepting the counter-position here without a strong indication that we are beat, in which case we should fold, not flat.