Hey Guys,

I'm an online super turbo donkament player who rarely plays live, and when I do, I'm a super nit TAG mostly for recreation. Obviously, I'm not very good. I have a buddy who is looking to play professionally and I have been trying to help him a bit. He sent me a hand today and we are in pretty stark disagreement about how it was played, so I was hoping to get some advice from the knowledgeable guys here.

I'll leave my thoughts out of it for now, as to not influence any posts. Just really hoping for some general consensus so my buddy and I can reach some understanding here. Whether I am wrong or he is. Thank you in advance for your insight!

Hero is UTG with K9 $317 in his stack. (Sorry dont have all the villain stack sizes, but from information given it is likely ~225$ effective with CO and a little more with BTN)


PRE: Hero Limps. UTG+1 Raises to $15. 4 callers (CO, BTN, SB,BB) Hero calls. Pot is $90

FLOP: Q87 SB bets 10. BB calls 10. Hero Raises to 40. CO Raises to 80. Button Calls 80. SB calls 80. BB calls 80. Hero calls 80. Pot is $490

Turn: 5 Sb checks, BB bets 25, Hero calls 25, CO pushes for 132, BTN Calls 132, Hero calls 132.

River: 2 Hero check, BTN check.

Sorry for not having all of the exact info regarding effective stacks but it is close enough for the majority of the hand to be analyzed IMO. Anyway thank you for taking the time to read and any insight is greatly appreciated as it will help us settle this and hopefully help either him or I (hopefully both) improve our understanding of live poker.

Being out of position, I'd fold pre. If I limped, I'd fold the second time around to the raise. If I saw the flop I wouldn't have raised, but if you're going to raise its got to be a lot bigger. If you took the lead on the flop, you might as well shove the turn but you could have zero outs, maybe 3 if the gutty you picked up on the turn is good. That's a **** ton of money to get in the pot with king high and no clean outs. Nothing sucks worse in poker than making your hand and losing the pot.

Fold pre. If you want to be nit, limp calling K9 from EP because it's suited and man's best friend shouldn't be in your range.

As played:

OTF call don't raise. And fold to the 3bet.
OTT call initial bet, must call because you are so committed at this point.
OTR must bet because you have 0% chance winning a showdown at this point with 2nd best high card.

My advice, don't play a hand like this ever again.

Full ring live this is generally a fold PF. Flat the flop, raising multiway on a board of this texture vs a PFR and 4 others who've flatted and have shown interest in the flop is pretty terrible.

As for the rest of the hand it's not as bad because you are getting odds everytime, but it would've been much better by just flatting the flop and then likely folding to a reasonable raise when it got back around.

Limp calling K9 pre flop utg is just terrible

Gents,

Thank you very much for the help. It is exactly what I was looking for. My number 1 gripe was this hand shouldn't even be considered UTG unless some very serious reads on insanely spewey players are involved. Don't limp, if you limp, don't call the raise. Flop I just like call and then fold to raise. Agree after the flop the mistakes get smaller because hes committed. But my main thing is fold pre, and don't even consider hands like this pre ever again.

I originally told him we can't be playing non nut hands weak and passively from EP because we can't draw profitably OOP. He has been losing a lot of money on draws and I suspect its because hes playing bad ones and playing them OOP too often. The message I relayed, which may not be entirely correct, but is surely a step in the right direction, is if the table isn't paying attention we can limp call small pps that we hit sets with or fold and not much else. Obviously good regs behind you who know exactly what that range looks like, we are folding those too IMO as it is doubtful they pay us off. Is that a step in the right direction for him?

Again thank you guys very much. Your responses were very helpful!

Yes, that is the step in the right direction, but make sure you tell your friend he has a loooooooooooooonnnnnnnnng way to go before he can even consider playing professionally. I know it's one hand, but he does so many things wrong in this one hand it's clear he has a lot to learn about the game before he can stop being a losing player, let alone be a big enough winner to do it professionally.

^^ ****ing hilarious, on so many levels. I mean, where do you even start?

People may get tired of hearing "fold pre" but most cluster-**** hands start with a gambly call oop pre. ******ation follows from there.

And the heck of it is, you don't need some elaborate table if starting hands. You just have to quit playing out if position. It's like grace. People just can't believe a concept can be that deep and yet so simple.

My eyes are bleeding. Tell your friend to get a job, and that he plays pretty bad...like LOL bad.

Look, for one thing, IF your friend is going to play like this (and I don't really recommend it, like people in here have said he has way too many leaks to be playing professionally), he really needs to recognize that OTF, after the final raise to 80, there is now $450 in the pot when it returns to him AND he has $260 left. He really has no FE at this point, BUT the pot is now paying him incredibly well for the 2nd nut flush. Assuming at least one call gives him well over the 2-1 necessary for his draw. He MUST shove here, there is no other play.

Thank you guys. Every single response has been appreciated, they have all been noted, and they will all be discussed with my bud. Best of luck in all of your games and at this point, don't be too surprised if you hear from me again

Button had a flush draw too didnt he? Maybe even a FD and a pair, or straight combo draw, something like that?

Agree with everything that was said. Also would like to add that there is obviously another flush draw in the hand so: 1) might be outflushed and 2) your odds go way down as your outs are reduced

I actually wonder if his friend is going to become very angry after hearing that. Some people will act like that's a huge insult and will blow up on you, even if you're just trying to help them by telling the truth.

Calling with K9s out of position is something that I see players do all the time, and calling after a $15 raise and 4 callers is going to seem standard to a lot of people because "pot odds" and "You're getting a million to one so you've gotta call with a good hand like K9s." Those are terrible reasons to call here, but people buy into them pretty easily. The funny thing is that this hand shows why you shouldn't play K9s OOP. You get into a lot of trouble in spots like that.

The biggest error is pre flop limp UTG that is terrible especially if he is thinking of going pro. The. The call of the preflop raise is bad, the flop raise is bad, just take the good pot odds to draw and call. After this point there is no way to get away from the hand given the siZe of the pot and the # of outs. But really the hand was played poorly from the beginning and ended getting you in a awkward spot. Also hero doesn't even have he nut flush draw so he could of been drawing dead.

Sorry what's your problem? Description clearly says he wants to be nit. I don't know any nits who play this hand, UTG especially.

Why don't you expand on what was so hilarious, I left my sense of humor at home today.

Fold pre, on the flop you aren't even drawing to the nuts there is a good chance someone might have the nut draw. Def folding the turn here though. If you were HU you could call flop/turn but not multiway.

Yup, Btn had J6dd. Thanks for the input.

Good post, thanks. And nah hes fine with it, he's a level headed guy and asking my advice because he wants to learn. I know most would find it hard to believe, but hes not this bad. He does a lot of things really well and is actually a winner at 1/2 over a decent sample. I play sngs for a living but played a lot of live 1/2 before that and was a winner over a year long sample as well. I'm by no means good, but I have a decent idea of how to play this game from an ABC TAG perspective. He built some bad habits talking to some lol live buddies of his, and obviously having K9s in your utg range is an effing horrible one (his whole thought process from EP and drawing oop obv needs to be addressed). He has been losing a lot of money drawing OOP, playing like a loose passive fish, but he's actually quite good from about the HJ on. I agree this is monstrous leak and I'm really glad you guys helped me show him that. He does have a long way to go, no question, but this hand isn't indicative of his overall game, it actually gets better from here, not worse like most fish who would play this hand this way.

I think you may be a bit confused. It looks to me like he quoted you, but was talking about the hand. Also the description does not say the hero wants to play like a nit. It says I the OP, friend of hero, plays like a nit (more just ABC TAG...I consider that nitty tho). Hero obviously is no nit, lol.

+1

Super NIT Tags aren't doing crap like this. Re-asses your level of play.

Ah fair. Misread that fact about OP and I took the position of a NIT.

Will do sir, as soon as you re-asses your ability to read past the first line then skip to the HH

No worries. Seems like an easy mistake. Thanks for the input!