Am I always stacking off here?
Hero is in CO with AsAc

Effective stacks $500

Tight u/k player UTG raises to 20
MP calls
Hero raises to 50
BB calls
UTG calls
MP calls

Yes, I think many of you will say that my 3bet was a little on the small side and 60-65 would have been more favourable, but I had wanted to maximise from my hand and I was ok about playing AA in position 2 or 3 way.

Pot $202

Flop 10s 10d 4c

Checked to hero who bets 110. Sometimes on a rainbow board I would check this flop against one or two villains but I didn't want to give a free card in a 4 way pot.

BB calls
UTG folds
MP folds

BB is a bad, relatively passive calling station and who cannot fold a hand or a draw.

Turn is a 7d

Pot $422

Hero......?($340)


If it was MP who check calls my flop bet who I know very well, then I would be prepared to slow down.

I'm putting villain on JJ, QQ or a 10?

If I bet turn I'm committing my stack.

Who check folds turn?

If it's C/C on the turn, then surely bet a safe card on the river?


Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

21,780 games 0.001 secs 21,780,000 games/sec

Board: Td Tc 4s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 53.297% 53.30% 00.00% 11608 0.00 { AcAs }
Hand 1: 46.703% 46.70% 00.00% 10172 0.00 { QQ-TT, ATs, KTs, QTs, JTs, T9s }

So wait did UTG call flop or did BB?

Thanks for pointing this out cg. I've ammended the OP.

BB called flop bet.

Your preflop 3bet is way too small I would bump it to 80 with aces. You have to get the most value you can in this spot. Cbet was perfect. Now turn decision I like a check here in position. My alarm sounds off when BB calls here. So obvious he got a piece. You don't want to get check raise here either. If he checks on the river I just check back to see an easy showdown. But I know he has a 10.

I definitely agree that 3 bet was too small.
But repop to 80 pre?/

I think by doing so it folds out everything except AA KK and most probably AKs / QQ

Obvious I said 80 because the whole table called. My 3bet raise is all about table dynamics. Tight table I 3x the raise, if table is loose I make it 4x the raise.

Ok, fair enough.

In this case the table had been playing really quite tight with little action. I had been very card dead and apart from the odd squeeze and a float I'd hardly played a hand in the previous 3 hours.

I must confess, I'd got myself into the position where I though finally, a hand I can actually win a pot with and I didn't want to waste it. We've all been there, but there is often a case of win a small pot or lose a big one. If the board had of been wet, or I had suspected a set with it being 4 way, then its rarely I stack off with an OP. But I did think the board was pretty good for me.

I put the UTG PFR on some kind of PP with his raise to 20. The standard raise is 30 plus any limpers and I wanted him to come along.

See you know the results. From your remarks obviously he didn't have a 10. Just remember big pairs chip up your stack. Suited connectors rake in the huge pots.

Dude, I didn't make this post to play 'lets guess the result'. I posted it to establish the best play and improve my game. I am seeking measured opinion as I don't want to be results orientated. I respect your pfr viewpoint totally.

Ok lets get back to the hand.

You win the award for most descriptive title of the day. You say BB is a bad player who cannot fold a hand. Just shove.

Against other opponents I don't think a check is terrible if they will pay you off on the river and they wouldn't have on the turn.

Gonna take a stab at this, but my thinking may be way off so please bare with me and correct me if I'm wrong as I'm really still learning. Based on your opinion of the BB and the fact that you are giving him a range down to T9s, I would think you could also add 99 and maybe 88 as well. It seems most typical LLSNL players would easily have that in their range. If so, then your equity on the flop goes from 53.3% to 67%. There are no draws that get there on the turn so if you shove the turn then you're probably looking at the same range of hands looking you up, which you seem to be ahead of.

Because live players like this are so straitforward i would bet/fold 140 on turn. Villain will call only with QQ JJ and prolly raise with Tx. There will be no bluffrange here for villain. Shoving could be considered standard but not nearly optimal vs straight shooting villains.

3 bet more pre, you are already 3betting a tight players utg open, so you are already repping super strength, you might as well win the max when you cooler him. But the reason you need to 3bet bigger is so you don't give such good pot odds to UTG and MP.

Hello Sir,

In Ed Miller's Professional No-Limit Hold'em, on page 143-144 you will find the following:
According to this rule, you should have decided whether you were stacking off before you made that c-bet.

In other threads, I have pointed out how I don't agree 100% with this rule. But I think it applies in this spot w/o a very strong read on villain.

OTT I would check. OTR I would call if bet into, or bet if checked to.

But that is just a general policy. There are certain villains against whom I would check OTT and fold OTR, or ship the turn. And at live poker the idea is to soul read.

Bet/fold flop and I probably c/f c/c soul read

Agreed, I made the mistake of committing my stack on the flop based on SPR which in hindsight was spew.

In a 4 way pot I hate checking being last to act and giving a free card for someone to fill up for free.

I think my bet of $110 into a $200 pot was just fine.

Once the BB calls though I have to be concerned. However, I had a plan and was totally set on seeing it through being blinkered by this decision cast in stone and not factoring in my read on my opponent.

On the turn, villain checked and as I 'was committed' I bet $190.

Villain, then ships all in leaving me just $150 left to make the crying call which I had to do, because my plan on the flop was to commit my entire stack.

Simultaneously as I was making the call I was thinking Beluga theorem. According the the BalugaWhale theorem, we should strongly reconsider the strength of our pair due to this turn raise, and we should be looking to fold the majority of the time in this spot.

But for my remaining $150 I could not fold and he happily rolls over K10s.

Despite having the correct SPR to commit to the hand on the flop and 53+% equity against villains range, taking into consideration the $200 in the pot I was very annoyed with myself because I did not factor in my reads and experience of playing villain before I made my turn bet.

IMO Aint No Limit gave the best advice. If I bet around $140 on the turn, I still rep a strong hand and its less likely villain would raise without the 10.

When I'm then raised despite putting in half my stack I can comfortably fold with the knowledge that in this situation I'm beat virtually 95+% of the time.

I was in position and I could have checked the turn also. However on the river, the BB can set his own bigger price for me to call to see I'm beat.

After my turn bet, my hand was virtually face up.

In conclusion, in live poker especially, we can put far too much weight on what is theoretically correct in terms SPR's and commitment thresholds in isolation without, also applying our reads and in this situation a little common sense in relation to villains play.

I wanted to point out a mistake I see all the time in live limit games, and that concerns playing big hands.

You mentioned that you didn't want to raise "too much" for fear of folding out hands to give you action. However, you have to recognize flops that suck for your AA.

Facing a 4 way pot, any paired board higher than a 9 you have just got to be prepared to fold.

T T x ..... J J x .... Q Q x .... K K x ... type boards vs 3 villains are just really really bad boards to get it in with AA.

At this point, you've justified their preflop JT, QT, KT type calls because they hit, and then you pay them off...

Another problem I see regarding playing AA in this spot is you mentioned you wanted to get action.

I say this all the time. The way we get action from our Big hands is not by playing them softer than we'd like, but rather, by playing our weaker hands harder.

Throughout a session, i will throw in a few preflop 3bet shoves to steal limpy pots. I will also 3bet shove a few players who I know are full of crap. So, the table gets used to me 3bet shoving or betting big with my 3bets. So, when I finally get AA and 3bet to $75, I don't have to worry about folding out 88-AA, AK, AQ, AJ, KQs. Those hands are calling my 3bet and not automatically putting me on a monster. In fact, i've had villains 4bet shove me with JJ because they remember an hour ago when I 3bet shoved with TT and took down a limpy pot (I will show once)

So, don't just focus on the beat, but focus on the conditions that led up to it.

Basically, what can you do differently in the next session so that when you 3bet big, villains aren't automatically putting you on AA

Thanks Dgi for your very good points. For some reason I chose to exclude 1010 from being a danger flop compared to paired jacks and above.

I'm not sure whether I'd 3 bet shove where I play because players limping with AA KK and QQ in EP is not in the loose aggressive games that I play in on a daily basis.

But quite rightly, I should be 3 betting more than I do to balance my 3 betting range.

How often do you think we should show though?

Because I'm seem as a solid player more often than not I end up taking it down pre flop or on the flop. Occasionally I have to fold. When I fold observant players I think put me on either AK AQ and I missed the flop or they put me on a smaller pair like J JJ or QQ when a K or an A flops and I am forced to give up on either the flop or turn after a cbet.

Dgi, is showing once when you win the pot enough or will you show more than once.

I've seen many a player show one bluff or 3 bet very light, only to then play like a rock. Its quite transparent what they are trying to achieve and I still play the next bit pot with them with caution.

TO be clear, i'm not a big fan of showing hands. 98% of the time, I don't show.

If I am 3betting enough, then I don't have to show. However, if i'm not getting enough of the situations in which I get to 3bet enough, I may show a hand once vs a villain who I can tilt.

I'm a big fan of tilting players and my favorite players to tilt are ego maniacs. People who take beats personally and will go after you later on a personal vendetta. So there is a little bit of "meta game" going on when I show vs these players.

Similarly, its not so much that I want to appear "loose" since loose is synonymous with 'bad'. Really, I just want players to never quite know what I have. I want them to have "just enough" doubt to call my 3bet with 66-JJ, AQ, AJ, KQ but at the same time, to not feel good about their call.

THe first couple of 3bets, they will always put you on AK, QQ-AA. But after i've 3bet 5-6 times in 1.5-2 hours (especially when I target players who I know are raising light), they start to get suspiscious or resentful. I know i've 3bet enough when people say "I knew you were going to do that" or "Geez, that guy is always raising". Once I get those comments, I back off a little bit and tighten up my 3betting range. Then, next time I 3bet, i've actually got the goods while villains are calling me down lighter.

So anyways, examine your 3betting. Particular, look for opportunities to 3bet.

For instance, if I ever see a player raise with suited connectors, weak aces, or weak kings, then I will 3bet them with AT-AK, KQs, 88-AA.

Getting a fold on the flop with AA unimproved is an excellent result. Which is why you want to bet more with it pf.

No matter how nitty you play, you'll get calls at low stakes pf if you raise. They want to bust your "aces."

I play 2/5 500NL at Crown Casino, Melbourne.

On thing that is significantly different to playing in other casinos around the world is the size of the pre flop raises and the overall loose aggressiveness the games here.

Regulars go and play in Vegas and the Commerce and can't believe how so very tight aggressive the games play there compared to here. They seem more like the online games in comparison.

In general players rarely open to $15 or $20. A standard opening raise with regulars on the table is 6 x the BB plus the limps. You do see the odd raise to 20 which you can exploit and most often its a small or medium pocket pair and a 3 bet to 70 or 75+ often takes it down preflop.

If several regs on the table are opening to 35 - 45 pre with 99+ AK AQ AJ KQs, if I 3 bet then the pot quickly becomes bloated, especially if another player calls the raise.

So even without the caller a 3 bet in position would often have be to $110 in order to gain some FE.

Once called as more often than not they will, a cbet is likely gonna have to be in the range of $150(taking into consideration board texture of course, I don't Cbet every board), and that's just against one villain. Get called and believe me they will look you up more often than not and will call with their 1010 on a J high flop putting you on AK and already you're at a point where you have put in almost half your stack.

I've played about 1600 hours live at this poker room at $2/5 in 6 months. 1200 hours of which I played tight aggressive and the regs and randoms were always paying me off. I built a 100 buy in bank roll in 6 months and worked hard to develop my game, balance and merge my ranges more by 3 betting lighter, calling a little more in LP without being a station opening more in LP with a wider range of hands 910s, 88-99, KQ and its really been a struggle and a grind.

My image to most was that of a solid player who would make the odd move and not afraid to get it in when flipping or better, happy to take the variance. There are some regs who play significantly tighter than me who are just rocks but they still get paid. I never pay them off.

In the last 9 weeks Ive played just short of 400 hours for a profit of $400.

Since I've made these game changes, I've just ran really bad and just can't seem to win consistently. Over the last 397 hours I've played 79 sessions, won 56% of sessions, the longest winning streak has been 6 games and longest losing streak 3 games, (that being dropping 3 - 4 buy ins in 3 consecutive sessions). Tilt used to be part of my game but despite my bad run I've hardly tilted and certainly not thrown $$ away out of frustration. During this time my BR has enabled me to be emotionally stronger than I've even been and if I feel a little deflated after losing 2 or 3 buy ins I walk away and come back the next day.

One of the problems is that I have also been calling more than I did before this break even spell and I feel that this has certainly been a leak.

I don't know whether its just being the wrong side of variance or just playing a whole lot worse than I used to, but overall I believe I'm making fewer mistakes than before and emotionally stronger. I eat well, exercise daily, I play generally for no more than 8 hours a day with 2 or 3 breaks in between.

So I read 2+2 daily, post hands that seems to cost me the most and talk to as many good players as I can to try and stop the hemorrhaging of chips.

I table select carefully, I will move tables if better ones come up with worse players or bigger stacks. I will always try and sit in seat 3 or 7 so I can closely observe all the players unless there is a maniac on the table and I will sit to his right or to the left of a big stack.

I know this sounds more like a post that should be put in the psychology section, but it just follows on from the 3bet more advice. It just hasn't worked for me and my confidence has been affected. I just don't think that in such loose games that generate big pots fast you can play too loose and raise too light.

The Aussie Millions is just about to get under way and there are lots of new faces in the poker room and the games are getting juicy. I hope the heater is just around the corner.

Any advice would greatly be appreciated.

If the tables are as loose as you claim, there is no need to 3bet as i've described.

Simply TAG up, play big hands and stack your opponents.

The table you described should have called a much bigger pf raise from you than the $50.

In general, i find what helps is recording all your key hands: winners and losers. Also to put some thoughts behind each session. Calling too much is definitely a leak.

Lastly, the best advice I can give you is to do a post session analysis after each game. Try to write down as much as you remember both good and bad. After enough sessions you should start to see patterns (both positive and negative).

With AA I would strongly consider checking the flop because I want to

a.slowplay and let someone pick up a pair
b. shorten the length of the hand
c. not so worried about getting drawn out. If I'm ahead, villains can have at most 6 collective outs to beat me.