I made a post about C game in the forum and one poster raised a good point that I might not be analyzing my "A" game correctly. So i decided t post 2 hands. One I think I played close to perfectly and one I think I could've played a ton better I'll post spoilers later. These hands are not in chronological order


Hand 1

Villain is new to the table and hero is readless. Villain is UTG+1 Hero is in cutoff.

Preflop (3) UTG raises to 10. Villain raises to 30. HJ calls. Hero raises to 60 with 2 red Qs. UTG folds Villain calls HJ folds

Flop (140)
4TA

Villain bets 100. Hero?

Hand 2. Hero is BB w/ Q7 Villain is UTG+3 and is somewhat agresive with his equity. Always bets his draws when checked to. Never folds them.

PF (3) callers including villain. SB completes Hero calls.

Flop ($10) Q 5 7

Hero bets Villain calls others fold

Turn ($30) A

Hero bets 25 Villain Calls

River (80) 3

Hero checks?

Hand 1: Fold, congratulate villain on his brilliant bluff if he has 1.

Hand 2: wp up until the river. Check is fine if you're doing it for the right reason: to fold because you feel you're beat, or call because you think you induce thinner value/bluffs. Since this villain is probably raising all sets earlier in the hand, most aces-up OTT, and the only draw that completed is 46, I think a c/call is a good river line.

Hand 1 is a pretty standard sigh fold

Hand 2 I have had good results b/folding these type of hands; somewhere around $40 I think the only 2 pair you own yourself on is Ax, which isnt likely given AQ usually rasies preflop. If villain is aggro with his equity I would think he raises FD some amount of the time on the flop. So open ender got their but I still think you get calls from worse.

Hand 1 : Is the preflop 4bet too small? I'm not questioning you, again, im asking this for my own sake. I would have made it probably 75 and I'm asking what others think. Also, what are stacks on hand 1...i

Hand 2: Seems all standard except the river check. He is value towning himself with a lot worse and he has heart draws as well so he either folds or calls with worse, and if he raises at least we know where we are out. Wont he check his QK type hands etc? I can certainly see a player here limping QK UTG+3 .... What about ace rag type hands..hes checking as well? So arent we losing value by checking this river? If he raises he is repping what? Sets? We already established we think he would raise sets early....so only thing I think he raises here is 46 and thats the exact hand I would put him on if I bet and he raises. If he sets up then WP sir...idk. opinions?

The hand 2 check was to enduce bluffs.

Ok that makes sense, so you turned your hand into a bluff catcher is this correct? We will never raise his river bet though?

Hand 1 is missing so much info. No stacks sizes, no reads on other people in the pot which matter a ton.

Which is another way of saying the OP has a leak.

Beyond that, the OP should never be readless at a table, even if the villain just sits down. You should be noting whether the villain is male/female, age, how dressed, what their BI was, whether other people seem to recognize the villain, etc.

It isn't that I'm going to make a super thin value shove against the villain based on appearance, but even a partial read is better than none.

Sorry about that guys... I normally don't forget to post stack sizes


In the game I didn't not specific stack sizes in these hands b/c both villains and hero were significantly deep. Both hands effective stack sizes are roughly 150 BB deep.


Hand 1 villain is fairly young and doesn't appear to be very experienced w/ the game.

I would be curious to hear people's opinion (as well as yours) on the size of your 4! In the first hand. What was your thought process there? Why opt for the minraise? The reason I ask is that I think it would be a difficult spot for me, particularly since you have a player who already called the 3b and you still have to be concerned with the original raisers left to act behind you. I would be afraid of a bloated multiway pot.

Do we ever shove here? Do we want to raise more and put 33+% of our stack in preflop with all the interest shown by multiple players? Just calling doesn't seem like a good option, either.

I just see it as a bit fortunate that you got it headsup. I would have expected at least the HJ to come along.

Yeah, I think the thought process behind the decision to raise and the sizing is key to hand 1 and we still know nothing about the other villains in the hand which means we can't make a judgment.

This is precisely what I'm questioning. My original plan was to have the HJ come along. I really think I should've raised bigger, however as the immediate value definitely trumped the value of having HJ play along. If I could do it over I would've raised to 95

Why are you cold-4betting a 3 bet from an unknown villain who just sat down and decided to 3bet an UTG open - with QQ??

You're giving up wayyy too much value with this hand against his 3bet range by raising out hands you crush or are a decent favorite to. If you're going to cold 4bet might as well do it with a hand like 87s so as not to waste a great hand like QQ against an unknown.

What do you expect him to call you with preflop?

As played, He either has AK, AA, KK betting stupidly, TT or a bluff. How good are your live tells reading? Usually in 3bet pots, opponents will check this board regardless of what they have since it keeps their range open and it's a super dry board. AK, AA can squeeze out another bet from JJ-KK so this relatively large c-bet is suspicious to me. Of course, if he's doing this with KK, are you sick enough to bluff-shove him?

Great advice in the thread Thank you. Spoilers:


Hand 1



Hand 2

+1, with no reads you should never be cold 4b here. pretty terrible play imo.

So flatting is best and playing 4 way? Please elaborate on the pros of this

Grunch;

Pretty standard imo
1 pre its a weird spot to be in pre but I think I like the minraise just because he will probably come over the top again with AA KK which means you're stacking off almost always on any Q or lower board, sucks when you have to 4b fold though lol. post flop is easy insta muck.
2 is even more standard if everything misses and yous ay he likes to bet his draws then this is a super easy check to induce and snap call.

So we're setmining queens on the first hand then?

Where do you see that?

Just because we don't really fancy continuing against only the strongest part of his range pre doesn't mean we are set mining. It is a pretty difficult spot but I'd be flatting too play against a weaker range post or shoving.