Effective stacks of ~ $200; Hero just sat down.
Villain (UTG +2) appears reasonable, casino reg, old guy.
Hero (CO)

$5 Straddle is on, get 3 callers, before HERO pops to $25 with 89. Only Villain calls.

Flop comes
7102

When Villain checks to the raiser and HERO slows it down with a check and free card, straight-forward villain, how often will AVG 1/2 villain blast off on 4th Street with his overpair ?

Can I arguably maximize (without meta game considerations) by NOT c-betting/ semi bluffing the Turn ? Seems like he calls Flop with any overpair. Yet most villains would bet into me on 4th St with any pair, draw, anything--thinking I'm laying down to die since my "AK" missed.

Goal is of course to re-pop on 4th Street. Trying to hone my approach to 3-Bs light as a board newbie. Thanks in advance.

I guess it starts by saying you didn't 3bet. You raised the limpers.

I don't like raising here pf and would like 3betting this hand even less.

Reason why ? If not 3B with SCs in position, what hands are you thinking of 3B light for 1/2 ?

Because you chose to raise SCs in a straddled pot, you now have 1/8th of the effective stacks in the middle with 9 high. It doesn't seem to me like there was enough dead money in the middle to justify this.

Its possible to win in most 1/2 live games without ever even trying to "3bet light".

Sure. But after playing for 4 months with a winrate of $45/ Hr., i was stalling out for awhile and feeling the need to change my play.

Only comments about ABC poker at 1/2: or does anyone have any different suggestions ?

With a hand like this with a straddle and multiple callers I'd much rather prefer to limp in with everyone else with a hand like this.

I agree, not much need to 3-bet light in these games. And yeah, that's not a 3-bet. It's a raise.

You can 3-bet light sometimes (not often) for balance in 1-2 games. But as others have said, it's not as crucial until you start moving up where people can exploit that.

people think on the zero'th level. if you want to represent an overpair, you should bet the flop. anything that rises suspicion, such as a check, will be looked up my most opponents. checking the flop back is only good if you are very sure he is never folding the flop.

with live poker usually being the equivalent of "single-tabling online" but with an average of ~30 hands/hr, you are claiming ~$140/100 hands or 70BB/100.

whatever you're doing is clearly working. 3ballin light will just be spew


move to 2/5...

+1 Exception would be if your playing the same players over and over again and they are thinking players who open a wide range themselves. Which is not the case in most live 1-2nl or even 2-5nl.

4 months playing live isn't a huge sample size but if your playing more then 40 hours every week and your still beating the game at that rate you should definatly move up. And yeah ABC is usually the way to go.

Balancing is generally unnecassary in live low stakes except in the case i stated above.

If you're beating 1/2 for $45/hr, you should be teaching us, not we teaching you.

Smallfish- that's generally been the prob--seeing same regs who won't give me action. My win rate has slowed the past couple months ($18/ Hr) after a big first half of the year (part time: couple sessions/ wk).

I appreciate the comments. With iso only one effctive stack though- now I see this is not a good 3B (or whatever) hand.

LMAO

Bro! If I'd made $43,000 cash past 6 mos (playing 40 hrs/wk) from 1/2, i wouldn't be working 9-5, posting on here, or living in middle America.

The only reason to be 3b light is if you believe there is a good chance your opponents will fold, or take note of what you are doing so you can balance your range.

Against non foldem, non thinking players I see no reason to bloat the pot.