Blue Chip 1/2NL. Effective stacks are $115. Villain is 65ish but not playing like an older nit. He's not tricky but he thinks beyond his own two cards. My image is tight. I haven't played a lot of hands, haven't got out of line, and I'm even. We've both been at the table a couple of hours. Table is really passive.

I open the pot UTG+1 with AA for $7. One call and villain calls late. Everyone else folds. 3 to the flop for ~23.

My open might seem weak to some but the table is super passive and opening for more generally isn't necessary to get it 2-3 to the flop. Also, I've been reading Phil's Little Green Book and am following his line of thinking of opening UTG for less than you would MP or LP, basically playing small ball poker out of position.

Flop is a safe 10, 7, 3 rainbow. I bet out $10, one fold, and villain raises to $25. I bet out small here because I want a call. Well, I got more than that.

Villain's range is any over pair, A10, or 10s, AK is an outlier. I'm sure he had read my $10 bet as weak and wants to take it down. I consider calling but I'm really sure I have the best hand as a set of 10s seem unlikely because I think he'd wait for the turn or river to pop me, super standard for this 1/2 game.

I raise to $50. Villain tanks and finally calls. Pot is ~$120. He has $58 behind. So much for small ball poker.

Turn is a 10.

Question 1: What's my plan? If I check, villain may check behind the turn but he's smart enough to know I'm scared of the 10s if I check the river. Perfect spot for him to shove. If I bet out and he's ahead of me the rest of his stack is going in and I'll have to call. Is this just a WA/WB situation?

Question 2: Given his stack size is my flop 3-bet size incorrect? A call would have controlled pot size better making my turn decision easier and would have followed my plan of small ball poker. A larger bet would have gotten it all in or induced a fold. Also, is my flop open too small? $10 seems weak now in retrospect but the flop was so safe.

Thanks.

shove flop given with that stack sizes

If your going to bet/3 bet the flop then do it for stacks don't minraise back. When he raises u otf the pot is $60 with $15 to call. Now u decide to raise $25 more when villain calls the pot is $123 and u have $57 left at this point you are committed so u should just raise all in. Playing with a shorter stack should be easier yet u are making it much more complicated then it should be.

Shove Flop

7 is wayyyy too small to open for. If people are that nitty that they wont call a 12-15 dollar raise preflop you need to hightail it off that table and get to a game where they will. You are loosing so much value by sitting in this game. Table selection, table selection, table selection.
Your 10$ bet looks super weak here. And not following a proper cbet of 1/2-2/3pot because youre afraid of having villian fold is a bad mentality to continue playing with and will cost you plenty of money in the long run when you give your opponents the proper price to draw out on you.


If there is something that I hate more than anything is a minraise. Just get it in because villian is now comitted to the pot and his money should be going in regardless of what comes on the turn.

Allin. You wouldnt be sitting here wondering omg does he have the 10 if you had just gotten it in on the flop.
See above.

Okay, this makes the most sense to me. I realized after the hand that I didn't take into account his stack size until after he called the flop bet. It was only then that I saw he only had $50 left. I should have known going to the flop what he had behind. And better to just shove on the 3-bet. I knew I most likely had the best hand so getting it all in makes sense. Thanks.

I disagree. My open UTG is 3.5 the big blind, super standard. And of course, if the table merits a larger raise to narrow the field then the bet should be larger. $15 open where I play is way too big. It's the nature of the room. If I were back at Foxwoods my open would be larger. I sized my open to get a couple callers given my image and the table. $10 would have been fine too.

Yeah, you are spot on here. In hindsight shoving is best.

Not taking into account my opponents stack was bad. I didn't see how short stacked he was until he called my 3-bet. I made it hard on myself.

Thanks.

Well, as others have said, that $58 should have gone in on the flop. Now that we're here, there's no way we're folding for $58. I might check to look weak and let him rep the 10. We're calling whether we think he has it or not, so we might as well widen his range with a check.

If he checks behind, we can be pretty sure he also fears the 10. We can c/c river, as he never calls with worse, but might bet.

any raise on the flop commits you, shove.

How the **** has nobody commented on OPs biggest leak yet?

BIN THE BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, apart from the fact that it is Phil Gordon, you seem to be way over thinking things. Get, DN, TV, poker small ball and all that **** out of your head. You are way over thinking and over complicating everything and making they game complicated. At this level it is very simple.

Let's just take one point. When you have aces pre, you have the nuts. Let all the spastic poker authors play small ball with the nuts while you shovel as much money as humanly possible into the pot when you have them. Profit. Write your own book.

Shove flop.

If you wanted to keep with the small ball approach, you can call on the flop. I would call if I wanted to be tricky; my plan would be to check/shove turn on a non-ten.

Probably more importantly, what is this book? I haven't heard of it but my guess is that it wasn't written with a target audience of low stakes live players (at least for 2010)?

Interesting. I find Gordon's book way easier to digest than most of the 2P2 books that are recommended on this site. It's REALLY basic and an easy read. Simple points, basic strategy. If you don't like Gordon's book that is perfectly fine, but it's simply a means to try and get better, just like posting here. That being said, you are correct in that I'm over thinking things. I can think of worse problems, like not thinking beyond your own two cards.

Thanks. Shove flop appears to be unanimous but it's good to have an alternative line.

Phil Gordon's Little Green Book has been around a while. It's a lot more accessible than most of Miller's stuff and my guess would be that live low to mid is the exact target audience. I'm not dissing any of 2P2's books, they just seem way beyond what I need at the moment. Gordon's focus is basic strategy and hand reading.

As Mr BuenSuerte suggested above, I'm over thinking things. I have AA, I could just shove the flop on the 3-bet in this game and it would be correct. I only mentioned Gordon's book because I was explaining my opening bet size which I thought some might object to given a lot of posts I see. Maybe the book isn't appropriate for this level of play, but if it isn't then I can't imagine any book that would be beyond "Poker for Dummies".

I've never read this book tbh, I'd just be amazed if anything by PG is good. I also assumed it was a tournament book so sorry if I'm wrong.

A better way to express my point is this. In these games we are (almost) never bluffing when we open the pot from EP pre. That means we have all value hands. Hands with which we want callers because they'll likely be weaker hands. At a simplistic level, with all these hands we want to get as much money in the pot as possible. IME (and that of most forum users) people will call larger bets than 3.5x, therefore you should be making these larger bets.

Thanks, I understand your point. With good starting hands I need to get as much into the pot as possible even from EP. I can't argue with it, and I need to work on doing it better.

I actually don't mind Gordon's thinking preflop regarding raise sizing (i.e. raising less in early position and more in late position due to the fact that position is so valuable). One thing to keep in mind though, and Gordon does mention this after his explanation of his different raise sizes per position, is that some live tables really differ as to the amount people are willing to call preflop / get it down to a manageable size of callers. My guess (although it's your table, so I could be wrong) is that you probably woulda still got two callers with a larger raise, and with stack sizes being this small, I believe callers are making quite a significant mistake by calling off such a large percentage of their short stacks preflop (whereas not so much of a mistake calling a small raise).

Also, people like to see flops live. You're sitting at a table and seeing maybe 25 hands/hr if you're lucky. People get bored and want to see flops, that's why the average PF raise for a 1/2 live game is 5bb+. You don't need to level your opponents and do tricky plays with various bet sizing etc., it's really just about playing straightforward value-town poker and you can go from there.