1/2 Saturday afternoon

H has spun his stack up from 300 to about 600. H may have a loose aggro pf image compared to the table. There were three easy marks at the table that I was trying everything in my power to get in hands with, but sadly 2 have busted and have left.

V in this hand is a youngish white guy, seems to be on the tighter side, and usually will come in with an open. Has 2nd biggest stack of about 450ish. H has about 2 hours of table time with him.

OTTH

Two limps to H in MP who opens to his normal sizing of 10 with pocket twos. One call in between and V raise to 30 in CO. I have been opening at a decent frequency so not totally surprised V has decided to 3B. One of the limpers cold call (last fish standing), and I call.

Flop (100ish)

Jh2c3d

Fish x, Hx, V bets 25, Fish folds, H just calls (mistake?) figured the board is relatively dry

Turn (150ish)
Jh2c3dQs

I x, V bets 60, H tank calls was thinking of raising here but was super passive again for some reason

River (270ish)

Jh2c3dQs8s

H x, V takes 10 seconds and jams for like 360 effective. H has clearly underrepped his set, and is ahead of AA, AK, KK, QJ, but behind JJ, 33, QQ, 109, 88 H should call and learn to fast play and not be full of FPS, or H should fold because usually semi-competent (small sample size ik) rarely pile in 200BB+ without the goods?

I think raise turn as you suggested. As played I'm discounting 33 (often not 3b pre) and 88 (often not double barreling this board) so I do think there are enough worse hands for you to call

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I think in the player pool you are in, you have to call. The shove feels more like TP trying to get you to fold than trying to get value.

Not a fan of preflop. Overlimp or fold first time. Fold to the 3bet.

Check-calling flop is reasonable. Definitely check-raise turn.

Call river. CO shouldn't have 88 or 33 here. They can definitely value bet worse a lot.

Ive been set over set so many times with 22 I just muck it 90% of the time now. Think this is a tough spot because as you say you are so underrepped but low stakes players rarely pile in dollars without a monster hand. Im raising the flop as small of a bet as he made. Just play like you are a fish and bump it to $50 or $100 and take the betting lead. Think with bottom set especially 22, you need to get money in while you are ahead. If he has JJ or QQ obviously he is not folding, but if he has 88 or 109s you are going to be disgusted.

Idk I probably fold because is he ever doing this with AQ, AJ, AA or KK? Why would he bet so large? Which leaves two combos of QJs and maybe some bluffs with AK or random pocket pairs like 99 or 1010 that you beat. Give him all the QQ, all the JJ, one combo of 88. Two combos (1/2) of 109s. You need to be good about 40% and Im not sure there are enough bluffs to make it profitable vs a tight player you have not seen blast off before. But its close. You need to find about six or 7 combos you beat and QJs is two of them. Cant fault a call and after reading what others have to say, might be enough to change my mind. You are about as underrepped as you possibly can be.

re pre, this is likely a losing open even if you were opening to a normal size in a low rake environment (both of those mean u want to be tighter) but you have to call pre vs this 3b sizing.


obviously call here u have a set. im sure thread doesn't get made if u win the hand but what can u do. i think flop call is more ok on this texture but would usually raise the turn. if you dont think hes going to barrel off on the river i dont see how u can really just c/c turn and you do beat some value here. his sizing is stupid and probably a set but you'd need a huge amount of evidence that you don't have to start folding here

this was a way more interesting hand the first time i read it when i thought the board was jt2 q 8

Sorry he caught the Q

Call.


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Call river. Folding a set here is way to big of a deviation. A couple of the hands you list are not very probable. 33 probably never getting 3bet, 88 and T9 are also often not getting 3bet often, 88 could be checking at some point. So you mainly lose to QQ and JJ. Your hand is so underrepped not raising vs small bet on flop and turn that AA, KK, QJs, maybe AQ could be jamming for value here.

Flop bet is so small you could float AQs with a BDFD, maybe even KQs with a BDFD. You could have QQ if you think villain is really tight and you decided not to 4bet pre, but you could have JJ, 33, 22, QJs (if you chose not to fold pre, but I would fold pre a lot with that hand), AQs (3 combos with bsfd), KQs (3 combos BDFD, AJs, KJs. If you're going to sometimes raise your sets on earlier streets and maybe 4bet QQ, you pretty much have to call when you do have a set on the river. QJs+ all look like calls to me.

In addition to KK, AA, AQ, QJs, there are so many possible bluffs here. KTs, ATs, AK, A5s, A4s. It's possible to make this fold, but without a lengthy history where you can know this guy doesn't bluff in this spot and never less than QQ and JJ then you just have to call here. If you can my that exploitative play, okay, but it's too ambitious to think you are going to be able to make those types of folds all the time and never get coolered.

Don't raise 22 pre, over limp, maybe even fold. Don't open anything pre to the same size you would open without limpers when there are limpers.

All of this.

Additionally, I would never raise to 10 in 1/2 if it's rakes, as you will often pay the full 10% using those round amounts. Similarly, the rake/drop are so high that you want to win pre a lot especially when you are semi-bluffing, so if you DO raise 22 here, or even a hand like AQo, you should raise to whatever size makes people fold sometimes. Taking it down is the best outcome so you obviously want that to be possible.

Never folding here. I snap call, not that V can’t have QQ or JJ but snap because on a non straight, non flushed board I’m essentially never folding a set.

Snap call. Not much to think about here

Call. Think I just raise turn most of the time though.

I know you posted 300BB deep implying this is a deep spot, but what matters here is the flop SPR of 6. Which is pretty shallow. No way you can fold a set at that SPR on this runout.

I like fast playing flop, I think we get floated or 3b by hands that are close to dead. Calling is fine occasionally.

Maybe I'm being results oriented but I did make rather quick call and was shown QQ.

I do think we are underestimating the fact that the average, competent, player is not shoveling in $350 or 175BB on a river jam with nothing but the top of his range.

Like tbh I think with the line of 3B/B/B/Overbet Jam with that run out is JJ/QQ/and maybe QJ and less likely AA. Unless V has shown he is a maniac/idiot no one is doing that unless they are very strong.

I agree. The number of 1/2 players shoveling money in with a bluff is so small. Everyone saying snap call is still lost in I have a set and SPR mode. I think after looking at it more its still a fold, but cant fault anyone for calling. If you have ever seen a particular villain blasting off for 1.5x with qll his chips on the river I think it becomes a call. But people sugggesting he is doing this with AA. Those types of villains are few and far between in 2023. Qnd usually within an hour you kind of know about how they value hands.

That is the definition of results oriented. It makes complete sense as a line with QQ, but it makes equal sense with hands like QJ, AA and AQ as well as bluffs. Played fine

the crowd saying this is an easy fold, would you fold JJ as well?

idk this forum is kind of dumb in some ways. in almost all of these river bluff catching spots hero obviously called and lost or the post doesn't get made - who is gonna post a strat post asking about c/c c/c c/c when he stacks AA or a bluff with a set. clearly not our hero who isn't interested in discussing other streets at all but just wants to reiterate no one will ever go all in without the mortal nuts, hand reading and ranges be damned. ill admit probably like 15-20% of these situations are going to end up being spots you are never going to win when you call, but if you're not capable of differentiating you just end up overly weak tight and giving back whatever ev u gain in those spots in other areas of the game tree. it's super easy to look like a genius and just tell people to fold every time (im not saying this towards u larry even though i know it could appear that way)

these river bluff catching spots as long as you're not deviating super hard in one direction or another (either calling way too light, over folding, or playing early streets in a way where you dont have the right range composition otr) are going to have such a marginal impact on your winrate because of how rarely they come up compared to things like preflop or flop spots but because theyre bigger theyre usually the only thing anyone wants to focus on. like what actual takeaway do u have from posting this hand? no one has posted or referenced a sim and what you are supposed to call with and the only conclusion you've come up with is fold everything regardless of context. yeah it would have worked out here but how is that going to actually play out if you try to get good at poker, or move up, or just play against people who actually bluff lol.

It appears that way. But whatever, its fine. You know the old forest from the trees thing? I think people look so much at the forest they donÂ’t see each tree individually.

You can say advocating for a fold is results based, but I disagree. My experience is that most of the players I play with are not jamming AA, AQ, and some even not QJ here. This is an individual hand with a description of an individual villain. If you want a one size fits all approach to making money, by all means use your solver and get good at it. It will work. But I think you will miss value in some spots, especially missing making big folds, where the solver says something is 100% a slam dunk call. This is so far from a 100% slam dunk call its not funny. Again on this hand I don’t think calling is bad. By “crowd” Im the only one who advocated a fold I saw unless someone chimed in since? And I don’t think its a slam dunk fold, but I would have made it. Read some of my previous thread hands again. I fold in spots others may not. Sometimes correct, sometimes incorrect. But I think a large part of my success and the lack of variance I have had having big winning days stems from overfolding in big spots vs certain villains. No solver will be able to find you that.

I watched a Brad Owen video last night. The one where he has five sets and also gets aces three times. I think its a prime example of correctly letting go of monster hands on the river a solver would say are 100% slam dunk calls. He even lets go of one that I would never have been able to let go at that level. Until more people start playing like Davo, LuzAggro, and MLark with optimal bluffing frequenciesÂ…Â…bet size and hand reading are going to be much more important factors than some data you print off your computer about what you should do. Again see the trees individually in the forest instead of having a one size fits all robot strategy is going to do as well or better for you at these stakes. And watching some of those live stream shows, probably at any stakes.

I get your whole move up you need solverÂ….but for the vast majority of people on hereÂ…..they are never going to play much higher than 2/5 with a straddle. You need to understand population and betting tendencies before you start doing calculus.

Cliff notes. Solvers are fine. But big folds save lots of money when the some and probably most 1/2 populations hate bluffing.

we seem to run into disagreements often re this. im not saying you always need to follow the solver, but if you have played 2 hours with someone and the only read is they're competent, you're going to better off following a balanced game plan then guessing at where they're leaking money.

op also concluded it was always the nuts, and i dont just mean this thread and i didn't want you to think i was attacking you or anything. but so many of these threads are only posted when OP called and lost (like i said theres absolutely 0 chance this gets posted if he win) where it distorts things quite a bit and can lead to the conclusion they always have it. if you start with the premise whenever someone bets alot they have it, and every thread that gets posted here has a very high chance of the villain having it (either we fold or we call and lose for the most part) it just reinforces that imo. but a huge amount of money in poker, particularly live where people get bored or tilted easily, comes from catching punts imo at least.

my issue with just deciding you have this explo strategy that you know is right is how do you get better? how do you decide today i want to work on my game for 2 hours and improve? you can't. and it inevitably caps you very quickly.

even like population tendencies, how do you know if someone bluffs too much or too little or overfolds or whatever if you don't know what the strategy actually looks like?

I have two hours today to get better? Go play poker. Watch someone teaching it on youtube for the stakes you play, not someone doing a hey look at me blog. Experience though is the best teacher in everything. Second best way would be find someone who crushes the stakes you play and become friends. Ask the guys doing civil engineering how they are getting better at their jobs. Its not by running calculus equations on concrete.

If an opponent has a polarised range and you have a bluffcatcher then you may sometimes elect to call depending on that player's tendancies to bluff and the pot odds.

But if you're getting a price and there are a *significant* number of value hands which you beat in addition to bluffs (as here), then unless there's a reason for a major deviation then folding is probably a bad error.

Good line, next hand. It’s never easy facing jams in 3b pots at 1/2, but you just cannot underestimate how bad a player pool is.

Had you called and won this thread wouldn’t exist.

Most importantly I hope you didn’t show/shake your head/flick your cards/act befuddled in any way, if so, quit.

yeah idk man this isn't really how skill is built efficiently imo at least. but it does explain your approach and as per usual we're going to need to agree to disagree

Played 1/3 today for 8 hours. Saw exacty ZERO non value bets on the river for over $65. Zero. And almost all of them got called. In my last 200 hours played the only river bluff over $200 I have seen made is in the hand against me I posted about. Again, solve til your heart is content, get better at knowing how to play in theory, but realize at 1/2 and 1/3 if someone bets large. They likely have a large nutted hand. Elephant nuts. Submersible Im guessing you are like 25 years old with little life experience. Not everything can be figured out to make optimal decisions off what a computer simulation says. I hope you dont feel like im attacking you. Trying to broaden your viewpoint beyond a computer monitor and mouse so maybe you can make more dollars in the real world.