Game 2-3
Stack: $255
Villain (No special reads, but not playing reckless)

Hero UTG has not been playing many hands and has a reputation of being tight, with As10S raises to $15
Two callers total $45 after the rake. Both callers cover Hero.
Flop Js 8h 4s
Hero bets $30. Villain raises to $90. The other caller folds.
Hero?

Fold. With your limited read, it seems like our only outs are the flush and we are 18% to hit on the next card. We can call $60 to see a pot of $165, but I don't know if the flush card comes how much more we can expect to make. I'd range V at 2pair+ most of the time with a small amount of draws.

Shoving doesn't make sense because V will likely call and we don't have great equity.

Lol why cant villian have Ks8s??? I flat and evaluate.

With the only read being that V didn't seem reckless, Ks8s doesn't seem like a hand would call a PFR from a tight player.

By "flat and evaluate", you mean spew $60 and have no idea where you stand unless another spade comes, and ultimately c/f to any aggression on the turn.

If we think V would raise flop with top pair but not necessarily stack off with it, then we can shove.

with you holding the T, he can't have 9T, eliminating the obvious monster draw.

giving him credit for 2 pair +, you have to muck this.

he is shoving all turns, and we are only 21% to turn the flush.

This

^ That's what I was thinking too but we're too short. Hero can make it $240 total otf, I think it'd be a much better move if we had more like $300. V can be r/f'ing and put us on overpairs and the times he does call we have the flush outs and possibly an Ace as an out. I just don't think $240 is enough.

I'd probably just flat here. We can't assume V will bet ott, so we're 26% on our money and about 35% to hit the flush. He might be trying to buy a free river, he might also just realize he's built a $230 pot with 1 pair ott and get scared to continue and we get a free river there also.

just shove. villains range needs to be incredibly strong for us to be in bad shape here.

flatting here would be incredibly bad.

We have $215 left.

Pot is $165 and 60 for us to call, if we shove and always get called, It would be $210 into $315 = 1.465 to 1 = 40.65% needed to break-even. Only versus sets (and 2 pair however unlikely), are we in really rough shape. Even vs AJ, we have 39% equity which only makes this a marginal -ev shove.

The fact that the 8 is the non spade card helps a lot for our hand because if he has something like 8s7s, he is going to go with it and we're a slight dog to it (48.6%) whereas if the J was a nonspade, we'd have 41.4%.

Board: Jd 8s 4s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 59.184% 59.18% 00.00% 22851 0.00 { 88, 44, AJs, KJs, QJs, 9s8s, 8s7s, 8s6s, AJo, KJo, QJo }
Hand 1: 40.816% 40.82% 00.00% 15759 0.00 { AsTs }


Given this, and considering if I had JJ+ here, I would shove, I would just shove here. If he has a set, then gg him and reload.

I lean more to limping in here and hoping to play a multiway limped pot with a high SPR with a nice multiway hand. The problem with opening is that a lot of time we don't narrow the field, we'll be OOP, we'll often fold out dominated hands and get called by dominating hands, plus we can set up some gross SPR spots.

For instance, here we narrowed the field to 3way, which ain't horrific, because sometimes we can even cbet ok boards and take it down. But we've also created a smallish SPR of ~5 OOP, which means we're going to have a very difficult time playing for anything but stacks with TP. And do we really want to play for stacks with TP?

I probably bet a lot smaller on the flop. We're just hoping that no one has nothing, and if that's the case, they'll fold to a smallish bet (even something like $20). It's unlikely a slightly larger bet size is going to fold someone who has something they think is worth calling with. Also, if someone raises our small bet, we'll typically be getting good odds to call thanks to their poor bet sizing. For instance, here it looks like villain did a typical 3x raise size; if he did that versus $20 (to $60), we'd have a much easier call.

As played, we're getting about 5.25:1 to call if we think he'll stack off every time we hit. We also have an overcard (which might not be good and have high RIO) and a backdoor straight draw. If villain has a set (which he could most likely have raising tighty us), he'll have a redraw even if we hit the turn (although our implied odds are good). I think overall this is probably a fold.

ETA: I think one of my biggest weaknesses is projecting my style of play on opponents. I must be doing that again here, because I am definitely in the minority if we think a non-reckless opponent is raising a tight EP opener big with a hand as weak as TP.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Don't raise pre without better reads (such as table is tight and fit or fold). You are too often dominated and people will just flat call your raise with AK, AQ, AJ, JJ, TT, so even when you flop a pair, you don't know where you are at and pot is bloated.

Fold as played. You are flipping against 8xss. You have 12 outs against QQ, KJ type hands. The real concern is He will have AJ, J8s and any set a decent % of the time and crush you. You have little to no fold equity based on stacks

I really appreciate the feedback.
I don't know why, but I had put Villain on TP, which is exactly what he had. He did not even have a good kicker...10, though he did have a backdoor str draw. I did shove the raise, and did get stacked.
The turn was k d. Do you think there is any way for me to bluff the king in that spot, or I just give up if I flat and don't improve? I think many times I think there has to be a way to win the pot by my action and this may be a huge leak in my game. It also has me questioning my play on a regular basis.
I also feel that if I enter a pot, I must raise...this is indeed causing me to loose $$

First off, the villain seems a little more reckless that you give him credit for. He's raised to play for stacks on the flop when basically nothing worse calls and nothing better folds (although, lol, in this case one of the few worse hands did call, although even our hand is flipping with him). Although, he did flop TP in a small SPR pot, so maybe he simply feels committed here.

As a beginner, it would probably be a good idea to completely remove bluffs (apart from flop cbets in HU pots) from your play. In this case hindsight is 20/20, so ya, I guess if we flatted the flop and a overcard comes and he only has a pair and we shove, then, well, I suppose it would work some of the time. Stars really have to align at this level for bluffs to work. I mean, in the end, look at what happened here. Tighty us raised in EP, and this guy flops TPmehK, and yet he's willing to get stacks in. Just wait until you have TPTK+ in small SPR pots and then just value bet him to death.

Raising first into a pot is a highly overrated concept at this level, imo. At certain levels, it probably narrows the field to HU with initiative, plus we might have more FE postflop. That is rarely going to be the case at this level.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Firstly, V played the hand horribly every step of the way. Calling your 3-bet shove as the PFR with TPNK is awful. You actually had the very very bottom of your range and still had ok equity. If you had AsKs, you are basically flipping.

The key to semi-bluff shoving is predicting your fold equity which is why I qualified my initial response. Clearly we had no FE against this villain so shoving is no good.

I agree with others on limping up front with ATs. This hand can be dominated by calling ranges. It also has good IO to make the nuts and make $ in higher SPR scenarios. The dogma to ALWAYS raise is flawed. Aggression and initiative is good but better in position and with certain table dynamics.

How are we gettin 5.25 to 1?

Pot is $45 + 30 + 30 + 60 / 60 = $165 / 60 = 2.75 to 1 = 26.666% equity needed.

If we were getting 5.25 to 1, it'd be a clear call (or shove). Not a fold.

Edit: 5.25 to 1 = 16% equity needed to break-even.

absolutely no way im ever folding here.

First off, I think you played this fine. Against villain's hand (JT), you have 47.27% equity which as I showed in my previous post, is more than enough equity needed to shove even if you get called always (40.65%). By making this shove against his hand, you're making a +6.6% expected value shove.

Second point. You mention you might have gotten him off his hand on the turn if you just called since turn came the King. It's possible, but at the same time, it's possible for him to have hit his King spade draw to pair his card and you were going to get called anyways. Also there are the times when he has KJ. Also, if we do this we are losing value from the times he has worse spade draws.

Third point. You feel like you must open for a raise when you enter a pot. Please don't feel like this. While it is true that raising is good, and you should do it often, it shouldn't be automatic. Before you make a decision in a hand, you should ask yourself, what is my point in doing this? Why am I raising here? What will happen if I just limp (or call) in? How will I proceed with my hand? I'd like to say that poker is a black/white game where decisions are on a binary scale, but sadly they are not (and probably for the best).

Ya, I probably wasn't very clear on that. If we assume villain stacks off every single time we hit a flush on the turn, then we're getting 5.25:1 (being asked to call $60 in order to win $45 flop pot + our $30 bet + his $90 bet + the $150 he has left = $315 = 5.25:1). So needing ~4:1 on our flush draw, that basically means we need him to stack off a fairly decent percentage of the time when the scare cards comes in (not to mention the times we lose when he boats up, not to mention we might only have 8 outs instead of 9, not to mention the times we lose when we feel compelled to call when an A hits).

ETA: Ha, my post might still be confusing. You're absolutely correct though, we are currently getting 2.75:1 immediate odds and thus need to make up some future bets if we think we are behind and are calling to hit our flush draw.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Yeah I don't like calling here. I fold. The raise from V OTF doesn't exactly scream, "I'm weak". If you wanted to shove and had reason to think you have some FE then you could easily convince me shoving is best. The flat and evaluate line seems much to passive for the SPR. We can only comfortably continue when we hit OTT. Otherwise we just end up check folding and that's spew for the stack sizes.

Hero is the one with the specific hand though, V is the one with a range. Unless you're so good at hand-reading that you put him on exactly JT, you need to cover every hand he might show up with.

AJss vs. KJ/QJ/JT/88/44/KsQs/etc

Hand-reading is narrowing this range, we hope to get so good that we can put V on something very specific. But saying after the hand is over, he had JT and you were in good enough shape against JT isn't helpful.

Board: Jd 8s 4s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 55.884% 55.86% 00.02% 24334 9.00 { 88, 44, AJs, KsQs, KJs, Ks9s, Ks8s, QJs, Qs8s, 9s8s, 8s7s, 8s6s, 7s6s, 7s5s, AJo, KJo, QJo, JcTh }
Hand 1: 44.116% 44.10% 00.02% 19208 9.00 { AsTs }


+3.5% expected value shove. And this isn't even adding in the few times he folds Jx

^ That wasn't the board. But I agree with not folding, the reasoning was just off.

You're right. Sorry.

Board: Js 8d 4s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 54.459% 54.44% 00.02% 26409 9.00 { 88, 44, AJs, KsQs, KJs, Ks9s, Ks8s, QJs, Qs8s, 9s8s, 8s7s, 8s6s, 7s6s, 7s5s, AJo, KJo, QJo, JcTh }
Hand 1: 45.541% 45.52% 00.02% 22083 9.00 { AsTs }