1/2 NLHE about the 3rd hand in

HJ : Limp (250 bb+)
CO : Limp (65 bb+)
Hero Button : K10 Limp (60 bb+)
SB : Raise to 12 (45 bb+)
BB : Raise to 12 (50 bb+)

Calls around 5 players to the flop

Flop comes KK6

SB : Open jams for rest of his stack around 44 bb's
BB : Snap calls
HJ , CO : Folds

At this point I am ready to throw my cards into the muck, however I flip over my cards and show my opponents my holdings and I know SB does not have a King however a "scared" look from the big blind. CO induces me to call (which is realize should not have affected my decision) however I ended up calling after seriously thinking about mucking my hand.

SB shows AA, BB Shows AK, and Hero Button has dominated trips

My question is are my intentions to fold this flop considering the action in front of me a positive or negative EV when it comes to play hands like KX's on the button and flopping trips?

I pretty much narrowed down her range and figured I could not beat any value range and the board was so dry she just had to have it and it was an easy fold for me, but after seeing her reaction after flipping my two cards over while pondering what i was going to do she seemed as if she did not want me to call (obviously a false tell in hind sight)

What could I have done in this scenario? Pot was 60 pre flop and I pretty much flopped what I wanted but even at first thought I knew I could not beat any of her value hands unless some how she had K9 assuming K8 was not in her range of hands. Just seemed silly for me to have called off here but would this be a money saving tactic to fold on the button after flopping trips? Or am I losing money by not calling?

If villain always has a bigger King or 66 here then it's technically a fold but we only need to be good at showdown like 27% of the time to call (not counting any money behind). Even vs AK we are 17% to win the pot and 18% to chop which makes this super close given all the dead money from SB who we know is drawing to 2 outs.

Given stack sizes and pot odds etc I just find this to be so marginal ie I don't think this is that important of a spot...neither folding nor calling is terrible. However, in order to fold I'd say you need a strong read that villain never has worse. If she has worse Kings in her hand or hands like QQ/JJ then this is a call for sure. At 1/2 players will do some stupid things.

If she has a bigger kicker, just bink a flush.

The big take away from this is your limp on the BU pre.

This is a raise prerlop 100% of the time and postflop you can pretty much fold once BB snap calls with 3 player behind unless he's a complete drooler but the call is nowhere as big as a mistake as the limp pre.

Your preflop game is the first thing you have to work on when you start playing poker, it's the foundation of every hand.

On the button with KTs here you have two options: open to $12-$16 or fold. Limping in there is no bueno. I think it's ok to limp in some situations, but for sure not this one. If you opened, you would likely have been 3 bet and done with the hand.

Limping and then calling the open aka over-limping with this hand is almost as bad as limping in the first place. Unless you KNOW otherwise, most LLSNL players are opening a pretty tight range. Especially from the blinds.

Once you flop trips here with 60bbs, you are getting it in no matter what.

For sure. Look for some resources on full ring opening ranges.

This hand is well strong enough to raise pre to isolate in position, to $14-16. Limping is better with worse hands that flop positional monsters like 97s (though with these stack sizes, you shouldn't be playing those hands much).

Every Kx combo SB or BB has dominates you - SB probably never opens worse than KJs and even that's a stretch. BB could have a K9s, K8s type hand but when both of them put the money in, you can fold.

So it would not be favorable to see a cheap flop in position with my hand? Instead I should be raising to use my position to win some dead money in the pot?

Yeah basically. With KTs you're going to be dominated too much to be excited about anything other than a nut straight draw. Even a flush draw usually won't be to the nuts. No pairs are a great result, and as you see here, even flopping trips wasn't all that exciting,

Also, with $120, $12 isn't a cheap flop. You're committing 10% of your stack. Even set mining is close to a mistake.

This is some really atrocious advice. If you ever fold KT suited for $2 in this spot you should just quit poker because you are terrible and have some serious fundamental issues with your game.

Also, if you do raise you don't necessarily have to make it to 6x+, particularly when stack sizes are hovering around 50-60bbs.

Ok gotcha, so let's bloat this pot up as much as possible so that we isolate ourselves against hands that have us dominated and fold out all the hands we beat or have dominated. I'm sure that makes a lot of sense in someone's twisted mind.

By raising we take the initiative in the hand which gives us fold equity on future streets, even vs hands that have us dominated. Dominating hands aren't going anywhere regardless of whether we raise or limp, but at least we give ourselves an advantage.

By limping what are we accomplishing? Giving ourselves a chance at flopping the nuts in an $8 pot? You go ahead and pay 1BB for that as much as you want and I have no problem with that. Just not something I find all that enticing.

The short stack situation would make me lean more towards a fold in this spot.

It doesn't take a $12+ raise to give you initiative.

There is no way you can argue that folding is better than limping for $2. You only get the button once every 9 hands. That would be really really bad to waste your button by folding when you have an above average hand in a limped pot. The EV of limping the button is definitely greater than 0.

K

KTs in position is way too good to fold. I prefer raising because we'll flop decent pair hands frequently and it'll be easy to play these in position. Infrequently hitting nutted hands / draws to nutty hands makes the play even better. Raise > limp behind > fold

This is a standard open situation. I would do $7. For sure not 12-16 dollars. Try not to let your raises indicate hand strength or lack there of, its very exploitable. Unless you play in the Philadelphia area, then please keep doing it. Fold to a 3B.

AP, it's hard, but I'm folding K10, calling KJ+. This is with all reads aside. If the SB has been pushing around the BB recently, I may not be able to find a fold.

This is exactly why I wouldn't open to $7? If I had AK/AA/KK I would be opening to 12-16, the same way I would do it with this hand.

I get people not wanting to surrender the button with a decent hand. Position is an advantage in the game. But it's not a magical power that turns losing plays into winning ones.

My initial reaction was definitely to open this one, but with the short stacks I would be a little more weary of getting involved because of how easily stacks will go in vs our hand strength.

Sidenote: why does everyone have such a boner for KTs right now? It's hot trash. Give me 79s all day.

Sizing your bets according to hand strength is super exploitable. However, so is raising a wide range of hands from the button that includes KT sooted. Hell, so is limping (although, only by the blinds generally). The only play that isn't exploitable is folding, but in that case you just exploited yourself by making a -EV play.

The point is that you should know your opponents, understand how they are likely to exploit you and then make your decision accordingly. Players at this level tend to be very terrible and there generally isn't much exploitative play going on. However, if you are really concerned about being exploited by limpers or don't know how your opponents play then just limp along and see a flop with advantages vs the limpers in position, hand strength and postflop play. I think it's ok to try to play small pots at the very beginning of a session before you have reads on your opponents or know whether they are playing their A game or F game today. Poker is a series of investments and smart investors don't just throw money blindly at risky investments. (that's not to say you should be scared..i'm simply saying that I am more apt to build big pots when i know how my opponents are likely to play).

This is a HUGE understatement.


I'd recommend you either work on your short stack game or just play at deeper tables.

Smart investors just call the blinds with marginal holdings. got it.

I believe it's an accurate statement. IMO advantage in no limit goes skill edge>card edge>positional advantage. All of which are important in beating the game.

To be fair, I don't play short stacked ever. I buy in full and top up if needed, love to play 200BB+. However, I'm forced to play in lots of pots with an effective stack of 50BBs or what ever. In my experience, KTs on the BU isn't the type of hand that will help you pick up those short stacks. Maybe the games we play in are very different.

Also, I just don't have a button limping range. So if part of your issue is that I have too linear an opening range, maybe it's because we just have completely different range constructions in this spot.

I'm sorry to disagree with you on this post I'm not trying to be offensive or anything I just genuinely disagree with your strat here.

I guess it depends on how terrible your opponents are (and other factors such as stack depths), but in general I'd place position above everything else.

You call KT suited marginal, yet you are the one that advocated opening for 10% of your stack with it (without reads no less). Any way you cut it, live low stakes is primarily a value oriented game and most deviations from a value oriented strategy are incorrect. The more marginal your holdings in this spot, the more appropriate it is to limp rather than raise (especially at these short stack depths where it is very easy to get opponents to put money in postflop). (for the record, I don't consider KT as marginal as you do)