1-2 50-200 min/max buyin

Hero - 21 WG, image is good, been running hot and has a stack over 1k, CO
Villain1 - younger guy, thinking but not a great player, stack of 250, sb
villain2 - 50-ish woman, very bad calling station, stack 200 (i stacked her 2 hands prior), bb

utg limp, hero 12 KK CO both limpers call.

Flop ($36) T85r

checks to hero who checks back. Generally I would consider a bet of ~1/2 pot standard here, but i have been experimenting with checking back overpairs when we're in shallower spr situations in order to induce villains to get married to top pair (because villains so seldom check back overpairs themselves, they find it more difficult to put hero on overpairs when he checks back). I generally prefer slightly drier boards (J82 better than T85, for example, and I prefer to do it with AA-KK over QQ as these hands are less susceptible to overcards killing action).

Turn ($36) 4 with a bdfd

V1 leads for $20, V2 call, and we decide to call again. A case can be made for raising here, but my thought process was that given the relatively shallow stacks, hero being in position, and the hesitancy of villains to slow down once the pfr checks, I didn't think I'd have trouble inflating the pot if i want to. Given this, KK can serve as a nice hand to call/call down against on a bad runout, and if the runout is favorable I can always raise the river.

River ($96) 9o

V1 continues for 25, and V2 calls. Hero jams for ~190. In hindsight I think this should be a call, given that there are now 3 possible straight. In the moment, I thought that V1 is likely to be very weak given his 1/4 river sizing, and V2 being bad enough to call down with 9x here makes this a viable value raise. Against other villains I likely wouldn't make that raise, and as a standard rule it probably isn't a great play to be making, but I thought that in this exact configuration it is reasonable.

V1 thinks about it for a while, and says out loud "I don't know how he can have a hand - he checked back the flop!" and calls, and V2 folds. We show and are good.

I think the lesson of this hand is that in low min-buyin games where the preflop raises are large relative to the blind and there are many pots going multiway these low flop SPR situations can allow us to play some hands in a tricky way and still get all in by the river. This is certainly an exploitative play but it's a nice one to have in the arsenal from time to time. Let me know what you guys think of this, and if you have or have had any success with plays in this vein.

I don't really get what the point of this thread is, if you're going to tell us all what we can learn from your hand, but...

Checking back on the flop heads up is really bad. Checking it back with two opponents is catastrophically terrible.

Not raising the turn is also really bad

Dude it's 1/2, you make the money by betting for value when you have better cards than your opponent.

You have no idea where you're at and you'll frequently get outdrawn, hard, playing like this

Don't check the flop back; the SPR has to be a lot smaller, and super easy to get stacks in, in one or two streets to even consider a flop check. It's very difficult to play for stacks with the flop action.

We're definitely going to want to raise the turn, as played. There are so many hands we can get value from, and we're super underrepped.

I'm kinda lost by the river as I'm never in this spot, but in a parallel universe I would've shoved.

I used to do this stuff back in like 2012 when everyone just assumed that FPS and doing random stuff constantly and tricking your opponents was the ticket to profitville in NL.

Now, you’ve already got $36 out there. SPR of 5. You really really want 3 bets going in on this board in order to stack a ten.

Now the river comes in and makes all sorts of straights and 2 pairs and stuff that could’ve been value betting the turn, and you’re in a dicey situation where you want to go for value but could easily be value cutting yourself. This problem largely goes away if you make a ten call bets instead of bet for you


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ignoring flop, river jam seems spewy.

I dont know why your river shove was so perplexing to your opponent. The story you told was that you "got there". So QJ/67/99 fit the bill given your image. Turns out you had kings but doesnt really make a difference if you're practically bluffing with them.

Point is if you're going to try to let your opponents catch up you're probably better off assuming they already caught a piece of the flop and just extracting value from there. The vast majority of live player hands are draws. They arent going to pay off a river on a missed draw and it would suck to only get 1 street of value out of them by letting the flop check through. You already said you had 1 full stacked calling station in the mix so you can pretty much always count on her to give you action. What more do you need?

I can't imagine playing like that, but sounds like the kind of soft game where everyone plays their hands face up. If it's that easy to read them I guess you can make this play profitably but still, that 9 is not a great card.

So 1 of the villains is a bad calling station who is going to be extra sticky cause you just busted her..

Very nice post javi.

Last night, in my card room, I played a hand almost exactly similar, had JJ instead of KK, tilted, reloaded
Villian paid 3 streets including an all in on the river. $35PF 3bet, $45/$85/all in. Similar board texture, all under cards.

I also play in a home game that, once in a while, has a similar dynamic to what you describe. In my experience, with over pairs, perhaps not making big pf raises could somewhat disguise your hand. I just don't agree with ops plan at all. AA/KK are the hands that end up being the usual big profit hands.

And you had someone in the hand who is sticky.

And you just stacked them. I would be piling money in as quickly as possible, each street.

I don't like it. I think you just got lucky vs. a bad player. If you think he's a "thinking but not great player," you should be going for as much value as possible. A true thinking player is rarely (almost never) calling here with worse than KK. Agree with most of the posters here that in general you should be going for value. I am glad it worked out and thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts.

You got incredibly lucky on this hand. I don't know why you would want to check back the flop when a ton of hands will call, like a T, 8, pocket 9s, or various straight draws. Why give a hand like 76 or 97 a free shot at the straight? Or give an Ax hand a free shot at the ace? As others have said, why not bet out and get 3 streets of value from V1, and given V2 called V1's $25 river bet, you probably would have won more from V2. According to your description, she's a calling station. You beat calling stations with value bet after value bet when it's likely that you have the best hand.

If you lead on the flop and both players fold, then you were likely not going to win anymore money on the hand.

I don't think that's the lesson at all. I think the lesson is that low stakes players love to do some FPS for no reason and then pat themselves on the back when it works out.

The time for this type of thing is heads up against a tricky player when you need some strong one pair hands in your checking range so he can't just go nuts against you every time you don't fire the flop.

It's not the time for this type of thing multiway with, lets quote your opening post here, a "very bad calling station in the hand".

Anyone else here curious to know where OP plays?

The 2017-2018 version of me feels personally attacked by this post because it’s too accurate lol.

If hero wants to get a little fancy, he can check some Tx here since it blocks their continue range and can’t always get 3 streets. KK we wanna go bet bet bet on clean runouts, especially with a station in the hand.

I think jamming river also looks way stronger than just going bet bet bet btw.

As played I think river is kinda interesting, I probably make it $100 vs typical rec fish, but I’m open to just calling.

If I dont know what I'm doing then my enemy wont know what I'm doing