I just wanted to say thanks to all of the repliers out there on two plus two. This site has really taken my game to the next level. I always thought of myself as a TAG player however this site taught me that i am not and how to become one. I dont raise with Ace jack early anymore. I don't call re raises OOP without a monster. I punish drawers with raises the size they should be compared to the pot. Overall i just play fewer hands and my game has improved because of.

I have one story that brings me to a topic i wanted to get peoples thoughts on.

I am dealt Ace Jackos in the bb. 2 limpers, sb makes it twelve. I consider folding which i would never do before but i have position on the raiser for i call.
everyone else folds.

Flop comes AA3

SB checks, I bet 20, he calls. turn comes 10

sb checks, i check. River comes 7 Sb bets out 35.

Now my image has been TAG, ive played with this young hoddie wearing whit kid in his 20s for a few hours. It just smells like a value bet to me. I can't even beat ace ten. So i fold the the hand face up. He pauses, the table is like, get the hell out of here, you folded? he turns up ace queen and continues to be pissed i didnt call or raise.

There is a big discussion about how no one would lay that down. To me it seems kinda easy because either he's bluffing or value betting, and based on my image no way hes bluffing into a board like that after i bet the flop.

I feel too many times in poker we KNOW what the right play is but we call because of the need to "see it". Like we know we are beat but pay off anyway. I'm wondering if that is a life long struggle or if you just get to the point where that pain isn't necessary anymore.

I laid it down yday but will i do it again tomorrow? Does it become automatic? Thoughts?

This is not good

considering that hed value bet tons of worse hands here, id say folding is pretty bad, folding face up is obv worse... when u check turn he easily thinks kk,qq, jj and any ace is good

I check the turn bc what is he raising with form the sb that hes calling my 20 dollars with?

Folding face up is bad, i rarely do it, but thats no excuse. It's bad and this is why i come here to remind me to NOT do that.

I disagree with leakin'money, the fold can't be bad here, our hand is really weak vs his river value range...
Showing is bad because now u will get raised alot! It could be good if u r planning on calling light vs good players

im saying when u check turn how can u know he has aq+, id easily put jj qq and kk in there for most players, obv there is a chance he has ak,aq,aj.. but he bet like 1/2 pot otr...

your line doesn't really look like an Ace. I think the SB can easily have JJ-KK here as well as plenty of aces that are worse than yours. but most likely he doesnt play A2-A9 like that, so i'd weigh it more heavily towards KK-JJ and even 88/99 sometimes as well

it's very rare that he bets the river with KK,QQ, etc...
actually if villain checks the river, we should be value betting it....but against his river value range, we r not doing good

I have a TAG image. And i mean a real one. I am not getting caught bluffing left and right. When he checks calls the flop i know something is up. Hell i don't even beat Ace ten since a ten falls on the turn.

A weaker ace (which i absolutely do not put him on) would check call me especialy oop and especially this player. The value bet to me screams ace better.

You have not learned much. Folding face up is a fish attribute. Your saying "hey I can make big laydowns and I want you guys to see". Folding otr here is not the right play. Due to combinations you should be calling otr. If the read is that villain is a nit and only raise's AK/AQ/JJ+. Then fold pre!

well I think u r giving V too much credit, his AQ won't get called by much worse in ur "TAG" range

As played, this is such a trivially easy call that the only reason I can think of to show your hand is so that other players will think you are a weak tight nit.

Lol, hero takes the bluff catcher line. Then folds lmao.

I was called a weak tight nit too when I folded JJ pre flop in a tourney when some old guy in a golf shirt three bet my open from the small blind. Idiot button called and they got to showdown where the board was 56789 aggro button had 7 3, raiser AA. Sometimes you know. But never show.

Good players don't care about seeing the hand if they're not getting appropriate odds or they know they're beat. When people show me their bluffs or their made hands, I just say (to myself if I'm playing well or out loud if I'm steaming a little bit) "I don't care what you have, I wasn't calling."

I don't understand why folding is painful. Do you feel pained folding 22 preflop to a raise and a reraise cold? What if they both have AK?

How is this a snap fold? His c/c line on the flop is horrible if he has AK/AQ, and his turn check is horrible if he has AT. So assuming he did play the hand this way (which he did), he's a horrible fish and not a good, thinking player.

River is never a raise, but getting 2-1 vs this weird line I'd probably call and take a note if he had a big hand.

If we think his range is THAT tight and he never has smaller aces in his range, why are we even calling preflop? SB raises are almost never bluffs - his range is probably tighter than his UTG raising range.

If you're going to fold, folding this face up is absolutely insanely horrible. Now you will encourage everyone to take shots at you because they think they can bluff you.

This makes playing much harder because when you raise with a hand like AK or AA and the flop comes 974 and you get raised, is the guy taking a shot b/c he thinks you can fold? You don't make super strong hands like 2pair+ enough to make up for even 1 hand where you lose a big pot or stack 1 pair where you shouldn't because of it.
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TL : DR

I'm glad you enjoy 2+2 and I"m glad it's improving your game, but you have a lot to learn. If you are still agonizing about making obvious folds, and making ridiculous ego-plays like folding huge hands face up to show how great you are, you're not as good as you think you are IMO.

Overestimating our skills is one of the #1 things that gets people killed at poker.

To provide devil's advocate argument for showing in certain circumstances: I'll spook my cards if I need to fold an overpair to a raise OTF (ie. AA on JT4r facing 3.5x raise in a largish MW pot) to lure V into incorrectly slow playing on potentially wet boards in future hands.

AP, OP should probably not show b/c it will increase (whether subconsciously or not) the table's bluffing freq toward him.

Hmmm. I often make the mistake of thinking the villain would play hands in the same way I would play them, but if that were true, I'd be a lot less profitable. That said, I think if villain is semi-decent and has JJ-KK here he leads the flop. c/c is not a great play since he will have to guess on the turn and river if you really do have trips. b/f is a much better way for him to play that type of hand IMO. Also if he has JJ-KK on the river, I think he's more likely to bluff-catch than to bet for value.

I also think it's unlikely he is raising a worse A OOP from the blinds. The only hand he might have here would be some kind of suited wheel hand like A5s.

As far as bluffs on the river he may have KQcc, KJcc, QJc, JTcc So i'm counting 8 better aces and maybe 4 missed draw hands, if you throw in a few combos of QQ, KK, it's probably a profitable call.

Given villain's range here - broadway club draws, JJ-KK and trip As, we should consider if we should bet the turn. Questions to ask yourself before you bet the turn
a) Can you get worse hands to call? - maybe only club draws (3-4 combos), especially since most club draws now pick up a Broadway draw. However, there's only a few in in his pre-flop raising range. If he peeled the flop with JJ-KK it's unlikely he will call turn since he could face another river bet that he can't really call given your image.
b) Can you get better hands to fold? - Unlikely. There's some chance you could get AQ to fold (4 combos) and some chance you can get him off a push with AJ (only 3 combos).
c) If you have the best hand and check back, what are the chances he catches up for free? If he has a club draw he could have 8-12 outs. If he has QQ-KK he has 2 outs and JJ is drawing dead. If he does have a worse A he has 3 outs to boat up.

You didn't mention if you have Jc which would make a difference.

Overall this seems like a pretty close decision to me. I would probably bet / fold if I didn't have the Jc since it increases the chances he has a club draw and may check back the turn if I did have the Jc.

lol dude comes on here to thank everyone for helping him become a better player and uses one example and everyone just tears it apart haha

Op...

I know your intentions were good with this thread.

It's good to see that you've improved and you're putting opponents on possible hands/folding when you think you are beat.

It's because of 2+2 that you're now a "thinking" player and not just some average fish that understands starting hand requirements but nothing about post flop play, hand ranging, value betting, etc....

Congrats to you and may the poker gods bless all these people in here that are flaming you/still helping you improve.

They've all helped me improve as well.

That's what makes this place great though. If you came on here and everyone told you that you're a poker god you'd never keep improving.

It would be like walking into a gym and every weight you pick up is nothing to you.... if the iron wasn't hard to lift against you'd never grow stronger.

2+2 turned you into a nit?

I think my time here at 2+2 would make me more likely to call here. $35 into $100(-rake/bb). He's not showing great strength vs. the range you represent after checking the turn. He could think that you missed clubs, He might have missed clubs, he might have jj-kk, or a weak ace.

I am a believer in:
"If you don't get caught bluffing, then you need to bluff more."
"If you never call river bets with the worse hand, you need to call more river bets"
"If your value bets never get called by better hands, you need to value bet more"

It is poker, you are not suppose to win every hand.

This thread is epic!

Easily a must read thread. Very helpful indeed. Thanks.

Yeah I completely understand, just found it funny/ironic.

The most help I get is when I read a comment that goes along the lines of 'wtf are you doing?' with an explanation with it. Next time i'm in that situation, I have a voice repeating that line.

Folding my hand face up is horrible, i KNOW its horrible. I should never have done it. I guess being there, reading the kid and the feel i got was that he had ace better and was value betting me. I dont think he would donk into me with an under pair. I almost did fold ace jack pre, bc his raise out of the sb was strong to me.