Hey folks,
It's been a few years since I posted something here. It's a super simple question but my friend seems to disagree. Wanted to get some thoughts from the pros. Neither me nor him are pros, we just play every now and then.

My friend's image... Spewy. Playing 2/5 and the whole table of fishy older gentlemen see him as a spewtard. He believes no one is noticing anything and refuses to give them credit but this example hand might show otherwise.

Hero (470$) otb with Kh2h
Few limpers to him, he makes it 35$, trying to steal the free money and maybe take it down with a cbet some % of the time.

V1 (500$) flats from the sb, all folds

Flop (100$) K62r
V checks, hero bets, V shoves, hero snap calls.

Is this play from hero a long term winning play? Would you rather have J9o in this spot? My friend's argument is that K2 beats J9,which I think is totally wrong.

I don't have very specific questions,i just wanna get some thoughts. I'm usually a pretty tight player with the occasional unorthodox line to mix it up. But I can't imagine a single scenario where I would vpip K2s

Preflop, raising from the button, K2s and J9o aren't much different and I might raise both if the table is passive and limp folds a lot. I like the play to pick up the dead money, esp if I've been quite recently and built up a tight image and esp when I have the button.
HU, I'd rather have K2 because of the high card value and the flush outs than J9 even though that makes more straights. Multiway, J9 might be more interesting but the raise was designed to pick up the limp money and/or play HU in position. So I'll take the high card, esp since so many players will limp call suited connectors.
OTF, flop two pair, and image is spewtard, snap call. Really only worried about 66. My image is rarely spewtard, so when I make this raise from button, I expect to pick up the pot preflop a lot and also to be able to win with a C bet a lot because I'm targeting fit-or-fold players.

I would say K2s is playable in this spot and J9o is usually not. The interesting part of the hand you posted is the flop action, but we don't have any of the relevant information.

I don't have a strong opinion about the PF raise. If the table folds a lot to big PF raises then I guess it could be okay. Maybe borderline at worst.

To me there isn't much of a difference between the two hands in this spot. I'm more interested in the number of limpers and their tendencies, and the tendencies of the players in the blinds. Both hands are meh, whatever but do have a little value, and I could see raising in LP if offer factors are favorable.

K2 beats J9 seems like a pretty weak argument unless it's unintentionally being misrepresented.

You're right. Villain is a omc who takes poker personally. So he is visually pissed at hero because of his spewing. Basically villain wants to see a ton of 5$ flops and hero wouldn't allow it.

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The table folds alot pre and otf when they miss. However with such a laggy image, he will get called more often and have to make expensive bluffs to get some ego driven old man to fold. I don't think it's a winning spot long run. Maybe someone could chime in with some math and assumptions to prove this right or wrong?

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The fact that a bluff is expensive doesn't make it unprofitable. If the old man is loose for smaller bets (against a lag) but tightens up on the turn and river when bets are bigger, then those expensive bluffs could be quite profitable. Obviously position helps a lot as well.

If the old man calls with a wider range both PF and on the flop, then his range is going to be weak on the turn and river and he is going to be OOP in awkward spots with weaker hands that he isn't used to playing.

Howdy, playertee. Welcome back. I'm grunching here.

Generally, I prefer being in a multi-way pot with J9o, especially if I'm calling, rather than the aggressor. J9 makes the nuts more often than K2s, and when it does, they are more disguised and thus more likely to get paid. If I were in your buddy's shoes and had J9o, I would overlimp it.

If I'm the aggressor, however, I prefer K2s. It has some SDV, we like TP a (little) bit better, and occasionally the hands that call us will be SC of the same suit that we can over-flush.

That said, if he'd opened his button with K2s, I'd applaud the play. Raising over a bunch of limpers with it, however, is too optimistic. I'm frankly shocked that he got this HU and would expect it to go 3-4 ways to a flop most of the time. With that many players already in the pot, I'd consider overlimping it and playing bingo/position, stabbing at orphan pots occasionally. I would really only make this play if the table had some real calling stations on it that would pay off on flush boards/with tiny flushes. Most of the time I would just muck it. I would only raise it if I thought I would get 1-2 callers max.

$35 flatted from the SB who gives us a CR.

We beat AA so far.

We beat AK.

We are crushed by any set.

If SB thinks we are showing mindless aggression he is going to get a rude surprise that we got lucky.

I like it as played.

Or with ATC - it's no harder to flop two pair with K2 or J9.

And if we get caught, we just say "I was just kidding" and lose the cbet.''

Might get us paid later.

There is a lot of variance if we try to steal all the time, no all games are right for that!

If I'm abusing a tight table, I'd rather have K2. I want the ability to make TP so that nobody else is likely to have it, forcing them to fold under pressure. As played, I'd expect under these conditions to be good calling this shove 60% of the time with 2 pair. Now that means I'll lose 40% of the time, but that's the price you pay as a LAG. He can easily be shoving with aces or AK.

Neither. You need to play tight against people playing loosely and not folding.

88+/good broadways/suited broadways for a raise. If he's feeling splashy or bired he can limp buttons with speculative smalls pairs suited bad aces suited connectors and gappers

i think raising with K2s is terrible with a spewy image and J9o is.. just a bit better but still bad.. although you could limp with both hands if playing well postflop.

Stove says J9 has 42.0% equity against 43% wide ranges.

K2 has only 41.5% equity against the same range.

But we are not raising them because of the equity, we are trying (call it what you will) to balance or steal or show aggression from late position.

Both are underdogs.

But if we get called, maybe J9 has more potential to make something that will win a big pot? And is easier to get away from if we whiff?

Just some thoughts.

K2s ranks 59 out of 169 starting hands.
J9o ranks 80 out of 169 starting hands.

The internet is an amazing thing.

http://holdemtight.com/pgs/od/oddpgs...oldemhands.htm

Why assume that players are not folding in a 2/5 game? This isn't 1/2 NL and players are going to play tighter. And villains are described as older gentlemen who will fold PF and on the flop.

Making a hand should be a backup plan IMO. If I'm raising these hands I'm looking to steal either PF or after the flop. A lot of these guys have leaks like limp-folding too much, folding too much to c-bets and even folding too much to bigger bets on the turn/river.

If he only raises them in position then I don't think it's even close to terrible. Even if opponents think he is spewy, how are they going to adjust? By calling with marginal hands OOP? By raising really big when they have it? Players often make terrible adjustments.

This is both true and irrelevant. It's not about "hot and cold equity" (likelihood of winning a flip). It's about playability post flop if pure stealing fails.

That said, as many have noted, K2s has some advantages as the aggressor that J9 doesn't have. J9o is a slightly better hand in a no-foldem limpfest, though, imo.

flop is fine once we have gotten there, but i doubt i play K2s preflop anyway. i think if he wants to try to steal from the button there are plenty of better hands to do it with and i also think his pfr is too small. $35 over several limpers is likely to get called by several people and now you are multi-way to the flop with a garbage hand. your friend just got lucky that he flopped gin.

Here is why I think it's a bad play. Villain in the hand had AA. Villain is adapting to our laggy style, I think when an omc calls behind with AA, you need to stop raising ATC. I think villain played his hand and the opponent better than we did.

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Basically we need to have some self awareness. We need to consider how other people will react to our obvious image.

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J9o IMO

For the purposes of what Hero is trying to accomplish - raising to take down dead money - I would rather K2s way more than J9o. Many of the reasons have been posted already.

V played this flop terribly. On a K62r and he shoves over a cbet?!? The bottom of any moron LAGs calling range is probably AK. It might even be 2P+. Vs adjustment should be to call down and only raise if/when Hero is committed, but because V still adjusted poorly, he let's a huge chunk of Hero's raising range off the hook with that shove.

One school of thought is that the better hand to raise with is the one which has less value if you just limp OTB with it, not the one which you prefer to have if your steal-raise is called. If the SB 3bets, which hand makes you more regretful that you didn't just call? If you limp along, the SB makes it 25, four limpers call, and it's up to you, do you call with one hand but not the other?

Others have given their own arguments for which hand they'd prefer to have. But they are not really touching on the main problem: your friend's argument is totally absurd. If he is right, it is completely by accident. You seem to know this (not surprising as I remember you were a pretty good poster when you still posted here regularly).

This reminds me of a hand I played once at 2/5 where I made a huge raise over a straddle with A8o, and someone limp/raised me for my whole stack. I called, and he had K2. We were all-in and my hand was ahead.

That's pretty much the only time preflop equity matters--when all or a large percentage of the stacks are going in and there is very little if anything in the way of postflop action.

The deeper the stacks are, the less it matters what your starting hand is in absolute strength and the more it matters how good your hand is at winning money postflop.

If you want to really blow a hole in your friend's logic, ask him which he'd rather have in that spot preflop: T8s or A6o. One is the equity favorite, but the other is the clear hand you'd rather have.