Hi, first time poster. My experience is a bit 5NL - 10NL and 45 MTTSNG on PS, and a bit (~200 hours) of 1/1 1/2 Live NL. I consider myself a developing beginner, so I play a ABC TAG style focused on leveraging implied odds and value from good hands.

Villian is a young, sociable player. Capable of laying down marginal e.g. TPGK/TPNK hands, aggressive otherwise and with strong draws. Plays a reasonably tight (but not terribly tight) preflop range.

We were short handed late in the evening, so stacks were quite deep.

Hero [$280] UTG with K K
Villain [$600] BTN.

Preflop:
Hero raises to $6. Two folds. Villain calls on the BTN, blinds fold.

Flop: [$15]
K Q 7
Hero bets $10 expecting value from any K, Q or 7 looking to see one more street. Even better if Villain has QQ or 77.

Turn: [$35]
K Q 7 [T ]
Hero ??? with so many cards that fill/gives a straight draw? I would be inclined to bet at this spot because we can charge lower sets, two pair, any pair, flush draws, but only beaten by straights AJ, J9.

Some thoughts:
- Should I have raised more UTG with KK?

Sorry if the format of the post is not good, mods. My observation is that results are incrementally posted around here to allow for discussion.

Cheers.

I think you should raise more preflop. Live players will call big preflop raises with all sorts of nonsense, and people sometimes lose their minds shorthanded and reraise with A5 and stuff.

On the turn, I would still be looking for a way to get a lot of money into the pot. There are a lot of two-pair-or-better hands that villains will play aggressively here, but not sure if this villain would have called with them preflop. I basically agree with your logic. Bet.

Unless where you play 6 is super standard pre, I'd make the raise a bit bigger. 3/4 to full pot on flop. As played, I'd bet 20-25 on turn. Villain could raise you here for several reasons, having possibly picked up two pair, a smaller set, a flush draw to go with a pair, an actual straight...unless villain shoves, you have to call. If river is super ugly, you might have to fold to a shove.

standard value bet / draw charger with top set when we are beaten by exactly 2 hands and can get called by a lot of worse hands which might feel they have more equity in the hand than is actually the case. KKK is the nuts a lot of the time here. Also, if he happens to raise us with AJ or J9, we have a strong draw against him. This is not a turn we want to check through, it has created too many new draws out against us.

also, raising more UTG is fine, and I'd reccomend it. You tip the strength of your hand, but luckily for you, in these games, noone will adjust to you and you can get value / reduce SPR for easier play on further betting rounds.

Thanks for the replies! For some reason we have been playing $6 as the standard pre raise that night, so I didn't want to broadcast my hand too much, since I put villain as an observant player.

Turn: [$35]
K Q 7 [T]

I actually bet out $20, with all the logic that we have listed on the replies. Villain calls.

River: [$75]
K Q 7 T [2]
I bet $30 as a value bet. Villain raises me to $70. Hero ???.

- Was $30 too little? I was fearing straights and flushes, but if villain has neither of those I doubt he will call more than that (or around that amt).

Raise more pre!

Flop I guess is fine, I'm never betting over the pot OTF.

Turn I'm betting 25-30 here all day. The board just got 10x more scarier.

E: OTR I hate that spot, but I cannot see us folding Top set on that board given the odds...

I just make a crying call and hate it when he ran into a BD flush.

do you have any sense as to what type of hands he is raising for value in this spot? this is pretty much the key to this hand,

BD flush is the most likely hand if your beat, I guess villain can have AJ here as well but prob raising the turn with that hand.

can he raise two pair here? many tight players here are not and if that is the case this is prob closer to a fold than a call IMO. but if you have doubt here calling prob isn't too bad as you are getting huge odds to call the raise, just comes down to you what perceive his value raising range as.

With all the calls to raising more pre, I want to make the question about whether that is profitable on the long run. This is a good game- I am grinding out about 12 big blinds an hour over about a 100 hour sample by playing TAG, but I avoid big variance spots because I don't have lots on my bankroll. Villains are typically very rich so some of them even don't have a problem shipping K7 preflop with $50. Given thats the case, as my bank roll grows and can handle more variance, making larger preflop raises and 3 betting light should be profitable, right?

You probably should have raise more, but not because you held KK. Your position, the number of opponents with a live hand, the size of the pot, your opponent's tendancies and game flow are the variables that effect preflop raise sizes. Your actual holding should have nothing to do with it.

This. That is all ran through my head and I called.

Hero mucks K K
Villain shows A J for a straight.

The main thing is that I don't understand why he didn't raise the turn for value, although he did get his value in the end, but with a potential cooler card coming, I would raise for value on the turn as well.

If he did raise the turn, and we did call (lets say the raise was poorly sized and we have the odds to see a river), do you guys think its a good move to turn the set into a bluff and shove, putting villain on a straight??

Pre-flop Raise to 15

Flop lead 20. Turn lead about 55-60

You are playing so bad, pricing people in to beat you.

I only vaguely understand the pricing issue- can you please elaborate? Is that just a simple matter of giving them odds to draw/see another card?

Villain here is almost never putting you on a set. Why? Because is he IP and your just firing away like you would with AK, or KQ. I honestly Don't make a raise OTT either, we have the NUTS with the NFD re-draw and were IP.

Sorry- he didn't have the nut flush, put in the wrong suits.

"Because is he IP and your just firing away like you would with AK, or KQ. I honestly Don't make a raise OTT either, we have the NUTS with the NFD re-draw and were IP. "

Should I have done something to represent a set? If you did only have AK/KQ at this spot, is firing away OOP a good thing to do?

just giving arbitrary numbers here as to what raise size OP "should" have made is sort of missing the point here, I mean the hand he was up against is a perfectly reasonable hand for villain to call a larger raise w/ anyway.

Just generic "raise bigger" advice without knowing anything about game flow etc isn't really any advice at all w/o more info. The hand was played heads up so obv a six dollar raise thins the field reasonably at this specific table. raising more would obv create more value if the action was there. but PFR size seems like the least important thing here when looking at this hand/ Post flop bet sizing is way more interesting here.

You played the hand fine here, nothing you can do.

You cannot do anything to represent a set here but bet. Nobody gives you credit for a set here because a set would be at the TOP TOP of your range here. He probably put you on 2p like KQ.

Where I play, it's 1-2-2 with $5 to call preflop, so my raises tend to be $15 and up, even though the bb is 2. If its $2 to call preflop, I'd still make it at least $10 Utg

EDIT:

I misread the thread. Raise more on the turn to like $35, but yeah I understand wanting to keep him, given its only heads up, and you have a monster. I probably fold river, more often than not, when fish/tight players are betting into flushes, they have it.

I'm semi grunching here, but I did read your first 3 post, through the one where you reveal the river.

The thing that is most glaring to me here, and it's one beginners seem to do a lot, is the 'fear' that your opponent just has whatever had would be the nuts on a given street.

Turn, 'oh no, he could have a straight"

River, "Oh no, he could have a flush."

Yet on the flop you didn't put any of those draws in his range.

On the flop you mentioned him having worse sets, or one pair hands.


So on the flop his calling range is only hands that you beat, but suddenly on the turn and river you worry, his range has changed dramatically and now is hands you lose to.

This is, 'the fear.'


Thing is, ranges only tighten as streets go on, they don't widen.

Instead of adding more hands that he could have on the turn and river, you should be subtracting hands he could have, getting closer and closer to determining exactly what he has.


Do you think he would have just called you with a gutshot on the flop, or would have folded it?

Does he even have the AJ in his range on the flop? I'm thinking not, I'd expect him to 3-bet pre with that, when short handed.

That means he has one possible straight on the turn J9. but JT (open ender on flop, now 3rd pair and still open ended) TQ, KT, should all be in his range as well. QJ, open ender second pair, should also be in his range. KJ top pair open ender, should also be in his range.

His range is probably a bit wider then that as well.


I'd say a straight is next to out of the question. Even if he raised turn, I'd be much more inclined to push him towards a lower set or two pair.

A back door flush on the river is a bigger concern, as there are a ton of Qx, or Kx hands that could have been suited diamonds, that backdoored into the flush.

On turn, even though deep, I would stack to him, even if he raised.

On the river, if raised, I'd probably look to find a fold. That's when it's going to be based on reads on villain.

Very obvious but I never explicitly noticed it like this. Thank you! probably will make a difference to my game. So do you think part of the surprise (imo) of being beaten by a straight is because he wasn't playing AJ typically?

Also, and more importantly, how do you find a balance between sizing your bets so that you don't price people in to beat you, but still get value from worse hands?

Actually, you weren't considering that he was playing AJ strangely. You actually put AJ in his range, when it really shouldn't have been. (Calling the flop with a gutshot, smooth calling the turn with a FD, and then raising when the flush hits? He played it awful imo)

In the future, when you discount AJ from his range, you'll be less scared on the turn, and will probably bet more. But the flush will still be something you'll have to consider.

And at 1/2, just overbet. For example say, you were playing at a full table, and you had 2 callers and flop had a FD (you still have top set). Just bet almost the pot. If they have a FD, they're calling no matter what. People can't fold FDs.

^ great post. i had/have this same issue and learning.. a poker friend said it best, "there will always be a straight or flush draw, you cant always be afraid of them."

Riase more PF. Be the turn. $25 should do it.

I have never played in a 1/2 game where $6 was an appropriate raise size. Saying "well everyone else folded" or "this guy wouldn't have folded" misses the point and is a bit results oriented.

There are lots of reasons other than "thinning the field" we should raise bigger. We want to get more value out of hands that are calling for one. I actually don't think there's a huge difference in what people call $6 and $12 with. But making it $12 gets us more value PF when we are likely way ahead, and makes it easier to get all the money in (like a LOT easier) when we flop favorably. Since we are almost always going to be value betting at least once with KK making it bigger PF is going to get us more value.

my post addresses that pretty clearly.
I am saying just to say raise more PF w/o any further analysis isn't really providing anything in this specific hand example, and is just as results oriented as me saying the pot was heads up.

If I were playing my default would be to raise more PF as well, but we don't have enough info to say if that is a good raise size for this game or not, not to mention the future streets are way more interesting than preflop in this hand.