Bet closer to $80. The $50 looks so weak OTT. I think the turn is a good card for you to barrel.

Also, put the ace at the end to make it clear that was the turn card, the post is confusing as written.

1/2 nl
$300 eff
Soft table

Villain is calling station. Usually when he bets big he has the goods.
Hero has been playing tight.

Hero raises in HJ with JT
Villain calls and also two to my right call

Flop gives me both an open ended straight draw and a flush draw. There is one over card.

I cbet and villain calls, heads up

At this point, pot is $100

Turn is a blank

Villain bets $100

Hero tanks and folds

Here's my thinking.

I have 15 outs. Hooking up my J is probably not a winning hand. I am getting 2:1 pot odds which makes this a coin flip. I figure I have no fold equity so a shove doesn't help me. I don't feel like flipping for $100 so I fold.

I can't tell if the over you mention is part of your straight (is it a Q?) or what you think your opponent is calling with.

Are you sure you have 15 outs, or is it possible your opponent has blockers?

Do cards that make your straight also improve your opponent's hand to 2 pair or trips?

It's hard to figure out your equity or implied odds without the exact board and your range for the opponent.

If your opponent is going to shut down on absolutely any straightening or flushing cards then you're right.

Bet/Fold isn't bad, you can also check/eval based on his bet speed/sizing.

This seems pretty neutral to me too, so it really doesn't matter what you do. On the minus side, 2 of your FD outs will also pair the board, which sounds like it may fill villain up. On the plus side, you said he's fishy so it sounds like chances are good to win more of his money than what's in the pot now if you hit, so implied odds are good (probably better if you hit your straight and not your flush).

You might want to examine if you're too tied to the money in your stack. You said "I don't feel like flipping for $100" - it shouldn't feel like $100 to you while playing. If you feel it's a +1% EV play, you should take it. (not saying this particular hand is + or - EV).

Thanks so much for the replies.

There were really two questions at the table. The first was, whether I had done the pot odds math correctly and it looks like I did. The second and more important question was, given that I was approximately in a coin flip situation, should I err on the side of aggression or conservatism?

I appreciate you comment re: +EV. But I am a recovering spew-monkey and I think part of that was having an overly optimistic idea of my hand equity. I need to reel that in. (Among other things, I miscounted my outs. There are 13 outs to a combo draw, not 15 )

I agree that 2p and sets are a big part of his range on the turn, giving him 4-10 potential outs. How do I account for this?

Friend asked me for thoughts on this hand

Straddled pot. Friend is UTG; villain is MP

Button straddles.
Friend raises to $16 with AKo.

Villain calls in MP.

Villain hasn't gotten out of line and has a big stack. 30ish white guy. He came from another table with a big stack and he'd only 3-bet once pre at our table. He had AA. He liked to raise to $10 and fire $10 c-bets to pick up pots.

Friend is 40something Chinese woman. Been playing pretty tight. Up about $120.

Flop is A78 with two hearts. She leads for $30. Probably a little big but she generally pushes hard when there are draws on board.

He makes it $100, looks comfortable.

Eff stacks were about $320. If she calls the raise, she will have a PSB left.

Call? Raise? Fold?

Honestly I fold here. It seems villain like to play small ball poker and suddenly he is raising a tight womens almost pot sized bet, I think the bottom of his range is often AK and he will often have 2pair+. He will occasionally flip a combo draw but we arent too big a favorate vs that anyways.

Tough spot. Seem to stem from the fact that you have a hand that you are hoping to make 1 big pair with, while you're OOP and your SPR is 10.
As played, in this situation against a tough player, no matter what you do, you will be making the wrong play some percentage of the time.

The solution to this problems lies preflop. You could keep the pot smaller, and get away from the hand easier, or you could raise more and be committed OTF.

All kind of horrible...

You're essentially justifying tight passive, and how to play to lose less.

I don't even know where to begin except to tell you that you should work on reevaluating your game.

I have <1000 hours of NLH play under my belt, so I'm no expert. But I have done my share of studying. Reevaluate? Good idea. I went back and read the relevant chapters in Professional No-Limit Hold'em. That hand and my assessment pretty much come straight out of the book.

I know that no book has all the answers. I know that the authors aren't the best poker players in the world, but I'm sure they are better then me and I've built some good fundamentals from them.

I don't understand why you think this. The strategy it to raise more or raise less preflop (preferably more) which helps you avoid difficult decisions later in the hand. What about that is tight, passive or -ev?

here's one from the other night.

i raise in UTG+2 or 3 with TT ... couple of callers. flop is 773. i c-bet about 2/3 pot. black woman, who i have played with before and isn't very good, goes about 2.3x my bet. i call. turn is an A. check/check. River 3. I check. She bets big. ...

I ... fold

ibik,

Seems fine depending on what kind of 'bad' she is. Looks like she had a 3.

Huh? Is your advice really that we should either have bet less or bet more preflop and that would somehow make the flop easier?

Let's first look at betting less. Open-limping AK is simply terrible and does not even warrant discussion. So how does only raising to $10 or $12 preflop make this hand any easier? We possibly get more callers and then have to play AK OOP against a slew of opponents instead of just one.

What about betting more? Raising pre to $20 or $25 is reasonable, if you think you will get called by worse, but that is entirely table dependent. Of course, even then, our flop bet will be $40-50, V raises to $150 and we are still folding. We are 160BBs effective (80 if you count the straddle); no single preflop raise is going to have us committed on the flop unless it is ridiculously large.

So, $16 preflop is fine. We want to be heads-up or three way OOP with AK and this bet accomplished that. The flop bet is also fine. You have to charge people to draw and this is a very draw-heavy board.

We don't know a ton about the V in the hand but against a competent player this is a fairly easy fold for me. The number of times we are against two pair or better are way larger than the number of times V is doing this with AQ or a non-combo draw.

this might be ldo but curious what 2+2ers say about this

a very good player and buddy of mine that plays 2/5 had just sat down and was sitting to my right - he was BB with JT (showed me his cards) in a 5 way limped pot. stacksizes were effectively $500.

flop was KQQ. he check-folded to a regular sized bet and a call.

good or nitty?

sometimes I play on the nitty side when I first sit down - not wanting to make the huge mistake with no reads. I think it's ok, there's some chance he's already drawing dead, and 2 of his 8 outs also bring a flush.

Edit: no flush draw, sorry, was looking at the HH on my phone. I still think the fold is ok, though

Both?

Good to fold, bad for raising or calling

solid

1/2 300 eff.

2 limpers, I make it 15 OTB with AJ. both call.

67Tssc. I bet 22. limper UTG calls, other folds. both players are very loose, so maybe a cbet isn't the best on this board but i have so many good turn cards to barrel.

Kd. think this is the perfect card to bet again if V is weak/tight but I've seen this villain look up light before. Just take the free card?

I'm betting 2/3 pot on the turn unless you think he'd continue with crap like 87, 86, etc.

Check the flop is probably better if these guys are stations.

Ya I find myself firing cbets at too high a frequency in bad spots where there's not likely much FE. But a lot of times these players call te flop real light and can't handle a turn bet if a scare card hits.

Check flop, bet turn.

$1/3, I new to table, daytime group. V is a middle aged Asian, seem to bet bigger than rest of table when he raises pre-flop, both times he's raised pre since I sat down (one was a three bet) he's c-bet for about half pot. The 3-bet one was into a crowd. Only hand seen at showdown so far was when he called a shorty's shove that was a slight overbet of pot. V had NFD with a weak suited-ace that called a PF raise.

V opens for $13, one call, Hero calls OTB with red TT. Effective stacks about $450 for all three of us.

Pot=$39
Flop As3s8d, V bets $20, other V folds. Hero? Seems like PPs 88-AA, lots of random Aces, and maybe a few K-high FDs that would love smaller FDs to come along are all in V's range here. Sound about right?

Floating here 100% of the time.