Here's my interepretation of the hand as played from the villain's perspective (just for fun)



"tight fish" 220 big blinds deep makes a weak open to 11 in the HJ. I have been crushing the table on a sick heater(also showing a lot of hands just for fun) and decide to call on the button with QJs. My reason for calling is,

I have him covered, we're 220BB effective, I have a suited broadway, I'm in position, and also, he's a pretty tight player so I think I should be able to take this pot away from him on the flop or the turn a fairly high percentage of the time.


POT 25


flop-J 10 2 r


Villain bets 15, I raise to 40 as I'm fairly sure I have the best hand. With the J and the 10 out, I think gutshots, overs, low pocket pairs, are going to be a large part of his range.

I would prefer to take it down now, and if he calls, I plan on double barrelling if a blank comes up on the turn. If I pick up a good draw, and he checks, I will consider checking behind.

Villain calls.


The turn : total blank

Pot: 105


I go to bet 75 as villain showed weakness again by checking but accidentallly put in the wrong amount. My bet was 30. I plan on shutting down completely if villain calls as he tends to play pot control with his one pair hands and doesn't like to get much money in unless he has a set. Maybe it was stupid of me not to check back but w. e.


The river : another blank

Pot: 165


Villain checks.

I Decide to check behind as the pot has already gotten quite large, I have showdown value,

and villain could easily be check calling with an overpair, or checkraising with a set.

I feel that I am probably behind and don't have much fold equity if I make a thin value bet. I briefly consider shoving as there's a good chance it might get him off an overpair (why did he check two streets), but can't find my balls

and check.

Villian shows KK and I lost the minimum!! I rule!!

Do you really project this much? Ranges? Tight player, redraws and stuff this never cross the mind of a real fish.

What you wrote seems like woolly thinking of a "decent" player. You can't get to think like a fish if you project him thinking like you do but with flawed logic.

Fish thinks like

"Nice, QJo I have top pair. I'ma raise here because I have top pair."

"He called me, that's weird. I'ma bet low here because I have top pair."

Actually he doesn't think the word "because" cuz his reasoning for making decisions doesn't involve real information at all

So, let's say you have TJs in LP with 3 limpers.You're raising the exact same amount as if you had Aces? What if one limper has like 40BBs... and what's the real point of isoing TJs?

And you talked about 99+... 88 you would be limping behind?

pvgiar, you're right, an inexperienced recreational player is going to think like this,

What I'm trying to say is that a half decent, regular who is maybe on tilt/ or has been playing a very long session/ is improving his game but still isn't very good might play the hand the way I described.

I played a 1/2 home game not that long ago that lasted a lot of hours (20+) and I can tell you, although there were some good TAGs at the table, after this long of a session, pretty much all of us were a bunch of level 1 monkeys.

Opening to 10BB is fishy because hopefully you're opening more than just the top 5% hands, and then what do you do with your weaker hands? Open to 4BB? Fold? Still open to 10BB?

Most of the time I won't have the big hand they're hoping to stack if they flop gin. You deny implied odds against your range by playing more aggressively with a wider range.

Bingo, if you have a non nit opening range I am going to only get called by hands that have me crushed the majority of the time if my standard open is 10BB. If you get a table that flats 67os for 10BB than good for you I guess, I havent played 1/2 in forever so maybe that's how it is. Or if you are at a table with no real competent players and you don't have to worry about balancing then it might me max EV to open up 10BB with all top tier hands, and open to a more standard amount with 89s hands, etc. I saw you included j10s in your range, which of course is a standard open, but lets pose a hypothetical for opening it to 10BB. On most standard 1-2 tables, not full of crazy drunks, gamblers, etc, when you open that much, in my experience at least you will only get called by hands that mostly crush j10. Now like you said they are most likely fit or fold players so you can still win the pot the vast majority of the time when they pick up no equity on the flop. But you are essentially playing the hand in hope that they don't hit, in which case you might as well be opening any 2 to 20 by that mindset. Now obviously there are still times when you can flop a lot of equity with that hand and get paid when they hit as well, but I think you get my point. Like I said, I haven't played 1/2 in ages, so if ppl will call 10BB raises with ranges that j10,qj etc is still in decent shape against then by all means go for it. But I have no qualms with a $11 open with no limpers. And if you are playing with complete droolers who don't study bet sizing then you can raise your premiums more and forget about balancing.

As for the KK hand you have to look at the dynamic of the entire hand, it's not really the same situation you were mentioning in the beginning about only having a bluff catcher. This isn't the same thing as some nit c/r you on a ragged dry flop. It's a player with fishing tendencies who made a smallish raise in position, most likely to see where he was at. Against a player like this I don't mind getting it in with KK, if he has no fold button I might consider 3betting flop, but I think most optimal line is flatting flop and leading the turn and being happy about it.

I agree that OP probably could have gotten some more value out of the hand (playing oop really sucks, doesn't it...), but I think you're being a little harsh.

I think the opening raise size is fine. When stacks are this deep, there's basically no reasonable raise size that can completely eliminate villains' implied odds... Even raising to 20 gives good setmining and suited connector odds. In fact, raising bigger preflop could actually bloat the pot so much that it makes it harder to get away from the hand post flop. We're deep, we have to accept that and make the best adjustment possible, which is to not give our whole stack away if we do get sucked out on. With 220bbs effective stacks, I don't think it's unreasonable to exercise a bit of pot control when villain tries to build the pot on the flop. That being said, after the small turn bet, we should be able to value bet the river pretty comfortably.

Also, maybe you play in different games than I do, but I'm pretty sure that if you raise to 20 preflop, overbet the pot on every street and shove the river, you're going to be value towning yourself way more often than you're getting called by worse.

As far as opening 10bb, thankfully the fish don't f***ing pay attention and notice that my raising 10bb now is different from when I raised 4bb an orbit ago. I think the mistake so many make on 2+2 is we forget just how bad the rec fish are. They have their favorite hands, their lucky hands, or flat out just love the rush of hoping to get lucky.

And as far as raising wide, IP, I'm not raising if half the table is short stack... Basically I pick my spots and target weak tight fit-and-fold tables.

Players at these tables love to complain and talk tough, but all their adjustments are passive and transparent.

You lost lots of value in this hand and I am sure the "fish" was happy you played it poorly

this is really good. how nice is it to raise to 20-25 with 33, get called by QQ-JJ instead of 3bet and flop that set

I agree, i definitely should have realized that the majority of his range OTF was Jx, maybe KQ, 89 and reraised

also most players wouldnt raise a set on this board, so really the only hand i shouldhave been worried about would be j10

optimal play would be to 3 bet the flop and fold to a 4bet

villain likely would call on th eflop and reeval OTT

as played I should have check raised the turn or led on the river for 90-100

villain likely would call the river lead

????

Not sure we are saying the same thing. What I'm saying is that if I limp w 33 and QQ raises 4bb and several people call then becuase I only limped and see I'm getting decent direct odds, I can call.

But if I raised 3bb as a pot sweetener, now QQ can 3bet 10bb+ which would destroy my implied odds and price me out.

That's what I meant.