There have been some posts recently where users have been raised with overpairs on dry boards and people have been saying "all you have is a bluff catcher" or "wait for a better spot"

today i had a perfect example where these fish are simply overplaying their top pair

I open to 11 in HJ w/ KK stack~440

fish (stack ~ 800) dont know how he got to 800 as he would show his cards everytime he won a pot, including one time where he 3 bet me to 35 after i open with A5s in hj and showed me JJ lol. huge fish

he flats blinds fold

pot 25

flop- j 10 2 r

i bet 15, he raise to 40 almost instantly

I think for 10 seconds and flat

turn was a complete blank and I check call his 30 dollar bet OTT

river was another blank I know I should have led but it went check check and he had QJs

basically a lot of the time these fish willl raise you and you will be ahead

obviously sometimes you may run into a bigger overpair but even on super dry boards with AA like 9 5 2r gettng raised even alarge amount doesnt mean you are behind

It looks like English....

Seriously though, V pots OTF and you check/call a 1/3-pot bet OTT on a blank, then check the river on another blank expecting to check/call again and bluffcatch against what? You obv crush V's range given betsizing OTT, so just bet-call river and learn to play OOP.

I know I probably should have raised OTT and/or led the river

however on the flop obviously my only move is to call, no need ti bloat the pot OOP on early streets

thinking back I should have led the river for 100

I think raise-fold to $85-100 OTF given effective stack is actually better than calling two streets later. If V flats OTF, you can bet fold the turn for 1/3 pot if he ships. Gross when you have to fold, but maximizes value when you're ahead.

Why are you playing KK so horribly?

You should have doubled up here.

When you play your strong hands weak, you are balancing in the wrong direction.

I find it funny how you criticize V and say "how he has $800 playing the way he does I have no idea" and the you proceed to let him keep $300. Seriously, let's think about how you played KK here.

#1 you raise $11 which might as well be a min raise considering the stacks involved, V could just as easily called you w JT as he did QJ. So good job giving him fantastic implied odds.
#2 you let V take the initiative on a semi-wet board.
#3 you then c/c an incredibly weak turn bet
#4 you fail to extract any value on river

Add all that up and you have given V the gift of an extra $300.

You played this hand as if you had KQ instead of KK. Or as if you had AT.

Lastly, against the V you describe, TPGK or better is basically the nuts and you should be betting or even OVERBETTING each street and shoving river every single time despite board texture. Barring something ridiculous like a 4 flush or straight, you should have a raging boner in these situations and betting like a mad man.

In any event, thanks for posting. It takes courage to post our mistakes. Now, just don't repeat them.

Against these guys you can bet/call flop the. Bet/fold turn and river on bricks.

I really think that bet/3betting an OP here is really bad...

2/5 and higher people do not really raise with top-pair like that as much.... Consider this one of their "donk points"...

I am never in a million years bet/folding these kinda boards to fish w KK at this level.

Way too many rec fish will play for stacks with TPGK hands.

Sure, if V is an ABC player, scared money, or a nit we can b/f. Bit against a typical rec fish never.

Incidentally, OP's description of V and the way V played this hand tells me OP's read is wrong. V may have a bit of an ego problem (via showing his hands), but his game appears decent.

this is a 1/2 table i assume? i dont see what is wrong with that open. no matter what my stack size is at this level, it's a standard size for me. what would you suggest the pfr to be?

$15-20.

^ so this raises another question then.. if standard opening for me is $10 and table is $8-10 as well.. do you start increasing your standard depending on stack size then?

My standard raise in 1/2nl is $20 - $25 and I'll even go up to $35 given the right table dynamics.

We often forget how bad many live players are. Remember, they came to play to have fun, see flops, play their favorite hands, hope to get lucky...

Incidentally, I raise $20-$25 from HJ, CO, and BTN with JTs-AK, 99-AA. And what is hilarious is that if I get 3 callers and the board is 3 3 2r, I can take it down w a $15 cbet. If I get called then I just check turn (unless I hit) and bet river if a scare card hits A, K, or Q to fold out their 44-TT.

Basically, give your Villians a chance to make mistakes.

Seriously, in your next 2 sessions, try raising $20 with AQ, AK, JJ-AA just to get a feel for what I'm saying. Trust me, you will be surprised by the results.

Lastly, don't let villains whine you out of your raise sizes. At first a few nits may complain about your sizing, just ignore them.

OTF I feel my only move is to call

I hate overplaying hands, and I love to see multiple streets

so i call

OTT i feel the villain would bet 1/3 pot with a set or j10 bc its pretty obvious I have AJ or QQ+ or maybe a10

so on the river i decided to c/c bc of this

also this was the first heads up pot vs villain

he easily cold have had jj 1010 22 or j10 so i didnt want to 3bet him on the flop with an overpair

as played i agree his 30 or 35 on the turn, i forget exactly, should have been raised and fold to a 3bet

as for pre flop raising I hate opening for 15-20 seems so fishy

I love postflop play, opening to 11 with 0 limpers is my standard raise

I'm interested in your ranges. when you say TJs-AK do you mean all suited broadways like QTs? and what about the unsuited hands? AJo-AKo? KQo? I have been opening AQo and AKo with KQs and AJs and wondering if i should widen it a bit although I'm usually playing 50bbs so my raise size is only 15-20 depending on limpers.

I also have a very wide button opening range if it's opened to me without limpers which is rare and was wondering what you thought of me lowering my raise size or if i should keep it big?

So getting your villains to call their inferior hands for more than they are worth seems fishy to you????

But giving your villains 40:1 implied odds to stack you seems not so fishy???

If I knew my villains would call my shove then i'd shove. When you are ahead, you want to bet the MAXIMUM that you think your villains will call.

Look, live players have this thing about their opinions being above the math and basic fundamental poker principles. You've got to get over that if you want to CRUSH the game.

A basic principle of poker is that when you are ahead, you want more money in the pot. So if you have KK here and you KNOW your villains will call $20 pre, then your preflop bet should be $20, end of discussion.

Or basically, if your only argument for doing something is basically, "Well, that is what I do" then its not a very strong argument.

Give me some poker principles you can cite and or EV calculations showing why raising $11 here with KK is better than raising $20+.

I'm all ears.

In general, yeah, I raise all broadways from HJ, CO, BTN if and only if I'm at a weak tight fit-n-fold table coupled with me having a pretty good image which is probably 80% of the 1/2nl tables. Hell, just look at the way OP played this hand.

But I don't want to write a book here, we discuss this in the LLSNL sticky Venice posted at the top of this forum.

What you are basically saying is that labeling people as fish is totally insufficient and you have to actually identify how people ranges are different in all situations.

Yes, that is basically how we make money in poker.

OP, a big problem for most low stakes players is the idea that everyone is a fish but you. You are laughing at someone 3-betting with JJ? Calling a small raise on the button with QJs? Raising to gauge where his top pair hand is on the flop when you continue weak? These are all non-fish things. This guy might be the best player at the table. He might be showing hands to manipulate your decisions moving forward, like when you played KK like you were bluff catching with bottom pair instead of getting 3 streets of value. He might also be as you suspected, a fish. Either way, my point is that you seem to be judging the players at your table based on personal bias instead of on facts you collect by observing. Like saying, he shows his hands a lot, he's a total fish. He 3-bet and then showed me, big fish.

Awhile ago someone made a great post about labeling people fish based on one dumb thing they do. This is too small of a sample size. The one dumb thing you see them doing might be their biggest weakness, and the rest of their game might be spot on. Players aren't fish as a generalization, players are fishy for different mistakes they commonly make. You might play against some real big fish, but if you just label them fish and play into their strengths because you generalized, they will stack you. Instead of focusing on a generalization, focus on the distinct weaknesses or tells you pick up.

i wasnt laughing at him 3 betting jacks, i was laughing at him instantly showing me his hand after I folded

he would show his hand everytime he won a hand and seemed oblivious to the ga,e dynamics by th eway he played

after I sat down his stack sized dwindled, the weak table was the reason he got that stack size before i sat down

I don't think the villain's play is horrible by any stretch of the imagination.

In hand 1, he correctly knew you were likely opening light when folded to in the HJ and simply 3bet preflop with JJ for immediate value.

In hand 2, he's playing deepstacked, facing a very small raise, and will have position, so I think preflop is fine so long as he doesn't go nutso with TP postflop. On the flop he could easily think you have overs / gutshot / OESD / air, so he raises for value. Stacks are still deep so he's nowhere near getting committed, so I don't hate the raise. His turn bet is fairly small, probably too small, but again I don't despise it; sorta straddling the thin line by charging you for a draw vs not building too big of a pot for his mediocre hand. His river checkback is standard. I probably woulda played his hand a bit more passively, but whatever.

Tough to tell on only two hands, but he might not be the fish you think he is. Plus he's also sitting on a big stack, which is one of the first indicators that he might not be.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Question OP,

Looking at the way this hand played out, how would you rate how villain played his hand on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 being awful and 10 being spectacular?

Seriously, how do you think Villain played this hand?

Bonus points if you could give a blow by blow account on what villain did (from his perspective) and how you think it reflects his ability and understanding of the game.

i totally disagree, i see this crap ALL the time at 2/5. they put in a small raise to "see where they are at" get called and then get scared on the turn. OP i am leading this turn for value unless i am absolutely positive my opponent will bet if checked to in which i am looking to c/r.

Another possibility is that V raises on the flop on a draw which is something I love to do vs the preflop raiser when I have position and flop a draw

#1 I can win right there if V misses
#2 If V calls then usually V has a strong hand
#3 If V calls, they usually are going to go for a c/r on turn but....
#4 I can check back turn if I miss and see TWO cards (turn and river) for the price of a flop raise

I love checking back turn when I know V is strong and going for the turn c/r because so many V's are like OP. They have an overpair in this spot and instead of leading out on turn, they just go for the check raise or check call **shakes head**

So, I get two cards for the price of one little flop raise and then if I hit my hand, V pays me off an offensive river bet

The term "fish" should be eliminated from this forum completely. Especially when we are discussing 1/2 hands as it's safe to say that although there are some very experienced, thinking players at this level, we would all probably be playing 2/5 or higher as our standard game if we weren't "fish" at least on some level. I know I am.

I have complete brain melt-downs at 1/2 and still haven't met a 1/2 reg who doesn't at least sometimes.

Dgi, one thing I'd like to inquire is what do you feel about "pot-sweetening" raises. What do you do if for example you have 89s from UTG, open fold, raise or limp?

Do you vary your sizings based or your hand's strength? We all know it's exploitable, but if people are not exploiting it... why not?

I'm not opposed to pot-sweetening raises provided:

#1 Table is deep
#2 There are some super spewtarded calling stations that are deep
#3 I have a good image and table fears me
#4 Lack of aggro players in position who know what they are doing
#5 I have a potential nut hand (i.e. setmining or nut flush draw)
#6 Preferbly, i'm in position

If I have 98s UTG I open fold 80% of the time, limp 10% of the time, raise 10% of the time. When I raise, I'm doing so repping a top ten hand and it is not a pot sweetner raise. Now that I think about it, I never do a pot sweetener raise from EP since I'd hate to get 3betted with a potentially nut hand.