At 1/2 I prefer a flat call on the turn. I could say something about hero taking a passive line but at 1/2 that isn't really the concern. At 1/2 villain had a hand worth betting and somebody called, a raise probably gets called and hero will have a problem bluffing river. They gave you a great price on your draws, take it.

I do think hero needs to bet river as this hand has been played very weakly. I like $25 to get a call out of JX and possibly a few other one pair hands, if somebody hit two pair or a lower straight they may raise.

Hero is in a common ugly situation at 1/2. There are 3+ people on a wet board, it's very easy for multiple people to be chasing overlapping draws. In this situation hero not only can't be 100% sure the over cards are good but hero can't be entirely sure hitting a flush is good.

Yeah, if we raise turn and get a call, I’m not saying a Q or K is the nuts since it does improve quite a few hands to 2-pair or a straight. But I’d think we can still bet for value (I.e. were good >50% of the time). I’d just size down the bet to 1/4 or 1/3 pot to get a crying call from Tx.


I see what you’re saying. I was kinda assuming that many players
won’t raise river with 2-pair even if we make it $25.

Maybe Q8 raises whether we make it 25 or 50. Maybe not.

Just a specific thought experiment: if 87 only raises versus 25 but never versus 50, we’re missing a chunk of value, I guess 87 alone is probably about 10% of the value range of Tx+ that we’re discussing. So missing $200 of value (depending on stack sizes), 10% of the time is pretty substantial. Probably it just about balances out the extra $25 we make from the other 90% of the range by using the larger bet.

But if Q8 doesn’t raise the $50 but would have raised the $25 or if JT/J9 doesn’t raise the $50 but would have raised the $25 (at least some of the time), then I guess the $25 bet is clearly better?

I 3-bet PF, otherwise like the way you’ve played it but I put a chunky bet out here to 3/4. Lot of 2 pair combos out there and I’m greedy on the river with the nuts.

Raising turn allows us to more easily get all-in on the river. We have 40% equity versus AT and 35% versus KT. We are also ahead of hands that might call like QJ/KJ. Because our equity versus the calling range is so strong it’s reasonable to think we just want to build up the pot so we can win a larger amount on the river when we hit.

of course, fold equity helps, and we may have some…

In a sense, what we’re repping at 1/2 only matters if players are thinking on that level. Even if they are, BB can’t really call A9/K9/Q9/J9 with the BTN behind, so we should have really good fold equity versus him (maybe he’s a calling station and calls Q9 with BTN behind, but if he’s not, he folds that hand 100% of the time). BTN can have hands like A8/A7 or third/fourth pair that fold. It’s not unreasonable to think we take down the pot >10% time, and it’s possibly much more frequent than that.

Ok on turn ... see javi reasoning ... if we had a big hand on flop and didn't have the oppy to X/R, a trey is pretty much of a blank to foresee action. If checked to BTN and they bet small, then I'd X/R.

River - I'd go $40-45 as we unblock the big cards ... QJ/JT/J9.

Cr turn, we can rep a double slow play and no one seems that strong. If called we have plenty of equity and can bomb lots of rivers. I would overbet river as played as there are plenty of good hands available.

OTTH-

H calls the 7 dollar open with KQhh, and so does the BB. We see a flop 5 ways.

Flop (32ish)

10h9c6s

H x first to act, and the table checks around. Figured this was the easiest and simplest point in the hand history so going straight to the turn.

Turn (32ish)

10h9c6s3h

H now turned second nut flush draw, two overs, and a gutter, and is first to act and.... checks

BB x, Original opener bets 11, one fold, guy on BU calls, and h elects to just call, BB folds. A xr might be worth it, but at the same time I wouldnt know what to do if I xr and brick the river.


River (65ish)

10h9c6s3hJd

H rivers the nuts and....?

H leads out for 45, and gets no callers, and scoops the pot uncontested.

I think this hand is a good one to view because it once again shows the issues with playing OPP. If I was say the Button I would have most likely 3Bet, and I would have for sure raised the turn bet after facing flop/turn weakness.

3bet pre.

As played to turn, bet $20 or so. We can hit the river pretty big and we can build start a semi big pot for pretty cheap/low risk here.

Also, betting turn disguises our hand the times we catch a J.

As played to the river, I’d probably look to c/r. We didn’t bet turn and pot is small. C/r is probably best avenue to try to get some money in. If not one bets and it checks down, we were only gonna get a $20 call from TP or a hero call middle pair anyway. As evidenced by the results of the hand.



Perfect world, bet $20 on turn. Several call and we bomb river on that jack. And if they all fold the turn, it’s always a good outcome to scoop a pot without a made hand.

To add, this is an even better example why 3bet or fold from SB is almost never a bad strategy.

Debatable. We 3bet from the SB because it's the worst possible position to be in and reps the most strength precisely due to our disadvantage. Our strategy postflop will almost always be trying to maximize FE unless we just flop the nuts. However OTB we can leverage our position to make the most value with our hand, and 3betting from here is often seen as targeted which may entice the intial raiser to jam with a hand like TT that he may otherwise have elected to just flat call us with if he was able to maintain position. By calling OTB we'll never have any difficult decisions and tend to be able to realize our equity by pot controlling or whatever the situation calls for.

I dont think 3betting OTB with KQs as a squeeze is necessarily bad but I dont think it's an automatic decision like it is from the SB.

Agreed. We should be mixing a squeeze/overcall strategy OTB with KQs. Likely more overcalling than squeezing......something like 60/40 or 70/30. Table lineup depending.

I would amend your comment as above...

Just to add some detail to my comment, since I don’t want it to appear snarky…

I think if I were trying to extract a lesson from this HH it would be that the problem with playing draws passively from OOP is that when the draw completes and you bet out, it looks very strong because you are betting into multiple players who have not yet acted. Any of those players could have hit a draw and yet you are still betting into them. Even players who aren’t very good hand-readers can piece together that your betting out into the world looks pretty strong. Whereas, if you have a monster draw on the BTN, and the draw completes, and everyone checks to you (showing weakness!) it does not look nearly as strong when you bet. You are more likely to be bluffing in that spot, your opponents may recognize that, and call you down lighter.

About the turn play… the above reasoning would make me to want to c/r more from OOP than raising the same hand if you had the BTN.

About what you’re representing, a turn c/r in the SB would represent a double slow-play. Maybe they don’t give you credit for anything, because people don’t double-slow-play. That’s a fair point. But by the same reasoning, if you had the BTN instead, what hand would check flop and raise turn? Just 33? That line would look even more like BS, to me, at least.

Generally solvers like to check-raise a lot from OOP…so there’s another argument in favor of playing draws more aggressively, generally, in OOP, because it’s what the robots do.

Also, about pre: this is an auto-3-bet ion the BTN and in the SB for me, especially given the small open size which I’d also attribute to a weaker hand. Though I’d 3-bet always in both scenarios even versus a more standard 5x open. I do agree with the above posters that flatting is a bit more attractive on the BTN, essentially, for me, because we want to have a robust BTN flatting range, whereas we really don’t want to play many flats in the SB (if any at all).

Calling is OK preflop, I just prefer a raise with the two LP callers who are likely weak. Taking down the pot (11BB profit) would be easy money, but to get it heads up would also be fine, and KQs is a hand that we can fold to a 4bet if we think the original raiser is v tight

Or, in short, I reckon the squeeze is more +ev

You can almost throw out player reads when this player is at the table. Everyone plays slightly differently. Some go into a shell and wait for the nuts and others will loosen up. 3-betting $7 opens against this population is printing money. It's especially good when there's a callers between you and the original raiser. There's one guy who has a bet sizing tell. He opens to $7 with his weak hands and $10 with his strong hands. Every time I 3-bet him he says, "Ok. You can have my $7 if you want it that bad". He folded AKs on the button face up to a standard size 3-bet from my big blind last week. It's like he's requesting that I widen my 3-bet range against him so that he can fold & give me more money. If I ever folded AKs on the button, it would be face down with great shame.

Occasionally, there will be those that just flat the original raise with KK or something huge, but that's rare enough that you can always 3-bet KQ in this game.

@curdanol seems we play in the same room . I'm usually the white kid with the craft beer sweaters on with glasses. Would love to put a face to the screenname.

FWIW I always have a terrible time playing against him. His style isnt the problem for me, its adjusting to the rest of the table.

He brings the party with him People start jumping out of their seats at a chance to get his money. I LOVE playing at his table. He runs like God against me, but he loosens everyone else up. I almost always end up widening my 3-bet range pre-flop to try to pick up all the dead money from people trying hit a flop against him. I think I know who you are. Did you end 2022 on a heater (at least the last few days)? I'm 50 years old white guy with facial hair...usually wearing a Bruins hat .

I played at one $1/2 table that was going with him..... $5 button straddle, $20 blind raise, $40 blind raise, $80 blind raise every orbit. WTF!!!

Stop using people's actual name unless they are famous throughout the poker world. It is against our rules.

Oops. Didn't realize that. You can delete the posts. I doubt he'd mind and probably would appreciate the free advertising. I'm trying to talk him into making a YouTube vlog.