Had a few situations tonight where I wish I would have taken a slower pace with a couple of hands. I think I cost myself some money.

Hand 1
Eff stacks: $300

Hero is BB with 22.
UTG limps. UTG+1 raises to $12. SB calls. I call. UTG calls. Flop is Qh Jd 2h.

I check. UTG checks. UTG+1 bets $15. SB calls, I raise to $45. UTG calls, SB calls. Turn is a 7s ... No draws got there. I bet $100. Everyone folds. Really feel like a smaller bet, say $50, gets called here.

Hand 2
Eff stacks: $300
Couple of limpers. I pick up 99 and raise OTB to $14. Two callers. Flop is 9Q2 rainbow. One of the limpers/callers donk bets for $20 and I raise to $50. He calls. Turn is a blank and he checks. I fire $100 again. He folds.

The more I play $1/$2 NL, the more I realize that if you want to make money, you need to bet small. People will call $25-$50, but have a hard time calling $100. Do you see the same thing?

Obviously, when we flop a set we want to get paid as much as possible. We'd like to get a low SPR for the river and to do that, we need to bet substantially ... Getting the pot big makes it that much harder for an opponent to fold a TPGK type of hand. Obviously, you need a perfect combination of a weak opponent who can't fold TPGK or an overpair to your set.

I think these are two examples of wet boards that you have to protect against. Perhaps the Q92 board wasn't overly wet, but TJ is in just about everyone's range for a raise.

In the first hand, I wound up folding out QJ and 10K ... I should have been able to get paid off from those two hands.

bet like 70-75 ott in hand 1 imo but the line itself is good

hand 2 i probably call flop raise turn since theres 0 draws and its hu

and
when the table is like this, you're looking to loosen up and have these idiots fold. they sound like timid weak players who "know how to fold when they're beat" and are more likely to put you on big hands when you make big bets. this is really easily exploitable. they're also more likely to be the kind of player who tips their hand strength with raises etc, so their passive lines usually mean weaker hands. (obviously they can adjust if you start getting looser and more aggressive and let you bet off your stack while they call you down, so you need to be table image conscious in these situations)

to get your big bets called, get in more pots and push them off. eventually they'll either fold all the time = ez game or start looking you up/taking a stand

Both hands were played fine. It is a very rare villain at 1/2 who doesn't call with top 2 in the case. The K-10 folding out is a little more common.

Ask yourself this: how often will a player with QJ fold there? You can bet $50 and get called this time (and be giving the other villain nearly the right price to correctly make the call), but you will lose more value over time by letting the rest of the fish off of the hook too easy.

You have the hand. Punish them. More often than not, they will pay you off.

One of my leaks for some time was underbetting monsters to try and get "something" out of them. I have improved (room to grow still imo), and have found that by taking the hard line of betting hard has really helped my win rate.

no such thing, sometimes people just don't have anything and fold.

If I flop a set OOP, if the table is loose/passive, I like to lead out with my set. A lot of times, if nobody hits, it will just get checked all the way through. Leading out gives random gutshot hands like AK in your hand#1 to call the flop and also gives players a chance to raise you when they crush the flop with top two like QJ.

When you always check raise with a set, a hand like QJ in hand #1 is much more likely to play passively on each street because you are repping a monster like a set to a lot of these fish. When you lead out, you can give QJ a chance to raise your flop bet; you then can either flat and c/r AI on the turn--which would probably get called on blank turns--or you can 3bet his flop raise and get it in there. I usually prefer the lead flop, c/r turn vs. a lot of players...just depends on game flow, reads, etc.

Hand 1:

Even though we're OOP, I'm calling the raise with a pocket pair in what is going to be a 4-way pot with good effective stacks.

The board is pretty drawy plus we're in a multiway pot. I probably just lead out for a good size bet. As played, the preflop raiser's bet is really small ($15 into a almost $50 pot); the pot is $80 when it comes to us, I'd think about raising close to pot here on this board.

If I've counted right, the pot is $185 on the turn vs two opponents and the board is extremely drawy. I'm betting a good sized amount, $100 - $135 is probably decent. A $50 bet would be horrendous as it is offering well over 4:1 to people, so everyone could call with their draws.

If anything I think you slowplayed this a bit too much, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Hand 2:

Preflop I'd mix up my raising/limping along here, leaning towards raising.

Flop isn't very drawy (only JT) so I'm a little cooler with the slowplay on the flop here. A slowplay will make it difficult for us to get stacks in, but I don't think we're going to get stacks in against a weakish hand anyways. If villain has a good hand (lets say two pair) then I think we'll still have an opportunity for stacks. I don't mind flatting the flop to raise the turn.

GcluelessNLnoobG

You're being a tad results oriented. It's just another form of variance; you were dealt the 1/2 villian who folded top 2. It happens.
T c/r line does actually turn your hand face up, while leading out both disguises it, buuilds the pot, and gives V room to do something stupid.
Considering the long run, you'll do much better playing monsters ,like sets ,fast.
At least in hand 1, I don't think playing it fast was t problem, so much as taking a transparent line. There is obv a line where you stack vill holding top 2, but it's results oriented to agonize over it, after all, it's a lot easier to know the right play once you see the cards flipped up, or hear the 6th street show and tell session.

You're right about live villians thinking of bet sizes in absolute amounts instead of relative to the pot. They're not aware of how much is in the pot at all, a200$ bet is a big bet to them, even if there's 1000$ in the pot. Still, you have to bet your hand correctly, and underbetting here is really bad.

Let's say you flop top set HU , 100bb deep,and you lead out, V raises for half his stack with nothing but a gutshot. He will bluff off the rest if he misses the turn; if you put
him in, he folds. Is it plus EV to let a card come off?

So many factors can go into the decision making of one hand in poker, that it's always a 'it depends' situation, and you can't be taking rote lines if you have good reads on your opponents. Don't think "what could I have done in THIS one hand to get the $, now that I know what they had", it's results oriented thinking, and can lead you into making mistakes. Think about your overall strategy, and about how to play optimally in the game you're in

.

c/r in hand 1 is way too small.

HAND 1: You have to play these hands fast, I would have raised more on the flop u are giving really good odds for the original PFR or MP with a draw to call $30 more into a pot of $105. This sets you up for bigger value bets in heads up situations as well. I like to stick with bets that you can get all-in by the river. Pop it up to $80 on the flop and shove the turn if called.

As played there is $235 in the pot on the turn, just shove.

HAND 2: Likewise i am planning out my hand here and raising to $60. I raise donk bets as a bluff and I want to raise the same amounts with made hands and bluffs I would 3x the raise here because the pot is smaller, the donk bet is bigger in relation to the pot and there isn´t a cold caller in between the donk bettor and your raise. On the turn half pot and river half pot shove.

You should not c/r with a set. You should lead with it. A c/r on the flop it sends the message that you can beat any overpair or TPTK and you don't want to do that. On the flop a c/r against the pf raiser it's a very heavy hand play. You want to lead and give opponent a chance to raise or at least to call your flop bet and then call or raise the turn. You will make more money by leading into the pf raiser opponent instead of c/r him. You have a set and you want opponent to try to outdraw you if he's trying to flush. Don't c/r and force him to abandon the drawing. You're drawing too and you have more outs than him if he's drawing to flush. Of course, never slow play a flopped set! Nobody knows you have a monster anyway, therefore, it is stupid to conceal the strength of your hand. Backing off to a raise and then check-raising on the turn is a valid strategy (although not necessarily best). I do not back off when there is a third suited card on board. I feel that I have enough outs to disregard the possibility of a made flush against me. If you lose with a set, you'll lose a lot of money. If you don't, you are not playing your sets correctly. That's my experience and my oppinion in regard how fast to play a flopped set.

Che,

It's not possible to play sets too fast IMO unless you are overbetting the pot everytime.

Two thoughts come to mind:

- You can't just assume that whenever you get a set that because it's so rare you are entitled that someone will magically stack off to you, even at 1-2. It's probably that they had nothing of note.

- Generally do not make round $100 bets , and do not use bigger denomination chips if possible. This is a live tell I go by that is very strong. When people choose to use bigger denominations even though they have smaller, they tend to have the goods. I would think the logic behind it is that they don't want to give a tell by shaking with shoving a big pile of chips in. Also, using the hundred measure clues people in that it's a big hand, and they may re-evaluate. Bets like $90 gets called A LOT more often than $100 from my personal experience, and it's not because it's the $10 discount gives them the odds to call.

I'd like to hear thoughts on point 2 since I'm not sure this is consistent with what others have observed.

I agree with both your points but I will comment on #2 because that is a major strategic move for NL.

Yes, you are absolutely correct in regard how should you bet a set. In general if you want a call you should bet in red denomination chips like $90 would be just fine to get yourself the call you want. On the other hand if you want opponent to fold you should bet $110 in one hundred dollars bill plus two red chips. It seems that people seeing the $100 bill associate that with some kind of a greater buying value in the real world. That $100 bill is considered real money for some and most people associate that with the image of currency that they get to see when they cash theirs pay checks. That bill represent real money for some. But so are the red chips. So, yes, I agree with you.

For example: I have a pocket pair like 88 and I hit the middle set on the flop K,8,3. Pot=$200. I will lead like $90 and probably will get a call. On the turn I will bet like $140 all in red chips only and if I get called then on the river doesn't matter anymore because the opponent is almost commited and I expect to get called too. But if I've got AK and have a nut flush draw on the flop ,, I will need some folding equity (FE) together with my nine outs to bet profitably (here I don't put much value to my two overs because they may not be good enough to win a big pot even if I hit the Ace or the King). So in this case I will bet using three $100 bills all in hard currency to play with my opponent mind and hoping to get some 20-25% FE and either win the pot now or making my flush based on the number of outs with two card to come. This is especially good when you have position because opponent may make the mistake to check the turn and in that case I can check behind giving myself a free card (infinite odds) that may make my flush with that discounted card.


Che,