Hi all,

1/3 NL MGM National Harbor. Playing 6-handed early in the morning. I decided after a bad session the other night to short stack. I am hovering around $180 after buying in a second time for $100. I should have a very tight image since I have been extremely (extremely!!!!!!!) card dead all night long.

I finally wake up with QQ UTG and make it $10. The blinds call. Pot $30.

Flop: Jd-3h-7s.

SB checks, BB donks for $25. I consider the raise since I am beating his likely holding (a jack) but opt to flat and underrep my hand intending on raising later streets. SB folds. Pot $80.

Turn: Kc.

This time BB barrels nearly pot again, for $75. Hero? This hand was a difficult one for me since I was really close to getting unstuck at this point and did not want to lose a big pot.

Thanks,
DT

Reads on BB?

I would usually fold. TP changed and it didn't slow him down. Board is dry as can be, so there are basically no semi-bluffs in his range. Seems like KJ and sets are his most likely holdings, given a generic V.

V was 35 y/o of Asian descent. He had me covered. No real read other than earlier in the morning he tried to switch tables because ours was too tight.

Ez fold, KJ everytime.

why only $10 pre, is this the norm ?

if you call you only have $60 left so that's the worst option

if he's a loose gambler type Asian I shove

if he's tight I fold

depends on your read of V

I think I click it back on the flop and fold to a 3!. AP, fold now for sure.

I re-raise the flop prepared to gii, especially against a young Asian thinking the table is too tight. Maybe he'll gamble with his J or fold, and I'm fine with either. If he has me beat, so be it -- don't play with scared money.

I will honestly never understand the concept of wanting to get unstuck and/or not playing optimally because I'm scared to lose my stack. Sorry for the rant, OP, but just rack up if that's where your mindset is.

I'm cool with a shortstacking strategy.

One of the benefits of a shortstacking strategy is that we can get a huge percentage of our stack in preflop (I typically aim for 10%) to where we can just mostly blindly stack off postflop if we flop TP+ (due to our opponents never having the IO to justify a call with speculative hands, even if we pay them off every rare time they hit). So we took the worst route preflop, in that we only opened to ~5% of our stack preflop and gave 2 opponents terrific 19+ IO to stack us (which will be easy to do in what will be a small SPR 5.5 pot where it will almost be impossible for us to fold TP+). So either (a) raise much more preflop (to like $20) or (b) limp in to reraise (and with a tight image UTG this is the option I would lean to, but either one is fine). Preflop is *everything* when you shortstack and you absolutely can't get it wrong (like we have done here, imo).

As played, I'm cool with just flatting the flop on this relatively drawless board, and I now make a fold on the turn.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Shortstacking is fine; playing with scared money is not.

Just because you're card dead and short stacking is not a good reason to size down your bets.

In fact you should be doing the opposite, since your primary objective with a short stack is to get your entire stack in the middle with as few streets as possible. At MGM, I never go less than $15 pre and I'll sometimes go for a limp/RR UTG.

Don't slow play a single vulnerable pair - with a short stack I'm raising this flop to ~$100, planning on taking it down.
As played, pretty sure you have to fold. BB could be doing this with all sorts of random trash hands with Kx.

Flop:

I think BB could be doing this with 1) a bluff at a dry board, 2) jacks, 3) a set. Versus bluffs you want to call and let BB keep firing. Versus jacks, you may want to raise, but there's a limit to how many streets of value you can get if you do. Versus sets, you want to pot control.

Assuming a reasonable preflop calling range, BB will make jacks about 13% of the time, and sets about 5% of the time. But I think a lot of players would take a check-call line with jacks, so ultimately I'd say that BB has about the same amount of jacks as he does sets in his range. Given that you'd lose a lot more to sets than you would win from jacks, I would flat. Especially given that it helps you extract maximum value from bluffs.

Turn:

I wouldn't expect jacks to fire on the king turn, but bluffs and sets would. Maybe some bluffs that caught a king too. Which makes your hand a bluff catcher! Which means the decision here depends on how often you expect your opponent to bluff.

It's tough to say without any more information, but I lean towards folding. I'm not sure how many live $1/$3 players are two barrel bluffing much, especially without too many draws on the board. And a good chunk of the bluffs probably caught a king.

Well, that's exactly what I did after this hand because I realized I played it wrong for many reasons discussed (didn't raise big enough pre for whatever reason - I normally do raise at least $15-$20 - didn't raise/GII flop).

I folded my queens face up and villain proudly turned over the 10-8o for a gutterball he turned into a bluff...smh.

Don't ever show you hand in this situation. Everyone is going to be bluffing you off your hand in the future when an overcard comes to TP.