Hi, I just want to be critiqued in every street so results are posted because my stack is small anyways. Thanks!

1/2
Hero - $120-$130ish
Villain - 600

Hero is in game for $500, playing lag but only with raiseable hands, mostly in position. Have gone for an orbit or more without limping or entering hands. Villain defintly sees me as a maniac though.

Villain - Middle aged Asian guy, very passive. Seeing many $2 flops. Mini raised me a couple times preflop with Im sure were top tier hands. Seen him only put big money in when he has it. Maybe attempted a bluff here and there.

Hero is UTG+1 with 89, raises to $17 (tight table for the most part)
1 other caller, and Villain calls in SB.

Flop K::76
Villain bets $30 on a $51 pot. Hero thinks for a second and just calls. Kinda worried about other person behind him, who eventually folds.

Turn 6 Villain bets all in, Hero calls with open ended straight flush draw.

Villain shows KQ. River misses hero.

Q1 - Maybe I raised too early in the orbit with suited connectors?
Is this ususlly a fold in a tight passive table here?

Q2 - I labeled Villain also as nitty as he just loved to see $2 flops all day. Did I label him wrong, and that is why I just called the flop. I had enough money behind to push on flop and maybe represent AK or AA. But I kinda just put him on set right away. Is that just playing scared?

Q3 - Obviously the way the hand was played I had to call all in on turn. I slow called, thinking what if he already has a boat. Is there any chance we can fold on turn, with $70-80 left with a open ended SF draw? Maybe we are drawing to 2 outs?

Raising 17$ at UTG+1 with suited connectors when you are 60bb deep....is just horrible and you know why. OTF I am definitely raising here to represent AK or better. ppl having a set likes to c/r raise, not donk bet. donk bet line in 1/2 live is mostly top pair.

raising 98s UTG when your ~60bb should immediatley be removed from your game. playing lag, and opening anything somewhat playable from all positions, are very different. Unfortunately, I'd have to label your style of play as aggro fish, tbh.

once your opponent fires 30 into 50, your only decision at this point is to shove or fold. if you have any fold equity then shoving is ok. since your perceived as a maniac and have no fe, you should probably fold otf.

This is pure spew. You can't open 9bb with 98s from UTG+1 when you are at 60bb. Hell, even limping would be a mistake. You need eff stacks to be at least 120bb to do this...

So we go from bad to worse. You can't call 1/3 your stack on a draw when the call is going to leave you with one PSB on the next street. This is a clear shove or fold especially since you raised pf and AK should be in your perceived range if villain has half a brain. But even not, you have enough chips for fold equity and if called, you have 8 outs run twice...

Not trying to be snarky, but I don't think you properly understand the concept of fold equity. Whenever you are in these spots, you want to be the person shoving first. There is a SIGNIFICANT difference in profitability between shoving while on a draw and calling a shove while on a draw. A gigantic difference which is why flop is a fold or shove. Once villain bets that flop, if you call he is going to shove you on turn. You got to think ahead.

Your preflop raise in this spot is such a bad leak I don't think you properly understand just how bad it is. Based on this one hand, I would estimate that you are leaking -5bb/hr with these sorts of plays easy... Your decision needs to be based on more than just "well the table is tight passive" and you need to incorporate image, your perceived image, and STACK SIZES into the equation. You said you are stuck for $500, which means the table probably views you as a fish. So, since you are the fish, you aren't going to have much of an image. Which means when you raise, you are getting called/looked up more often. Case in point, villain called you with a RIO (reverse implied odds) hand and stacked you. That says alot...

This makes my head hurt. You do not understand what a nit it. "nit" is one of the most abused and misunderstood terms that gets passed around by people who want to "sound" like they know what they are talking about.

A nit is a player that plays a very tight and top heavy range. A nit doesn't overlimp or overcall. A nit is someone who would have a VPIP (voluntarily puts money in pot) of like 8% and a PFR (preflop raise frequency) of 4% meaning that out of the 8% of hands that he sees he's raising 50% of the time...

A nit is never calling a raise with an RIO hand like KQ, KJ, AJ, or even AQ and they definitely aren't doing it from OOP (out of position).

The player you describe is more of a LAG (loose aggressive) than a nit.

This thinking is dripping in MUBs. If your villain is competent, then sets are not going to be in his range that often here. Why?

Well, you raised $17 and you only have like $100 behind. So villain doesn't have the correct odds to set mine you with baby pairs. Conversely, if he has AA/KK then odds are he would 3-bet you (though he could just flat to keep your range wide). So, in this spot, villain's range should be more weighted towards 99-QQ, AJ+, KQ, KJs.

Once he leads out on flop, his range should shift heavily to AA, AK, KQ, and maybe even KJs since I believe based on your comments that you are perceived as the easy money on the table and thus he's likely to look you up lighter than he normally would.

Basically, full houses are going to be a really small portion of his range here. In any event, you shouldn't have made it to the turn with money behind. You should have shoved or folded flop.

When we play poker, our plan needs to be more than to just call and hope to flop/turn gin. We need to understand how to utilize position, image, and fold equity. As played, flop is a 100% clear shove or fold and I suspect both lines are probably close EV wise. But i'm too lazy to do an EV calculation.

Have more behind if you want to play scs

River is just simple pot odds

grunch: since I see DGI replied and his responses are almost always longer winded and more articulate versions of mine.

preflop: you don't have a deep enough stack for this to work. That being said, I don't think you should be opening this UTG+1 anyway. If you wanna be LAG fine, but learn when and with what to be LAG.

flop: now that you're here, you should just be jamming on top of the donk bet. The whole reason you raised 89 was so that you could get a draw to push. Now do it. Other than that just fold. calling is the worst option by far.

Turn: you're here now. Get it in. Nothing else to do.


I see an overarching problem in that you want to play LAG but have no seeming perception of stack size, position, or hand selection .Those are all pretty big prerequisites to good loose play.

Exactly all of this

thanks for inputs, I knew most my mistakes right away as I made them, believe it or not I have been folding these kinda hands all night long in EP, not even limping them, maybe I was just getting tired

It's good you're recognizing things. The second I do something liek this I get up. I either leave or take a break. It's a skill that's waaay more important than people realize.

I think this is very good advice. Folding well and quitting well have to be in the top five skills needed for successful SSNLH. I wonder what the other three would be? Here's a stab.

1. Don't play crap. Patience pays.
2. Play in position, especially draws.
3. Mind the short effective stacks. Short stacks -> tight play.
4. Fold well. Bet made hands; fold to sustained aggression (without the nuts).
5. Quit well. If you say "I shouldn't have done that," walk.

Totally transparent, exploitable strategy I know. But for SSNLH, where few are watching or exploiting, not so bad?

Corollaries (with titillating innuendo):

A. The less you play, the more you watch; the more you watch, the more you know; the more you know, the more you play well. Like to watch!

B. Putting more than 10% of your stack in play is like going on a third date. Do so only if you are prepared to go all the way!

If the money is going to go all in on the turn and you have a strong draw you just want to shove the flop with the stacks being so short for maximum fold equity.

limp/call pre. Are you raising to balance your ep range or something? And why are you raising so much?

I would consider topping off your stack to at least 100bb before starting hands.

As played your stack is really small and your only choice is shove/fold in that order. Your equity will normally depleat on the turn when you have bricked and then you already have a ton of money in the pot.

Also what was your read on the guys lead on flop? did you since strength or weekness. Im normally shoving with your stack size here.

Limp calling is worse than raising. Limp/calling should be reserved for your 70th wedding anniversary and you forgot to refill your cialis.

So, limp calling. What is so bad about it if you have, say, 4 limpers, you are in LP with 55 an limp, the BB pops it, and everyone in front of you calls? This happens a lot in low stakes.

The problem with limp calling OOP is that is exactly how you bleed yourself dry.

Lets look at 5 limp calls from UTG, UTG+1, and MP. over the course of 3 orbits

#1 we limp, whiff flop and fold. lose 1bb
#2 we limp, someone raises 4bb, 3 callers, we call because we are "priced in", we whiff and fold. lose 4bb
#3 we limp, flop mid pair, we call a 3bb flop bet, turn is brick we get blown off hand and fold. lose 4bb
#4 we limp, whiff flop and fold. lose 1bb
#5 we limp, whiff flop and fold. lose 1bb

Total. We lose 11bb which is almost 20% of our starting 60bb stack.

So we bleed 11bb in limp/calls alone in just one hour . Then factor in the SB and BB for 3 orbits and that is 5bb (assuming we complete once from the SB)

So, in 3 orbits (1 hour) because of limp/calling from OOP we end up depleting our stack from 60bb to 44bb which is HUGE.

Not only that, but when we do finally get a good hand and get all-in vs 2 opponents, that missing 16bb means we lose out on an additional 48bb of profit. Or, we are in a situation where we could benefit from the fold equity of the additional 16bb which we don't have.

When you are short stacked, limping from OOP is a huge leak. don't do it.

if you have the odds to setmine, then you can profitably set mine. But part of having the odds is having enough money behind to realize the proper odds. In order to profitably setmine, the standard 5 years ago was to have a minimum of 11:1 in odds. Now, the poker community has shifted more towards 15:1 and even 20:1 odds.

So, if you are only at 50bb and someone raises 4bb then you don't have the correct odds to profitably setmine and calling to set mine is -EV.

Most players don't understand that correct +EV play is actually a function of chip stack.

If we are at 50bb and someone raises 4bb we don't have the odds to set mine and calling is -EV.

Take that same situation except we are at 100bb, and we do have the odds to set mine and calling is +EV.

this is why you will hear us grinders CONSTANTLY talk about the importance of topping off our buying in full. It actually impacts the profitability of certain plays which will impact your overall game.

This most definitely answers my question about 1-2 games that have a 100 cap buyin. I knew that feeling of an "uphill battle" was for real!!

It's just nonsense trying to catch up short stacked. Lesson learned, on and off the felt. Good post!!

I actually almost completely took limping away from game. That is why I didnt limp 89S, it woudlve cost me less but if I was doing that all night long I wouldve been broke alot sooner. I think deep stacks should barely limp too, call raises to set mine or what not is fine.

If you had a million dollars on the table you have every option available.
If you had $2 on the table in the big blind you have 0 options available.

You want to think about your stack size and ask yourself if it's limiting your options. If it is you're costing yourself money.