we're 100bbs deep, he's not good, i have position, he gives me the opportunity to get in a heads up pot with him, i have T9, i take the opportunity!!

fwiw i made a good call on the flop

Fold pre the first time. You're 100 BB deep UTG.

There have to be better spots you can get this V UTG.

Also, even bad players don't usually 3 bet that light. You said he hasn't been crazy pre. So, you should NOT want to play pots where he is 3 betting. You aren't deep enough to draw vs. the top end of his range.

wrong

yeah there are for sure better spots, not a shining moment of mine, wanted to play the hand and limping is bad, then just couldnt deny the opportunity to play a HU pot with the worst player at the table.
surely it is not the worst poker sin youve ever seen for a good player to want to get heads up in position against a bad player with ATC

but yes, better spots surely would have arisen.

Nothing wrong with sometimes opening UTG with T9-off into a line of tight, foldy players. I just hope Jim Bob isn't making a habit of it.

If he thought the vill was uncharacteristically weak on the flop, that's when he should have tried to steal that pot with a raise that would deny the vill odds to play a flush draw. If that didn't work, then give it up on the turn.

As to why the vill checks dark on the river with the nutz, who knows? Maybe he did it because he knew ahead of time he was going to check, and wanted to make it more likely Jim Bob would bet it? Maybe he just decided to check dark for the halibut? Sometimes players will do some of the strangest things for the strangest reasons.

Even bad players don't usually have ATC when they 3 bet. Your read in the OP was he wasn't that crazy pre flop. It was a good read, you should have followed it.

I've certainly seen worse, good decision to not bluff at the river.

yayyy +1 and agreed!

I more dislike the call of the 3 bet than the original raise.

OP probably shouldn't be opening T9 if they can't fold that turn, though, can't be raising mid value hands if you get married to them later on.

oh boo hoo hoo i wanted to play a hand with the fish!

did you overlook that he CHECKED THE RIVER DARK WITH THE NUTS????

after hearing that you should jump at the opportunity to get in heads up pots with him!! any two will do!!

Not in a 3 bet pot. Not on that turn.

I tried to help. GL to you.

cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Ts 9d 383 38.69 607 61.31 0 0.00 0.387
Kc Qc 607 61.31 383 38.69 0 0.00 0.613

no, you really didn't

you're calling him bad for checking the river dark with the nuts. i don't know how bad it is but at the very least it isn't standard and i wouldn't peg him as the worst at the table simply because he is unpredictable.

wanting to play a pot vs a guy simply because you are better than him doesn't make playing a pot against him good in all scenarios. i think this is the most typical thing decent players do that prevent that from being somewhat solid. fold pre, if not on your first action, then at least when you get 3b by the bad unpredictable player who's hoping to check dark / raise river against you

Raising T9o UTG and then calling a 3bet is really really really really bad. Villain may be a fish, but ....

so are you

Jim Bob may be a fish, and then he may not be. You can't pass such a judgement based on one hand. Take another good look at his vill:

The vill meticulously lines up all the lines on his chips. He's not paying attention to what's going on around him. That's a definite sign of a fishy player.

If you're at a table with tight, passive, weak, foldy players, then raising T9-off occasionally, makes sense and several good things can happen;

1) You win the pot, and get a free orbit.
2) Everyone folds to a terrabad player in one of the blinds. You're HU and in position.
3) Someone plays against you, putting you on AK. You flop: T,7,3-rainbow. He calls all your bets to the river with A3-off when an A or K doesn't show because he "knows" you're stubbornly bluffing with a whiffed Big Slick. (This is either a very good play, or a very fishy play. If I range Old Lady Nit as narrowly as QQ+, AK when she finally pops from UTG, then I'll call with ATC from the button and take my chances.)
4) You flop a monster.

Calling with it is going out on a limb, but consider what the vill did:

We already know this vill doesn't pay attention. Here, he was totally unaware of who, and how many, players were in that pot. His comment and behavior just wreak of impulse bluff. Here, Jim Bob should have repopped. Calling wasn't totally incorrect either.

Where Jim Bob went wrong was on the flop by not raising big to shut out the vill's possible flush draws or making him make a mistake by calling without odds. That's the A Number One thing I didn't like about Jim Bob's play: he didn't have the courage of his convictions, and didn't back it up before the fishy player drew out.

Give me Jim Bob's hand and situation, and I would have put his vill to a stack decision pre by repopping him with a pot-sized reraise. If the vill gets stubborn, calls and draws out, them's the breaks. File it away for future reference and reload.

That's why we're here: to learn how to do it better next time, right? If Jim Bob were another Durrrr he wouldn't need our advice, would he? (And don't forget that when Durrrr started out, he, too, was an absolute fish. Some fish stay minnows their whole lives; some grow up to become Great Whites.)

The guy three bet pre, the ace of the suit is on the board, and we're raising with middle pair to price out flush draws??? Super results oriented thinking here.

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[x] i played this hand poorly
[ ] i'm a fish

moving on now

I do this after about 4 hours at the table out of sheer boredom during the down time in between hands. Just sayin...

I hate this raise because it is simply too low. Too many villains at this level will call and then you are playing an inflated pot out of position vs calling station and droolers in which you have zero fold equity. So, either raise more to get heads up or don't make this sort of raise.

Or, this raise is fine if the entire table is 200bb deep and plays horrible post flop. But if this is the typical 1/2nl table, then there are probably a few 50bb and 40bb stacks so your raise in this spot is just -EV imo.

What you didn't say is what you thought V's range is when he 3-bets you. If we go with typical 1/2nl 3-betting ranges this is AQ+, QQ+ If we loosen up a bit then we can range V for AT+, KQ, JJ+

So, a call isn't necessarily terrible if we knew V c-bets flop and then shuts down 100% on all turns when he whiffs. Or, if we knew V is heavily weighted towards AK/AQ and then we could steal all non A, K, or Q flops.

But calling "just because" we think V is terribad is terribad in itself. This is by far my biggest leak so I'm super sensitive to this mistake. I have a recording on my smart phone reminding me that isolating terribad players when I'm holding terribad cards is terribad and not to do it. It's hard because we want to be heads up and thrash the terribad players, but we have to remember we still need the right cards and situations to do so. We can't force a round peg in a square hole. So, barring that you really have no range for villain or post flop plan, you need to fold to the 3-bet. Snap fold to it.

As played, I would rather you 4-bet than call the 3-bet.

THis is just a huge mistake. I would expect V to make a weak as bet like this with Axs or Ax rag or even JJ/QQ and then the whole time he is betting weak because in his mind he is weak and you are calling him down thinking, "Yeah he's weak" and then come river he still has a weak hand that beats your even weaker hand.

I mean, do you think he's betting 99 or 88 here? Again, notice you haven't really put any effort into ranging villain besides "he's weak".

We need to remember that in 1/2nl villains just don't bluff enough for our bluff catching in these spots to be profitable. In fact, if villain is bluffing he most probably is bluffing with A3 weak sauce that he is convinced is a losing hand when in reality he is bluffing with the best hand that beats are terribad hand. So yes, you might be picking up on the correct tells but you are incorrect with your readings, that is, you are interpretting weakness for nothing and that is most likely not the case in this spot. What is more likely is that in villain's mind as relates to the board, he is weak, however he still beats you. Understand what i'm saying.

As a consequence, you level yourself into making a really bad call

The bold is a leak. First off, in 1/2nl you should know that villains LOVE LOVE LOVE to check river when they are super strong so they can go for the check raise. Its one of the most ******ed things about 1/2nl. They will chase the nut draw, hit the nut draw on the river, check and then we check back our TPGK and then they show the nut flush and say, "Damn, I thought you were going to bet". This happens all the time so the fact you are surprised shows you don't really understand 1/2nl. Sorry if i'm coming off as an ass, but its the truth. The fact that he checked river with a super strong hand is par for the course in 1/2nl...

Second, if he has the flush he isn't going to be thrilled with the Ace pairing. And again, 1/2nl players aren't all that versed in value betting so again, his check back on river based on how most 1/2nl players play is not that bad. Yes, its bad from a 2+2 standpoint but in terms of the normal player pool, its standard.

Lastly, I absolutely hate how you've leveled yourself into hero calling in this spot. And the reason I hate it is because this is something I used to do all the freaking time. Easily my biggest leak by far.

I focus in on a terribad player and then I become an even bigger donk then him as I chase him down with mid or bottom pair on super wet scary boards pumping money into the pot like an idiot...

All of this was based on my ego and the ol' "I'm better than him, I'll just out play him" narcissistic trap of ego.

You need to take a step back and think about this mistake because if you don't understand the root causes then you are doomed to repeat it.

In my case, the root cause was ego and it is still something I struggle with. I have developed a whole series of rules and routines to combat this problem and I go 4 or 5 sessions in a row without making this making. I hope to eliminate it all together before I move up in limit....

Not trying to brow beat you, cross posted this right after you posted. I just wanted to comment because this is easily one of my biggest leaks I struggle with.

Super lack of reading comprehension skills here.

dgiharris,
i really do appreciate the time you took to go through the hand. can't say i disagree with you at any point. periodically (as in like once per session) i 'feel like being a hero', which is bad. really bad, in fact. but your advice on the hand in particular is quite applicable and i understand what you're saying. i particularly found this part interesting:

because i am definitely guilty of that from time to time. thanks again for giving your reasonable, respectful feedback.

I felt compelled to post this type hand as it comes up fairly often.

Hand 1:
In SB 4 limps to me with J7ss
call, BB checks

Flop: 25Kss ($12)
UTG bets $7 folds to me I call, BB folds (HU)

Turn 8s ($26)

SB bets $10
hero raises to $25 (thoughts here)

SB reraises to $50 (thoughts here)


Hand 2:
UTG ($350) raises to $10
MP($130) calls
hero BB($400) calls (67hh)

Flop: ($31) 458ss

hero leads for $15
UTG calls
MP calls

turn: Jc ($76)

Hero bets $50 ?
UTG calls
MP calls

River ($226) Ts

Hero?

after replys i will show thoughts and results.....

Hand 1 i think i would raise turn bigger, maybe like to 31, to me the minraise from him generally means "if you go over the top i'm folding", i would go ahead and flat.

Hand 2
i like flop and turn lines and i like your sizing. river is very villain-dependent but i usually b/f in this spot, something like 1/2PSB and fold to a raise.

jimbob: do you still think calling the flop was right?

no, though i think raising against this particular villain is spew because theres such a tiny part of his range we're folding out. so since i think folding is best, it becomes even more clear i should have just folded pre.

"Where Jim Bob went wrong was on the flop by not raising big to shut out the vill's possible flush draws or making him make a mistake by calling without odds."

Again, what possible flush draws are in his range? And why do we think villain is miraculously going to call us without odds a lot here? Any two overs have decent odds to call almost any raise we make on the flop due to the gutterball draw + potential they have at least 1 club. The only "bad" call they can make is with underpairs.

This is spewy to me. If we raise flop it's because we think we can get fold equity here by representing a big hand. This sounds like the wrong villain for that.