Two recent 1/2 Hands. Thoughts on the lines?

Hand 1:
ME: I've been sitting at the table for about 2 hours now. I'm definitely considered one of the tighter players at the table and have one of the larger stacks ($600ish). Villain in this hand doubled me up within my first 30 minutes at the table when I flopped a straight with AQ and he flopped two pair with KJ and we got it in on the turn. I've seen him raise hands out of the blinds like K6s and T9o. He currently has about 1k in front of him.



4 Players limp to Hero OTB with 85. Hero limps. SB completes and V raises to $10 out of the BB. Everyone calls.

Pot ($70). Flop comes 55Q

sb checks, Villain bets 25. All fold to Hero OTB who calls (This is bad, i think), sb folds..

Pot ($120) Turn: 2

Villain leads for $25. Hero Calls

Pot ($170) River: A

Villain bets $50, Hero Calls

Results in white: Villain Shows J4o

Hand 2
Directly follows Hand 1

Villain is a mid 30ish tag asian regular. Plays tight pre flop but is very aggressive post flop. Recently folded a $500 pot on the river for $100 to another player at the table who promptly showed him a bluff. He has about $400 behind. I cover.

Villain open limps in MP. Two more limpers. Hero is in CO and looks down at AT Hero raises to $15. (This has been my standard raise throughout the session with 1-3 limpers already in the pot.) Button and blinds fold. Villain and 2 limpers call.

Pot ($63) Flop K T 3

Check to Hero who fires $25. Villain Calls. Limpers Fold.

Pot ( $113) Turn T

Check to Hero who bets $50. Villain Raises to $125. Hero Shoves and Villain Calls (Is this shove correct or do I flat and wait to see what he does on the river. My gut tells me I should have flatted)

results in white I show trip Ts and Villain mucks and leaves the table. He claimed to have KT but I doubt that very much.

I'm pretty inexperienced, but I'll give my 2 cents worth.

Hand 1...I know players that would play this hand on the button this deep, so if your comfortable doing it, do you. (I'm not, so I don't)
raise the turn, to maybe $80 if you think he'll fire again on river (which it seems like he would do) if he checks river, value bet. (maybe even over bet the river, looks bluffy to some.)

Hand 2...all looks pretty standard. I think shove would be right there. Puke if he has K10.

I can't see results

H1 is standard.

H2, how deep are you. I know you said he had 1k+, but what about during the hand?
I mean... I don't think I'm doing the shoving with just trips 500BB deep. Although basoed on his play, hes stacking off with aces and any T OTT. I think I just go to calldown mode OTT.

Hand 1 I don't mind preflop if you are able to steal pots postflop -- if you're only calling to hit, you're losing money. Yes even deep. Flop is fine, his small bet indicates weakness, raising probably folds out too many weaker hands, you want to get value from 1p and I think the best way to do that is call now and bet later (by the way, suppose you had missed the flop -- great spot to bluff raise when the pfr leads weak and pretty much everyone else folds)

I'd make a small raise on the turn however, I expect to see a bluff just about never, this looks like a medium pocket pair that is trying to get to showdown cheaply. It is hard to get called by such a hand if you raise, but because his range is so weighted towards weaker hands we can still raise for value even when we're seldom getting called by those hands.

Why raise turn and not flop? I think you get called wider. If you raise flop there's the threat of two more large bets. If you raise turn villain may be thinking "I just have to make two calls to get to showdown". I could be wrong.

Hand 2 I wouldn't cbet flop, the only way that bet is profitable is if you get called by worse more than you get called by better, and since it's four ways that means one person must have Tx and nobody must have Kx. It's pretty ambitious. Also just because you check the flop doesn't mean you give up on the hand. If it checks around, you can significantly reduce the likelihood of your opponents holding Kx, and that might then make the turn a correct value bet. As played turn is good, his range is mostly Tx and you're deep so go for that value. Not many people can fold trips. There's also a chance he checks back weaker Tx on the river because your call looks scary and he doesn't want to get check-raised all in. It's often a mistake to rely on other players to bet their strong hands because a lot of the time they just don't.

Hand 1 you played for max value. Villain has a wide range and a lot of bluff in him. If you raise at any point in the hand, he's going to muck the bluffs in his range. If you call, he still has the opportunity to put you on a weak Q/pocket pair and try to push you off it.

If you raise the flop, what does he call you with? He'll be oop against a tight player with a deep stack.

His turn bet is polarizing. A bet that small is inviting a raise. He either has a monster hand or complete air -- he isn't making that bet with AQ. If you were oop, you'd have to consider raising here. But in position, it's a must-call. If he as a monster, you don't want to jam more money in the pot. If he has a bluff, you don't want to jam more money in the pot and let him fold.

I could see an argument for a river raise, but it would be a very thin one. If he actually has the ace he's now repping, he should be able to get rid of it. The only hand you beat that will consider calling a significant raise is AQ... And we can be fairly confident he doesn't have AQ.

Hand 2, I like the shove. You lose value against hands like qj that are attempting to semibluff and will fire a river barrel. You also lose value against tpwk hands that tried to bluff this card and now figure they have to fold. But there are plenty of river cards that will scare those hands and shut down the action.

If your read is that V (a) thinks he's actually ahead, (b) is tilting, or (c) thinks you're bluffing, and has enough to call, then this is a great spot to push. Ace-10 is around the top of your range. Your reraise looks fishy with anything other than a10/k10. If he has a strong k, he's going to strongly consider looking up your fishy reraise.

Thanks for this. Hand 1 was very difficult for me. I'm a LHE player moving over and it felt very unclean for me to not be jamming the crap out of the trips. In the end I felt like raising the turn would fold out a bunch of hands that i'm crushing (Overpairs, MPs and Qx). By checking the turn, it lets villain barrel off the river. Also, if villain 3!'s me on the turn, I may be forced to lay down the best hand. This could all just me being results oriented though.

Villain started the hand with about $400.

Sizing is quite important in NL.

It's very unusual for an opponent to bet a fifth of the pot as a pure bluff (Even though it was the case here.) After all, if he wants you to fold, he'd probably bet bigger right? A small bet usually indicates a hand with which they want to see the river/showdown cheaply. So mostly weak pairs or draws. Which means often you want to raise, either as a bluff or for value.

You're right that raising removes bluffs from his continuing range but I would usually assume his 1/5th pot bet already did that.

I'm apologize, i'm having trouble grasping what you're saying. Don't I WANT villain to barrel off with weak pairs or draws? I mean, if the flop wasn't as dry I think raising the turn is probably correct. If I raise the turn as is, what does villain put me on? Also, if he shoves over top of my raise it feels like a really bad position to be in. He could shove with a really wide range and put me to a really tough decision.

Hand 1 I am raising small on turn... $60 ish...betting river $100 ish

Only doing this if your comfortable bet/folding each street

Hand 2

I am c - betting here 100% against passive vilains, against an aggressive Vilain I am checking back for pot control. Otherwise I like your line vs aggressive player.

He's not going to "barrel off" weak pairs (he might make tiny blocker bets but that doesn't really count) and raising gets value from draws. And, raising also gets value from weak pairs sometimes. Not often, but sometimes.

As for your second point... yes, but. Yes it would suck if you got shoved on. But, this doesn't really happen that often. A lot of players are just plain incapable of bluffing for huge amounts. If they shove, they have the (near) nuts and you just fold. And the rest aren't value betting remotely thinly for huge amounts, meaning a huge reraise is polarizing, meaning it's probably correct to call if he could plausibly be bluffing. You don't have to be scared about folding the winner because some guy 3bet shoved the turn with TPGK because that rarely happens.

If you're scared to value bet when deep because what if you face a huge reraise, you're probably better off playing shallower because otherwise you just miss that value.