Hi everyone,

I have been a recreational player for a few years now and I am now ready to start improving my game so I can hopefully start being a winning player.

This is from a hand I played in a live event yesterday:

Blinds: 150/300, Stack: 27K

I pick up Ah Kh in the small blind, someone in mid-position with a stack of 24K raises to 700. It folds round and I re-raise to 2200. The BB folds, the original raiser calls.

Flop:
2c Qh 8h

I check to him, he makes it 3500. I call.

Turn:
2s

I check, he makes it 8000. I go all in for 21K. He has 10K left behind and calls the all-in. He shows AQ.

River:
2h

I make my flush but he wins with the full house and I'm out.

I'm sure I didn't play this optimally at all post-flop. I was hoping with the re-raise all-in on the turn that he would put me on kings or aces and find the fold but I guess with 10K or so left behind and top pair that was never happening.

I feel that regardless of the fact I would have lost a lot of chips in this pot whatever I'd done given the two hands involved, I could have at least kept myself in the tournament..

What do you guys think?? Was I too passive post-flop, should I have led?

Appreciate any feedback

id c-bet small otf to:
- pick up the pot right away if he folds
- narrow his range if he calls
- make pot bigger for scenarios when we complete flush and win.

Slightly larger 3b oop. Definitely leading the flop and barreling turn. I don't see us not stacking off here it is what it is. Line is too passive though.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

A standard 3 bet out of postion is normally about 3.5-4x. This is because its harder to play pots OOP so we want to give worse odds to our opponents to play in position against us.

The flop is actually really good for our hand. But even if it wasnt people only flop a pair about 1/3rd of the time. So we need to continue showing strength and cbet the flop about half pot. This puts them in a tough spot with all non paired hands and JJ-66 which they called with that may fold to a Cbet. The turn doesn't really change much and you should bet again to fold out any hands which floated you on the flop. A lot of there 8x hands will fold the turn to another bet which is great for us. Our hand also has alot of outs which could potentially give us the best hand Any heart, K or A. This river is one of the worst cards in the deck most of villians range is Qx after they call flop and turn so now they have a full house. With three dueces out there Dont be fooled thinking our flush is a good hand. By this point it is an easy check fold.

Your line doesn't really make much sense check calling flop and then raising all in on a deuce. If you had AA in this spot you would mostly likely bet the flop. You allowed yourself to go broke in a spot where you could still have about 15k left.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Id be 3b to 4-5x pre here , the stacks are deep and he has position. We need to use sizing in which v has an actual decision vs our range, if we make it too small he can basically continue with 100% of his opening range now because he has great implied odds behind along with position.

Postflop plays itself really, we smashed the board with nut fd and 2 overs, so we are always looking to see all 5. Fine to cb close to 100% after 3b pre as we can have the very top of our range here with AA,KK,QQ,JJ,TT AK,AQ. Looking to double barrel turn and decide river.

I would 3bet pre to a bigger sizing. Something like 3.5-4.5x his open. I would lean to 3.5-4x his raise bc you will be flatted a lot with small sizing and playing out of position which sucks with ak when you don’t hit an a or k. I would also lead the flop and prolly bet turn if called due to your draw.

As played, I wonder what opponent does if you bet flop. You might get raised if you Cbet flop for opponent to see where he is at,etc but not sure with passive live play. Won’t this line, you prolly still get it in. I think your jam on turn is a little bad bc you are only called by hands that have you currently beat on turn. You have equity but this is a meh spot to get 90bbs in with one card to come. As played bad luck you hit flush and still lose.

The major problem I see with your line is not cbetting flop. Against his range, you will most likely get a lot of folds with his non qx hands I feel so betting flop is big. You 3 bet pre so I like the semi donk lead into your opponent as you were the pf aggressor. Not a fan of checking flop and letting your opponent check back in position to see a turn. For example if your opponent has j10 or a pair such as 1010,jj, 55,66,77 you let your opponent see a free card where you can double barrel and most likely take hand down with pure aggression.

Finally, your turn shove.... you have no 2s in your range really and most likely you will not take this line with your turned 2s. I wouldn’t try to rep specific hands such as kk or aa here bc live players tend to play very much so based on their holdings. Aq is the nuts to your opppnent here and he is never folding that turn most likely

As noted, 3-bet pre is good, but should be bigger.

I do think c-betting this flop with pretty much our entire range is standard. Our range almost universally benefits from c-betting in some way, either for value, protection or to fold out equity. We also don't want our stronger hands like nut flush draws to go check-check very often because we could find it harder to extract value on later streets.

As played this is gross. The challenge we're going to have if we call turn, what do we do on an A, K or heart? There's no guarantee all of our A and K are live as villain should have lots of KQ/AQ here. Hearts may be live but will villain put any more money in the pot with worse if a heart hits unless they have exactly JThh/T9hh-type hands?

Because I wouldn't normally be check-calling this flop, it's also hard to know what better hands I have here to call with - am I check-calling flop with KQ or AQ at any frequency? What about some 99-JJ? Maybe I can fold those second pair hands and only call with nut flush draws and Qx, intending to fold out flush draws on the river and calling off with Qx.

The biggest problem is not c-betting.

Two bad things happen. Your hand looks like it missed and you don't get to decide the size of the flop bet.

Once you don't c/r the flop you basically don't have AA/KK so your turn c/r looks strange. Also, there is so much in the pot villain would be foolish to fold. He has made a ridiculously large bet on the turn. Because he almost always has at least a Q here for betting large on the flop and turn, you're not getting implied odds to shove (you are putting in 18,000 to win 30,000 and even if your A and K are live outs you are getting less than 2:1) so you turned his mistake into your mistake.

Calling on the turn would be about right if only your A or K are outs, as was the case, because you are putting in 8,000 to win 30,000. But this assumes that you get paid off if the last heart hits which its hard to know because villain made such a bad large turn bet that it looks like he doesn't know he is pot committed.

On the flop after villain's bet of 3,500 with effective stack sizes of 18,000, I would c/r all-in. It is the only reason I would check that flop and its a fairly good one. Villain could have any pair or gutshot and fold. As it plays out it is likely the same results would have happened however, its much better to go down swinging (with some fold equity) than to get called out on a check swing (with no fold equity).