Hey guys, thanks for looking at my thread, I appreciate any and all honesty.

I am playing nl5, and have tons of leaks. Working on them, esp playing oop with -ev hands to 3bets. This hand came up and I am wondering what ppl on here think. Yes, I won the hand, but I want to know if it was a winning play long term. B/c this may be the exact leak I am trying to stop.







For the record, i played 11 hands against v. no hand history.
this session i have played super nitty, like 18/9/3. out of character, but I am also working on my post flop play, and trying to stop hero calling with junks.

playing my 88 oop to a three bet, I was honestly hoping to bink an 8 and play for stacks. When the flop hit, it was a safe flop, and didn't mind calling a c-bet.

The turn card is what made me think. I know at nl5 MOST of the players are level one, wait for aces and smash the bet button. but the fact that he shoved on that turn made me think he looked weak. p10, jj dont usually 3 bet pre, so my flat call to a cbet should have slowed him down. therefore, when the turn pairs tp, a shove with that turn looks.... well.. fishy.

AA and KK here may value bet, or bet, but not shove, b/c this is the exact card they don't want to see.


the river bricked for him, and my 88 held. I guess my question is: was this a donk play on my part or was it a decent poker play? Also, am I giving a nl5 too much credit for thinking here? and was AKs a good shove here, and was my call a bad call?

Thanks guys, Any insight is welcome

Playing out of position against someone clicking the pot button to three ball over the top of an under the gun raiser and needing to put in 10% of my stack to do so isn't the sort of thing I usually do with 88

Thanks for the reply.

You are right. 10 percent of my stack oop in this type of hand may be one of my leaks. You suggest aks and qq+ to float Here?

It certainly is not a donk play...you rationalised that AK is part of villains range and you were correct to do so (as a population read). Therefore your underpair is a valid bluff catcher. You can bring some maths into it if you want to futher analyse in terms of EV.

Work out your required equity to call

Required equity = price of calling / (pot size + price of calling)

RE = $3.9/$6.94+$3.9 = 36%

Then work out how many combos of value hands there are in relation to how many combos of bluffs (overcards) there are, and finally weight the bluff combos (reduce them by a factor) because not all the population bluff, to determin if you have the required equity to call.

I would guess you probably do not, but YOU MUST remember that a pro thinks only in terms of EV (not the actual lost money). The closer the EV difference, the less your decision matters (ie the smaller the mistake).

In this instance, your play is probably minus EV, but not by a big amount. The lessons you learned and considered in this hand will be hugely more important in the long term

My read is that they usually do.

I think that is vorrect. A queen might shove though, afraid of some backdoor flushdraw


I would have played the hand the same way.