Hi,

After a while I'm back trying to play poker, I've decided on Zoom 2NL to kick things off. I'm doing okay but occasionally I lose a buy in by possibly being stupid. In todays session I lost 3, I've posted them below so some nice person could perhaps review and let me know how they'd play these hands, thanks.

HAND 1

PokerStars - $0.02 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): 116 BB
SB: 207 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 4)
BB: 149.5 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
UTG: 118 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 6)
MP: 128.5 BB (VPIP: 14.29, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 7)
CO: 104.5 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J J

fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, SB raises to 9 BB, fold, Hero raises to 28 BB, SB calls 19 BB

Flop: (57 BB, 2 players) 2 K 4
SB checks, Hero bets 55 BB, SB raises to 179 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 33 BB and is all-in

Turn: (233 BB, 2 players) K

River: (233 BB, 2 players) 7

SB shows A A (Two Pair, Aces and Kings)
(Pre 80%, Flop 87%, Turn 95%)
Hero shows J J (Two Pair, Kings and Jacks)
(Pre 20%, Flop 13%, Turn 5%)
SB wins 225 BB

HAND 2

PokerStars - $0.02 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 100 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
SB: 119.5 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
BB: 110.5 BB
UTG: 230 BB
Hero (MP): 189 BB
CO: 106 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A K

UTG raises to 3 BB, Hero raises to 9 BB, fold, BTN calls 9 BB, fold, fold, UTG raises to 35 BB, Hero raises to 189 BB and is all-in, fold, UTG calls 154 BB

Flop: (388.5 BB, 2 players) 9 2 4

Turn: (388.5 BB, 2 players) 4

River: (388.5 BB, 2 players) J

UTG shows A A (Two Pair, Aces and Fours)
(Pre 93%, Flop 99%, Turn 100%)
Hero shows A K (One Pair, Fours)
(Pre 7%, Flop 1%, Turn 0%)
UTG wins 375 BB

HAND 3

PokerStars - $0.02 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 227 BB
SB: 58.5 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
BB: 111.5 BB
UTG: 100 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
Hero (MP): 97 BB
CO: 82.5 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K Q

fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, CO calls 3 BB, BTN raises to 5 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 2 BB, CO calls 2 BB

Flop: (16.5 BB, 3 players) 6 9 K
Hero bets 8 BB, fold, BTN raises to 16 BB, Hero calls 8 BB

Turn: (48.5 BB, 2 players) 3
Hero checks, BTN bets 47 BB, Hero raises to 76 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 29 BB

River: (200.5 BB, 2 players) 4

Hero shows K Q (One Pair, Kings)
(Pre 45%, Flop 3%, Turn 0%)
BTN shows 9 9 (Three of a Kind, Nines)
(Pre 55%, Flop 97%, Turn 100%)
BTN wins 193.5 BB

HAND 4

Guess he was just slow playing, looking at this now it was awful.

PokerStars - $0.02 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 100 BB
SB: 100 BB
BB: 160.5 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
UTG: 100 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
Hero (MP): 52.5 BB
CO: 108 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 2)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 9 9

fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 2 BB

Flop: (6.5 BB, 2 players) J J T
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (6.5 BB, 2 players) 2
BB checks, Hero bets 3.5 BB, BB raises to 12.5 BB, Hero calls 9 BB

River: (31.5 BB, 2 players) T
BB bets 145 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 37 BB and is all-in

BB shows K J (Full House, Jacks full of Tens)
(Pre 45%, Flop 89%, Turn 95%)
Hero shows 9 9 (Two Pair, Jacks and Tens)
(Pre 55%, Flop 11%, Turn 5%)
BB wins 102 BB

Did you really call all-in with 9 high on hand #4?

Hand 1: You have 4 hands on SB including him being BU and CO. We have obviously no idea about his play yet, but chances are he isn’t super loose. So calling the 3bet IP might be a good option to keep a couple weaker hands in.

Hand 2: Without stats/reads, stacking off 200BB deep UTG vs UTG+1 with AKo is extremely spewy.

Hand 3: not sure if I want to get it in 100BB deep with TPGK when the other guy shows that much strength.

This is zoom, so we don't really know what position those 3 other hands were in. Right? Pretty safe to say villain is close to unknown. My temptation is to tell our OP to nearly ignore these samples (short of some 100% VP$IP) and use zoom pool population reads. Out of all these hands, we have one villain with 7 hands. Preflop stats converge quickly, but these are zilcho samples.

Hand 1, is the near full-pot flop bet a value bet or a bluff? What worse hand decides to call 57 bb from the preflop 4 bettor? Also, you have 88bb in your stack and bet 2/3 of it. This seems like a huge bet relative to your stack and it seems like if you are bluffing you could bet smaller and still make the villain decide for the whole stack.

1 - what the heck is with your sizing on the flop? you have about $1.80 left effective and you bet more than half of it. I'm guessing you've clicked pot, don't do that

2 - 5b jamming AKo in zoom nearly 200bb deep pre is a road to busto city

3 - what does your donk bet mean? villain's clicked it back pre and has position. anything better is raising you, you're not getting called by much worse as he doesn't have much worse in his range at all

Totally right, I missed that it is Zoom.

Oink used to rail on people for using small hand samples for making reads. You'd have someone with like 85 hands on a guy and post "based on his turn raising frequency, we should do X instead of Y." Then Oink would go nuts on him, saying that he probably based the turn play on like 3 hands. It is burned into my brain.

The rest of the analysis correct? Do you check back that flop assuming you didn't flat PF?

Also, assuming you do flat. Flop comes out K42 with a suit. You just fold to a decent size cbet even though we have the J high bdfd?

Back when I was coaching, I pointed that out multiple times for almost every student.

Even if you have >500 hands on somebody, there's a decent chance his "raise river" stat is totally worthless. 600 hands with a PFR of 15 from that position means that he raised 15 out of ~100 times he was in that position preflop. Half those hands might be over on the flop, another close to half on the turn, leaving us with 4 hands that even made it to the river. Even if you don't account for position, you end up with maybe 20-25 hands and the player maybe had the chance to raise a bet there a total of 3-5 times and that's already optimistic.

I agree. Unless we play a total maniac, that flop is as bad as it gets. Not only do his Kx hand crush us now, there's also basically nothing worse he can call with. If he called preflop because he's like "lol, that guy has AK", he even has to fold TT here. Especially since hero bets 55BB. I highly doubt there's a single hand in heros range he should use that sizing with for value. If anything, our bet might be a bluff to get out QQ.

Not sure about the BDFD without constructing a whole range for villain. But we know it goes up significantly in value with the :Kc on the board. Otherwise, his only offsuited hand might be AK which amounts to 3 additional flushs that would beat us.

I check back here and would give up, based on the fact that most NL2 Zoom players aren't capable of turning their TT-88 into a bluff on later streets.

Yeah ehm calling rivers with 9 high is generally not a winning strategy.

You need to play more HU limit poker

Lol, I had to think about that hand too. But I can't remember who the players were?

Took me until now to realize that hero in the hand here not only called with 9 high but that the other guy overbet shoved.

Yes I realise it was a poor play, don't give me too much grief... it's a mistake I won't make again!!

Just to clarify, did you call because you thought 9-high was the best hand or did you miss that the board counterfeited your hand on the river?

Here's a fail-proof way to play those three hands OP:

1. Don't re-raise with Jacks. 50% of the time you will get outflopped. Better to check when raised and then play if you see they are strong on the flop. Furthermore - yes, there will be times that someone will be raising you with complete randomness, but more often than not they are telling you something. Your Jacks are not good cards. Stop treating them as such. When you get to that kind of a flop, you are losing more often than you are winning. Fold and move on. Before you ever go all-in, think about what hands you are beating. Think - do I want to bet my whole stack on Jacks on a board that has potential flush draws, straight draws, and already one higher ranked card - together with possibilities that you are going up against possible QQ, Kx and AA? Check, note what your opponent does, make notes for next time when you flop a better situation so you can exploit it.

2. Much of Hand 1's advice applies here, but even more so why play AK that aggressively? What do you hope to achieve with a pre-flop all-in AK in that situation against an opponent who you do not know? The villain is raising even more aggressively than in the first hand - take note, find them again when you're in a better spot.

3. Again, going all in with one pair on a board against an opponent you know nothing about. Think - what are you beating when the river comes? The best you can hope for after the turn is a set of Kings. Yes, very rarely you will win on that board but most of the time you will not. Play it more conservatively and if your opponent is unknown to you and showing a lot of strength, make note and wait for a better spot. Should have folded after turn for sure.

4. Like the rest - overplaying your cards on unsuitable boards. The right play IMO would be check until fold or showdown after the flop. Yes, sometimes your 9s will win but most of the times you are losing against any opponent that knows what they are doing. That was not a slow-play. Your opponent had a set and was probably playing cautiously knowing that you could potentially be holding TT or JA, the former of which became less likely on the river (and the latter would be a split, so why not try to force you off your hand?).

Stop hoping that your opponents are bluffing you. Play on boards that favour your cards and stop chasing all-ins on anything less than AA or KK unless you know your opponent reasonably well. Make note of players who you are interested in and try to construct ranges for them.