I’ve just been playing NL2 and got KK pre flop on the SB, It folded round to BTN who raised to 24c who had been playing about 60% of his hands or something daft like that (I dont have a hud) and I called it, then BB went all in, BTN called and so did I. BTN turns QQ and BB turned KK! Flop comes and it was something like 47Q and turn and river obviously produced nothing so BTN takes the main pot and I got back 54c (my only positive to take from the hand!yayy!) from the 2nd pot but I mean wtf I used to play a fair bit of low stake tournament poker a good while back and I’ve just never seen anything like it! Looking back I probably should have raised rather than called the BTN but i dont think it would have stopped BB going all in. So while nothing other than folding it could have stopped and even though it’s a bummer and a loss I have to learn from it. Would anyone recommend have played it differently, not gone all in and folded or raised the BTN? Has anyone had something like this or is it just an unlucky bad beat/cooler?

I’ve only been playing a few weeks at NL2and I’m decently up but these last 2 days have been brutal and it feels like alls I’m doing is damage control to minimise loss! Im not hitting anything post flop, when I do it’s a weak pair/ or a weak kicker and I’m only in because I’ve checked the BB or limped the SB. I’ve hit a few sets when there’s a higher pair on the board with other higher value cards that have just felt like my opponent has a higher full house etc. so its definitely time for a break and study, maybe play some free rolls!

this is clearly a bad beat story, but ffs if button is a big enough clown to raise that large (i am assuming that he is open raising and not 3-betting) then you may as well jam over the top of him and get paid

Yeah he was open raising and thanks for the response itÂ’s nice to hear that IÂ’m not the clown for making the call and rightly thinking I should have raised! IÂ’ve just played on 888 a tournament and came in the top 5 to snag a $4.40 satellite ticket so IÂ’m really chuffed as I must be doing something at least half right and at my bankroll thereÂ’s no way IÂ’d buy a 4.40 ticket so IÂ’m looking forward to see how I do against what I expect to be a lot better competition! So all advice much welcomed!

If I'm interpreting this correctly, on multiple occasions you have been dealt a pocket pair and flopped a full house (let's say you had 55 and the board was 885KQ), but ended up folding, and never saw your opponent's hand, because you thought you were beat. Is that correct?

If so, then don't worry about the KK hand. Those hands happen, though you should have been 3-betting. In that hand, it doesn't matter what you did - you were going to get all-in. But when you flop a full house, your goal is to get your money in, and if someone has you beat, just go on to the next hand.

Yes but more like I’ve had 55 board 8k5kq … but yeah I do think I need to be more ballsy don’t I. Like you say these hands happen that’s why we keep a high enough bankroll to deal with it! I need to not be so scared to loose a little and have the confidence I’ll win in the long run.

if you flop a set and don't lose a lot of money when you're beat, you've played it wrong

Yeah that’s it, it’s encouraging to hear this and makes me feel less scared to hold my ground more, and stick with the tight aggressive play. I think these last 2 days I have been playing scared and weak. It’s just hard to swallow when you work hard to grind up your bankroll and then a full Bi + gets swallowed up in a hand! (Which btw I’ve lost just under 3Bi from my bankroll in the last 2 days!)

Happy to say that the advice definitely payed off here and IÂ’ve just finished the tournament I won into in 3rd which has now got me a $22 tournament ticket!! And I was the last hand played with pocket 9s that hit a set!!!! There was only 16 players in it but it was definitely a hell of a lot tighter playÂ… is that small of entries normal at these stakes as there was about 200 or more in the tournament I played to get my ticket to this one but still IÂ’m Absolutely chuffed!!!

Congrats!

Getting it in good is all you can ever do. The only "clown" play you made here was flatting in the small bind. Don't do that with premium hands. You're OOP and and want as much of the money to go in pre-flop as possible to minimize the advantage your opponent gets with position. Against a splashy fish this is a dream scenario. Further, you should be really happy with pots like this, because it keeps such losing players/fish around. If the bad players never got lucky there wouldn't be bad players.

You're folding full houses at NL $2? Wow

Yeah I’ve folded a few over the last 2 days lol! Silly I know! It’s not about the money I can afford to loose a few quid it’s more about building a bankroll, learning and mainly proving to myself that I can win in the long run before making any propper investment. Works dead at the min so I’ve had loads of time and gone from $50 to 63 in less than 2 weeks only playing one table and not going a day without winning all together, dunno if others consider that good or not but I’m happy and enjoying the game but then the last 2 days gone down to 57 so I’ve been playing scared! But then I guess learning involves loosing and learning to deal with it!

SolRage that’s solid advice and a very good way to think better about the loss! These are definitely the sort of players I want to be coming back to my table!

Off subject but it’s showing my posts as if I posted them an hour earlier.. its 2:53 now and it’ll show I posted at 1:53?

the timezone you will have selected in options probably isn't the one you think it is

Ahh ok cheers I’ll check now

No offense but if you have 55, get a board like KK5Q7 and fold it, then why are you bothering to play 55 in the first place? If you are not going to run with it when you hit a boat, what the heck are you waiting for? If you for a KKQ55 board, are you still folding?

You cannot ONLY play when you have the absolute nuts. You are going to lose some coolers. You need to play to win; it seems like you are currently playing not to lose.

And as far as your original hand; yes just a cooler. It happens. The only thing you did wrong was not raising (and probably shoving) PF, but BB did it for you, so no real harm done. You should pretty much NEVER fold PF with KK. The only time you would even consider it is in a tourney where the top finishers all get the same prize (like a satellite where the top finishers all get a ticket to the main event), you are one away from the payouts and you have a medium to large stack, but are not the chip leader. If the chip leader shoves, you probably can fold KK and wait for a small stack to bust.

Other than that, just raise (or shove if it makes sense) with your KK. Sometimes you will be up against AA; sometimes a lesser starting hand will beat you. So what? You will win money overall by playing KK aggressively

Totally agree!! I don’t think I totally had been up till 3 days ago when I started to loose bankroll but I’ve switched to 888 for a bit as I got £20 no deposit bonus so why not risk that in a few low stake tournaments so I can play loads of hands and get some free experience!

Stremba70 thanks for the advice and that’s exactly what I did today in a sat tourney I was in 2nd on last table, 6 left and top 5 got a ticket and 2 players had a mega low stack less than 10bb between them so I just thought to myself if I just fold every hand one of them has to go out soon!! Got my ticket but unfortunately bust out of the next round! Trouble is these low stake tourneys the blinds go up that fast your forced to play so aggressively at the begging to build a stack but I guess that’s what I need at the min!