partypoker - $0.04 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 166 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 18)
SB: 364.5 BB (VPIP: 20.71, PFR: 3.29, 3Bet Preflop: 1.45, Hands: 399)
BB: 122.25 BB (VPIP: 27.27, PFR: 20.45, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 45)
UTG: 50.5 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 7)
MP: 14.75 BB (VPIP: 27.59, PFR: 13.79, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 30)
Hero (CO): 125 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A 8

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

Flop: (6.5 BB, 2 players) 7 2 A
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (6.5 BB, 2 players) K
BB bets 3 BB, Hero calls 3 BB

River: (12.5 BB, 2 players) Q
BB checks, Hero bets 6 BB, fold

Hero wins 18 BB
Hand1: Should i bet the turn as he checks because he may very well have a gutshot or FD, or should i check and hope he stabs again at the river ?
Riverbet ok this time ?

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partypoker - $0.04 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 268 BB (VPIP: 21.10, PFR: 3.02, 3Bet Preflop: 1.57, Hands: 368)
SB: 124.25 BB (VPIP: 83.33, PFR: 50.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 6)
Hero (BB): 131 BB
UTG: 244.25 BB (VPIP: 22.87, PFR: 18.09, 3Bet Preflop: 4.17, Hands: 382)
MP: 123 BB (VPIP: 28.13, PFR: 9.38, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 32)
CO: 202.5 BB (VPIP: 33.17, PFR: 8.25, 3Bet Preflop: 4.44, Hands: 214)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

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

UTG raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, fold, SB calls 2.5 BB, Hero calls 2 BB

Flop: (9 BB, 3 players) 3 K 2
SB checks, Hero bets 5.75 BB, fold, SB calls 5.75 BB

Turn: (20.5 BB, 2 players) 8
SB checks, Hero checks

River: (20.5 BB, 2 players) 6
SB checks, Hero checks

SB shows 9 T (High Card, King)
(Pre 39%, Flop 53%, Turn 34%)
Hero shows Q A (High Card, Ace)
(Pre 61%, Flop 47%, Turn 66%)
Hero wins 19.5 BB

Hand2: Is this flop bet profitable ? I would expect UTG to have KQ+ AJ+, or 77+. Half of the highcard combis are a hit, half are a miss. 77 & 88 i expect him to fold, Sets and AA surely not. JJ and QQ possibly because it is 3way. That would indicate i can expect at best a near 50% fold from him, but there is another player too that will reduce my chances of picking up the pot and make my bet unprofitable as a direct bluff i think. However, as this hand shows, i may also be making a valuebet against the SB. Does that make it an ok bet ? Or did i luck out on a bad bluff here ?

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partypoker - $0.04 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 230 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3)
SB: 113.5 BB (VPIP: 100.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 6)
BB: 77.5 BB (VPIP: 21.43, PFR: 7.14, 3Bet Preflop: 14.29, Hands: 14)
Hero (UTG): 125.5 BB
MP: 115 BB (VPIP: 25.71, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 35)
CO: 148.75 BB (VPIP: 22.76, PFR: 18.16, 3Bet Preflop: 4.29, Hands: 375)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

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

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

Flop: (7.5 BB, 2 players) 9 8 A
Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: (7.5 BB, 2 players) 3
Hero checks, CO checks

River: (7.5 BB, 2 players) 2
Hero bets 4.75 BB, CO calls 4.75 BB

Hero shows J A (One Pair, Aces)
(Pre 29%, Flop 86%, Turn 95%)
CO mucks Q Q (One Pair, Queens)
(Pre 71%, Flop 14%, Turn 5%)
Hero wins 16.25 BB

Hand3: This villain has a pretty high flop Afq (55%). Against calling stations i suppose AJ would be strong enough to come out betting, against this TAG reg i choose to check call.
With his agression, i check again on the turn, assuming he will bet now. Is that ok ? or should i have bet the turn ? is it any close ?
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partypoker - $0.04 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): 247.75 BB
SB: 165.75 BB (VPIP: 28.57, PFR: 22.86, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 36)
BB: 167 BB (VPIP: 18.52, PFR: 12.96, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 57)
UTG: 5 BB (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 1.23, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 82)
MP: 44 BB (VPIP: 20.51, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 39)
CO: 85.5 BB (VPIP: 17.65, PFR: 8.82, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 35)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

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

UTG calls 1 BB, fold, CO raises to 2 BB, Hero raises to 6 BB, fold, fold, fold, CO calls 4 BB

Flop: (14.5 BB, 2 players) 3 8 5
CO bets 7 BB, Hero calls 7 BB

Turn: (28.5 BB, 2 players) 7
CO bets 13.5 BB, Hero calls 13.5 BB

River: (55.5 BB, 2 players) Q
CO bets 26.25 BB, Hero calls 26.25 BB

CO shows T A (Flush, Queen High)
(Pre 29%, Flop 43%, Turn 25%)
Hero mucks Q Q (Three of a Kind, Queens)
(Pre 71%, Flop 57%, Turn 75%)
CO wins 102.75 BB
Hand4: This is a crappy flop. He can have sets, flushdraws, straightdraws. I suppose my hand is not strong enough for a raise on the flop. But i should have raised the turn ? (and folded the river i assume, but oh well)
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partypoker - $0.04 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 128.75 BB (VPIP: 10.17, PFR: 6.78, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 59)
SB: 91.5 BB (VPIP: 17.78, PFR: 13.33, 3Bet Preflop: 4.76, Hands: 46)
BB: 204.5 BB (VPIP: 29.57, PFR: 23.48, 3Bet Preflop: 11.49, Hands: 231)
UTG: 122.5 BB (VPIP: 31.11, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 11.11, Hands: 46)
MP: 125.25 BB (VPIP: 18.31, PFR: 11.97, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 147)
Hero (CO): 167.25 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

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

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

Flop: (6.5 BB, 2 players) 4 6 4
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (6.5 BB, 2 players) 3
BB bets 3 BB, Hero calls 3 BB

River: (12.5 BB, 2 players) 5
BB bets 9 BB, Hero raises to 26 BB, fold

Hero wins 46 BB
Hand5: This guy had a very high postflop checkraise% (3 out of 11 opportunities checkraised) which is why i didnt want to be cbetting here. Any comments on this one ?

H1 fine
H2 x flop, your range is the weakest of the 3
H3 bet flop, as played bet turn
H4 slightly bigger pre, probably fold river but it's close
H5 just fold river, this isn't a good hand to be bluffing with

Thank you, hand 5, does it really matter what my hand is ?
I forgot to add that besides the checkraising%, he also had a 60% flop afq. (i have no turn and river stats in my HUD but usually just assume they are somewhat similar to those flop stats)

1) Flop check is fine with the spade as backup for nasty turns cards. Betting flop could also be fine just depending on how often you get bluffraised and how many bluffs you're going to put in on this flop.

2) 3ways this bet doesn't get through often enough I think given your little equity. I mean you don't even have the spade on the flop to give you flush/GS draws on the turn.

3) Bet flop. You can get action by a lot and many turns are atrocious for your hand.

4) 3bet slightly bigger with the UTG drooler in the hand. Flop is terrible although probably still ahead so I don't see a fold happening very often. On the turn you can actually make an exploitable raise to get him to shut down on the river and get some value from draws with 1 card to come but you need to make sure that:
* He doesn't understand/know what you're doing
* Doesn't ship over the top with like 9c9x or Td9x so basically makes it safe to fold when he shoves without worrying about being owned
This is a highly exploitable move so only do it when your opponent is not good at adjusting to this.

5) I think you can bet this flop for value and killing his equity when he can't call.

Ok thank you both.

On the hand4 turn raise. I assume you consider it highly exploitable because i supposedly would have raise the flop with sets and most flushes, meaning my range on the turn is capped to flushdraws and TP/overpair ? Or do you have more reasoning to it ?

Hand5 im sorry to still be a little unconvinced. The thing is that what i did was highly based on player reads. He is a very over aggro villain. On the flop my reasoning was that this is a board that looks like crap to both of us. I would have cbet it against most villains, but when this guy checks this board rather than bets it, i kinda assume he is planning to checkraise it. He is not the guy to checkfold many flops at all. On the turn i maybe could have raised, but i didnt because checking behind the flop and then raising the turn simply makes little sense. On the river i actually considered just calling him as i think the chances are very big that he has merely overcards but i chose to raise because he might have an overpair or a better kicker with his ace.

Does that make any sense or am i overadjusting then ?

Yes the turn raise is exploitable because you almost never play a good hand for value this way unless it is the flopped nut flush or something. It's important he doesn't realize this. If he sees your hand for what it is he can ship at very high frequency against you which is terrible.

Last hand:

He's 3betting 11,5% over decent sample and that figure is for sure to be higher in BB vs steal position. If he is 3betting merged out of position (which he probably is and should) then there are no better aces in his flatting range than A9. AT+ will 3bet there so there is no better aces than your on the river. It's also highly unlikely he has an overpair because 77 would make a straight and 88 will 99% sure go into his 3betting range as it is comes in at top 5% of hands, assuming he 3bets more than the 11,5% out of the blinds (probably like 15%) there are no overpairs/better ace highs in his range that you need to raise against on the river.

Low paired boards are also in your advantage. Your range does much better on this flop than his (calling) range that consists mostly out of cards between 9 and Q. If he checkraises this flop an awful lot then we will have to call of with a decent amount of hands but not betting here is giving in his strategy of having his equity realized which is not what you're supposed to do. If you only bet (for value) with hands that you're prepared to call a checkraise then he gets so many cheap turns merely by the threat of a checkraise. You can choose to check back a bigger portion of your range if he stabs a lot of turns but those hands need to contain some monsters as well, A9o is a very vulnerable hand here so it probably shouldn't be in that range.

Thank you, that helps !

H1: I hate unsuited A-rag, but it is 6-max. Don't check the flop when there's a flush draw but not for you.

H2:3-bet pre. Why do you want to play against 2 players? Donking into the PF-raiser why?

H3: Again, don't give him a free card when there's a flush draw otf. And there's two on the turn. Why are you more scared of a stronger A than a flush? With AK he probably would have 3-bet pre. With AQ he might fold to your agression.

H4: Perhaps 3-bet a bit higher. 3-bet flop, fold to any further aggression.

H5: What would he hold to C/R you on this flop? C-bet. As played, call or fold turn, call or fold river.

Wow, thats the opposite of what people tell me on some points.
Interestingly it is exactly what i would have done about 8 years ago. I would raise and reraise whenever there seemed to be some kind of flushdraws out on the board. Protecting your hand is what it was called. Later i changed to thinking more about not making only weaker hands fold. Obviously you need to balance between those 2 and that surely is something where i try to learn where is the sweet spot.

You seem to be on another extreme though. Are the regulars on this board too much focussed on the handstrength thingy vs the hand protection ? Hand 4 espescially is interesting because a week ago i posted a very similar one where i did reraise and was allin on the flop or turn against a stronger hand. Everyone told me to just call the flop because on overpair on a board like that isnt all that strong and when you end up allin, you either are drawing dead or you have 60-70% equity against some draw.

Sorry to reply like this and sound like i dont appreciate your feedback. I ask for help and i am greatfull for you trying to help. You are however coming from a totally different direction than most others here so it is hard for me to judge who is more right than the other. Can you tell me what stakes you play to help me weigh your advices against that of others here ?

To answer some of the more specific `questions` you posed: Wy didnt i 3bet preflop ? because i dont think i am ahead of an UTG range and i will be grossly behind his 3bet calling range. Still i can understand that you say 3bet. Theres a decent chance they fold. I bet the flop because this type of board usually gets lots of folds but indeed we all agreed that its a bad bet

H5, what would he checkraise ? ATC i think because he will know that i am most likely to have merely 2 overcards. If i would have bet, i expect he would have checkraised me and i would have had the difficult decision to call and play a big pot with a poor hand or very likely fold the best hand. Previous replies told me that i should probably just let it go and be happy with the extra EV when i actually do have a worthy hand against this guy.

I'm not totally in on the "bet because there is a flush draw". Most ranges have a flush draw like 6% of the time on a double suited flop. It's not like every single time the flush draw completes someone has it, quite the contrary.

Also you can't "3bet" flop in H4. It's physically not possible.

OK, in the first hand, what's the bigger threat that argues against c-betting?

Doh! Too late to change that to "raise".

Opposite? On plural points? Everybody here seems to think you should have bet the flop in hand 3. Kelvin thinks that betting flop in hand 1 could be OK, too,

Sounds good. I didn't mean to sound like I thought you should always c-bet when there is a 2-suit flop, but I guess the way I wrote it could sound that way. So what are the factors you balance in hand 1 that lead you to conclude it is better to check back the flop in hand 1? Also, what do you see as the fundamental differences in the flop situation in hands 1 and 3? How should those differences affect the c-bet decision?


Far be it from me to suggest that I know better than the consensus of regulars here. And I may be biased towards hand protection more than most because my usual game is a limited number of live tournaments. That makes self-preservation a higher priority than in cash games or online tournaments where there is another one you can join the moment you are stacked.

Link? Some differences of hand 4 from what you describe is that you are not going anywhere close to all-in if you re-raise the flop, and it seems more likely you are ahead here.

Look at your post-flop line in hand 4: Call-call-call-lose. That's a trerribad line most of the time. When's the best time to vary from that line? I'd suggest the earlier the better. Also, his flop donk screams flush draw. That flop didn't pair anything. If he hit a set or a flush he should be checking. What was your plan for the remaining two streets when you called flop?

No problem. I'm not sure I see my advice as being so radically different from what others have said, though.

Mostly live $20 to $50 limited rebuy 2-10 table NLHE tournaments. I don't play online very much, but when I do it is usually the three lowest levels of STT and a bit of 2, 5 and 10NL cash. In the nearly 3 decades I've kept records, I've only had two losing years, and I've never had a year online when I've deposited more than my year-end balance. However, my online volume is not large enough to draw any meaningful conclusions. My ROI so far this year is about 106% which is rather higher than my yearly average.

Hand 2 UTG is 23/18 How narrow do you think his UTG rasing range is? Even if he pares that 18% down to 10% (a bit extreme in 6-max I'd say) AQs is still a favourite. But we mustn't forget that rhere is a third player involved here. If this was a little higher than 4NL, I'd actually be worried about SB more here. He's willing to call an UTG raise even though he'll be OOP and you have yet to act. Do you really want to be playing AQs between these two players?

I don't think his range is as limited as you think it is. You might be behind his 3-bet calling range (not grossly behind), but that's not the only consideration. You need to think about having to deal with two villains, and a raise is the way to try to get one or two folds. Two folds pre may be a better result than having to face two opponents on the flop.

If he will C/R ATC, then calling should not be a hard decision. He's not some random BB that got a walk. He's a BB that defended against a CO raise. He's not likely to have a card as low as a 6, unless he also has an A. The fact the board is paired reduces the chance he hit anything.

Yeah, but that was taking into account the turn and river cards that coordinated with the flop, and considers villain's turn and river bets. Advising discretion late is not the same as advising caution early.

#1 A8. Fine, but I'd often check back river, as it's a bit too thin to v-bet for me. I suppose Kx calls pretty often if you make it small though, but 7x doesn't. I doubt villain ever has a flush he plans to check-raise, but you can't rule it out completely. Flop is a pretty clear check back, precisely because you want villain to make a pair, or call t+r with something like 99, and you don't want to value-own yourself against better Aces.

#2 AQs. I prefer a squeeze pre, but calling is OK. I don't understand the donkbet at all. Without even a BDFD, it's a check-fold.

#3 AJ. I take the check-call line, but betting is fine too. (AQ+ is definitely a bet. AJ is right on the value-cusp for me, and I'm comfortable bluff-catching). As played, bet the turn, because you might not get any value at all if you wait till the river, and there are two FDs out there now. In fact, I think overbetting the turn might be correct after the flop checks through. Villain should have QQ-TT pretty often.

#4 QQ. Raising flop is an option, but I'd Call-call-curse the poker gods and call again. If villain bets bigger, you can fold river. Expect to see TT/JJ with a flush pretty often, but he has worse sets too. (His actual hand is ****ing outrageous. AT makes zero sense.)

#5 A9s. Fine to the river, which is just a fold. You have better hands to call with and better hands to raise for value or as a bluff. You asked "does it really matter what my hand is?" and the answer I think is yes. Even having just one flush or straight blocker in your hand would make it better. A9dd has no connection with this board, so it's a pretty bad hand to bluff with.
C-betting flop probably isn't bad either, but I'd prefer to do it with hands that have even less SDV. Ace high is often good on flops like that.