does anyone else have this flaw in their game? i feel like i suffer from this.

for example, one hand today (6 max), a guy raised from early position and I called from the blinds with 55.

the flop came 987, two clubs. I decided to float his continuation bet. The turn came another 7.

now on the turn, he bet a pretty large amount, about 90% of the pot. I knew I was in pretty bad shape. If I caught a 6, he could easily have pocket 10's and beat me with a higher straight. He could have had a big pair like aces or kings, but the pot odds weren't really there for me and implied odds weren't really there either (his stack wasn't that big). He could have had a set. There just wasn't very much I was beating.

Stupidly, I decided to continue. River came another 7, gave me a full house but obviously a weak full house. I then stupidly called a 3 quarter pot bet on the river and he showed 1010.


I should have just folded on the turn. Stupidly, I felt committed to the pot on the turn and I know I shouldn't have. Does anyone else have this weakness and how do I fix it?

You should not have folded the turn, you should have folded the flop.

Specifically, get into the habit of folding when you set mine and miss, which will be most of the time. Just chuck the hand away, the whole point is to make them pay when we hit, not pay them off when we miss.

Generally...if you know you should fold, then just fold. That's the only way to win. What's stopping you folding, are you scared he's bluffing you or do you have an overwhelming urge to see another card?

Think before you make decision, it takes a while to get used to it. Like, everytime before you click button, think why do you do what you do. Think about ranges, possible plays, is this really +EV? etc.

For example, you have 55 in blinds where UTG opened. Dont fall into snapdecision thinking intuitively "i got 55, i can call to setmine!" and make snapcall. Think what kind of opponent is UTG raiser? Is he tight, does his range mostly consist of premium hands? Will he be willing to stack off with overpair if we hit set? Is he the player who can fold overpair if board looks really scary? What kind of range villain puts me on when I call? I will be OOP whole hand, it wont be easy to get money in if I hit set and also harder to take small pots when both missed.

On flop you have to think with what kind of range he will be c-betting. Is he the type who would cbet premium Ax's on this kind of board? ... Theres just so many factors which you have to analyze before deciding optimal play and I wont be listing them all as this already became too much of hand analyzing.


Anyway, really THINK before making decisions. Make it a habit to wait 10 seconds before making any decision. Obviously you can fold complete trash UTG without waiting that 10 seconds. But you have to start this thinking preflop already, many players often auto-pilot preflop and flop and then start really thinking turn/river decisions when they are already in though spot and wouldn't be there if they actually thought about hand before.

Also play shorter sessions if you start losing concentration when you play longer. I noticed if I play longer than an hour without even small break, I start losing concentration and find myself in pots where I shouldn't be.

Very true. There is no shame in folding. If you need short term consolation just think of it as "paying for information"

I think he could have something like AK or AQ, cbet then check the turn so I can take the pot away from him. I also told myself I had outs - a 5 or a 6.

In hindsight, it was bad for me to stick around. Certainly bad to stick around past the turn, but like you say, I probably should have folded the flop. But I don't like playing fit or fold poker because I believe that's too easily readable.

Start liking it. You are justifying being a passive fish because you don't want to play ABC poker, but ABC beats the micros.

I'll take your word for it btw is 25NL classed as micros?

25NL is classified as microstakes.

Thing is, it's OK to float the flop if you have reasons to do it, but if you don't know what those reasons are you should not be playing 25NL. And if you can't fold bottom pair you won't beat 2NL.

You should probably drop down to the lowest level your poker host allows because this thread tells me you are going to get beaten up at 25NL...you probably are already experiencing this.

One of the things that really helps me avoid these sorts of bad mistakes is to ask myself the following question:

Have I SEEN villain take this line with a hand that I currently beat.

In your case, I would ask myself, "Have I seen villain take this line with 44."

Why 44 and not AK? Well, every fish in the world will always read villain for having AK when they do what you do so its easy to level yourself into calling. However, a better question is to ask yourself is would villain take the line he is taking with 44, 33, or 22 AFTER you have called the flop raise. Then throw in AK into the mix. The answer will be no, so you can snap fold turn.

Other day in the 2/5nl live game I had an interesting hand, eff stacks $600.

I raised on the BTN $25 with AQ and a pretty basic ABC player called me from the BB and a decent player called me from LP. 3-way action.

Flop(75) : A 7 6

ABC player leads out $65 and LP calls, action is to me.

Now, I have AQ which is normally a decent hand in this spot however would a basic ABC player donk bet into me with AJ or AT??? Similarly, would the LP call. And lastly, I raised preflop and fish always put the preflop raiser on AK so shouldn't they be scared of the Ace?

I fold.

Both players get it all in by the turn, BB had AK, LP flopped a set of sixes.

The reason I was able to fold was because I asked myself, "Would X player bet with Y hand that I beat".

now, if BB was a donk and LP was a station then sure, they would have hands I beat. However, that is not the case and I couldn't see BB betting into me with AJ or AT so I could make an easy fold...