Now I know you don't mean that...I'm just saying if magic fairy popped up every hand and told me I had a small edge, I would call, but if I don't know that because my skills haven't got there yet, then I may prefer to give up 9BB and wait for a better spot vs this Villian or any other fish that comes along..

I feel I have the edge on most players at 2nl already....so I'm not too worried if I give up a little here rather than blindly call...

but you also don't know that you don't have a HUGE edge. this is the beginners mentality that I see time and time again. whenever you're faced with uncertainty, you assume the worst. in this case the worst is slightly bad and the best is very very good.

and you're not afraid of being crushed, you're afraid of flipping.

9bb is a ****load to lose uncontested btw

you're pretty much saying as long as i have some money i dont really care whether i have less or more of it

It's terribad to fold there. Less than 100bb against this kind of player is a snap call at any limit.

No, I'm saying if you are not sure if you have an edge then you give up on a hand rather than risk losing more money. That I thought was good poker sense.

You don't just keep betting just because you have already put 9BB in the pot. That's what fish do and that's why they lose more money than they win.

if you don't know whether or not you have an edge, and you don't have an edge, then you stand to lose money. but if you have an edge, then you stand to win money. if you give up on the pot you mitigate the risk of losing more money but you pass up the opportunity of winning more money.

but no, if you're uncertain, assume the worst!

stop putting words in my mouth. you pretty much admitted that you'd rather lose 9bb than flip for 60

If you are uncertain, caution is the better side of valour maybe , then post on 2+2 and try to improve your knowledge in this situation.

I did post the hand and decided to call, based on the fact that I thought I beat most of his range...just when he flipped TT, I thought...maybe I hadn't given him credit enough, especially when I won with a King High Flush...

no, if you're uncertain you can literally flip a coin and it won't make a difference.

but you're never completely uncertain. in this situation, you have dead money in the pot, you have a hand that's almost never crushed and you're facing a villain who may very well be a ******. so you're not folding because you're uncertain whether or you have an edge, you're folding purely to avoid risk.

if you are ever completely uncertain, do the thing that's going to make you less uncertain next time. eg, if you call here and he shows TJ, then you'll know for next time.

or you can call and improve your knowledge immediately. you can post it on 2+2 after and it won't make a difference since there's a reason we don't ask to see results

Well, I called and didn't improve my knowledge immediately. That's why I posted here and started researching hand match ups. In fact I was lucky vs TT because TT beats AKo 53% of the time (not taking pot odds into account of course ).

Now, though I have improved my knowledge

It was a good call as I clearly have +EV here!! Happy Days!!!

I think this is kind of sarcastic, but it is actually true. Now, if you ever see the villain re-raise a normal amount with AA, you'd know the replies you got assuming he's less likely to have AA when he shoves are more likely correct. It is about ranges and your equity vs. that range. If you have correct EV, you should want to call. We both have $1.23 in our car seats in change, so it isn't life shattering to just make the correct play.

When I saw the hand in the thread title, I thought we were in the same game. Ofc there, the villain snap shipped K4o with this stack after taking a beat. The first assumption I see in a lot of the replies is that there is a lot of BS in the villain's range who overbet ships this much. That's a generic read they're making. Is it true in your games and vs your villains? The better you answer that, the better the decisions. Still, if the math says flip, you then need to be happy and do so. The actual poker lesson is there. In NL25 the villains are likely different, but the decision process you're learning applies with the new read.

One other thing, you have to fight this attachment to stacks or variance reduction now. We're both playing 2NL. The money is meaningless, so we can just play this as a game with a scoreboard. Do our best. If you ingrain your attachment to money value/buyins such that it overrides good poker decisions, I promise you that if you continue playing you'll end up spending tons of time unlearning the lesson. Then, when the call is $500 or $1000 you'll also fight the real world value of the $ decision. Trust me, unlearning this habit is hard. Don't learn it. You don't care about $1, all you care about is good poker.

On 2NL fishs call wider than that.
Any PP, any Ace, most Kings and any BW at least. Some SC (89, 9T, JT) and some suited one gappers maybe. You have like 65% equity over that range.
They are not playing 'good' poker, they are gambling, and that range is good for gambling.

I'm calling against a 68/23 like there is no tomorrow.

Thanks for your post. There is no sarcasm intended. After thought and discussion, there is only one decision here and that's to call.

As for the stack attachment. I understand what you mean but I still want to win no matter how small the stakes. If I don't care about whether I win or lose my money there is no incentive to learn to get better.

My goal is to learn to play poker and have fun doing it. In the end it doesn't matter whether I called or not, what matters is that I looked into this hand and learnt a lot and had fun doing it.

Depends what kind of fish it is 83/53 would call wider than a 7/2. I think we have to be careful when lumping all players at 2nl together.

I will be snap calling this next time though, without even a moments thought

Hero had a solid read that vil doesn't fold river when behind. Expert play.

This is something to fix. You just want to make the best decisions, as often as you humanly can. You don't want to win, because you can't control that. All you can control is the quality of each decision you make. Then, we have faith that this will result in winning in the "long run", which is amazingly long at times.

Success

It's fairly safe to lump all massive fish (people with a VPIP above 40) in with each other, since they have pretty similar tendencies.