$1/$2 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players

Hero (UTG): $200 (100 bb)
MP: $200 (100 bb)
CO: $200 (100 bb)
BTN: $302.20 (151.1 bb)
SB: $201 (100.5 bb)
BB: $158 (79 bb)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with J K
Hero raises to $7.50, 2 folds, BTN calls $7.50, 2 folds

Flop: ($18) 2 Q 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $11.34, BTN calls $11.34

Turn: ($40.68) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $25.64, BTN calls $25.64

River: ($91.96) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

Results: $91.96 pot ($2.80 rake)
Final Board: 2 Q 7 7 8
Hero showed J K and lost (-$44.48 net)
BTN showed 6 6 and won $89.16 ($44.68 net)


Villain was a reg playing 22/19 over 94 hands, starts tables and is very tough opponent for me so far.
He raised 3bb CO, i 3bet 9bb OTB, BB nit reg cold called, villain overcalled with QTs(do you think his call is good?). He also called A9o vs my first 3bet HU, i think this is standard though when opening ranges are ATC right?

I think his turn call is too loose unless he is defending a ton of hands pre-flop which i doubted in these possitions but he does seems on the loose side vs 3bets, so possible for calling opens too i guess.

What i want to know is how to exploit his over defending tendancies OTT to the max.
I have no reads on his river tendancies yet.

Board: Qd 7h 2s 7d

Hand 0: 82.689% { JJ-66, 22, AQs, KQs, QJs, AQo }
Hand 1: 17.311% { 88 }

Hand 0: 71.083% { JJ-66, 22, AQs, KQs, QJs, AQo }
Hand 1: 28.917% { 99 }

TT: 40%, JJ: 53.6%
Ofcourse his range may be very different(could include QQ+/AK).
Are you cbetting this flop with ATC normally?
Any advice appreciated, and no, i don't normally barrel KJo here but if i barrel: AQ KK AA 77 22 87s=32combos
flush draws only add up to: AKd AJd ATd KJd KTd JTd J9d T9d 98d=9combos, so hardly enough to let him bluff catch really.

How wide is your UTG opening-range? Maybe you have a sizing-tell? Don't like his play without a read. For 3.5 bb, I might even fold preflop in his shoes (not if BB is a fish).

Thanks for replying.
The BB was a rec player, so my opening range would have been about 17%, but broadway heavy rather than connectors.
No sizing tell, if i start betting 2/3rds pot, i normally finish betting 2/3rds pot

Oh wow, ok. I call down to about 44 in villain's shoes even with reg blinds, is that bad? How many pocket pairs do you drop per .5bb then? normally i drop one, maybe two.

Thats not 3.5. thats 3.75x which is way to big.

Your UTG open is a little to loose in my opinion even with a rec player in the blinds especially when you have a really good player OTB who is giving you trouble. Also I'd rather open a hand like 89s with a rec player in the blinds then KJo

I don't have a fixed rule for cold-calling. Our own position matters, too. Maybe calling 77+ against a 3.75 bb UT open-raise from BT. 22 is a fold and 99 is a call. Not so sure about PPs in between.

Why?

I'm pretty sure the opposite is right, at least with 80 bb effective stacks. KJo blocks hands, the other players could bluff- or value-3bet against us. In addition, KJo has more equity against a fish's cold-calling range.

Yes with fish involved your opening range should shift in the direction of raw EQ hands.. but I dont think you can open KJo profitably on most tables (even with a fish in the BB)

I don't mind your open with rec player in blinds but I prefer to keep it smaller until other regs are flatting a ton in position.

I think his call down is too light considering you've only played 100 hands so he can't know how wide you are opening or double barreling.

I mean from now on you can comfortably check fold more often when you whiff with no BD equity, but bet lighter for value on f&t. I'd also be happy to 3 barrel hands where I pick up equity on the turn but miss river and will probably throw in the odd river over bet too.

The only obvious thing I'd say is to watch is making lots of these plans with a small sample. I mean his PFR/VPIP spread is pretty tight so far, so possibly once he cold calls he feels locked into pots etc but I'd be looking to see him make this these light calls versus me and other regs a few times before going ahead with any adjustments.

What's your turn cbet%?

If it's over 20% then I were villain I would call the turn too, since turn was a brick which give incentive for bluffers to double barrel, since if they check they kind of give away the strength of their hand. (Unless they're playing unexpectedly for me.)

If I were villain I would fold to a triple barrel.

Not sure how you can take advantage of this since I would be expecting you do vbet AQ, KQ, JQ etc for at least 2 streets anyways.

But almost every reg in the world will have a turn cbet % bigger than 20% - think you've made a mistake there.

Yea sorry you're probably right. I haven't played on a site that allows HUD since Black Friday and I don't really member what some of these stats are.

Thnx for more replys.

I remember watching deucescracked videos where the instructor would open TJo UT to play with the rec player in the BB(i think maybe it was balugawhale, but can't be sure). This was a year or 2 ago though.

Even so, if my normal opening range is 14% say, and there is a rec player in the blinds, shouldn't my opening% rise a little? Or even change from being hands like 78s/A5s, to hands like KJo?
I would open KTo and QJo here as well, i don't think KJo is particularly close.

What would you change in your opening range then, since in the bolded part you kind of say you alter your range a little in this situation as well..

About 55%.

I agree that if we knew that the pot was going to end up HU against the fish that we would rather have a hand like KJo vs an 89s type hand but the issue here is we are UTG and we still have 4 other players behind us to act, some of which are regs which by the OP's own admission are tough regs giving him trouble so far.

Because chances are that our raise is going to be flatted by regs IP on us with a fish in the blinds, it leads me to lean towards having suited connector type hands rather than hands like KJo for several reasons.

your turn barrel is beyond horrible

when i see you doing that only one time i will double float you with my whole range i call on flop and steal the pot on river

If your opening that wide utg i dont like the double barrel unless your going to triple. What hands call the flop that fold the turn? nothing has changed. I guess underpairs below 77 would fold but half of those probably fold on flop. And the ones that call the flop are stubborn and prob call that turn again like this villain did with 66.

Also preflop you cant be raising that big utg if is your opening range is that wide with kjo unless theres some serious fish at the table

Thanks all.

Why?

I can and i did

srsly?

Villain's call with 66 on the flop is bad, obviously turn call is even worse.
Unless he has a read on you, he is just making pretty fundamental errors by calling too much.

In general both the range he gets to the turn and to the river with are going to be wider and weaker than you're used to.

There are two possible adjustments to make to this, depending on villain as well:

1. Bluff less (esp on bricks). Him calling too much increases the value of your valuebets and decreases the value of your bluffs.

2. Bluff more (esp on non-bricks). His range is weak, it can't stand pressure. Until you see him stationing on the river, you can profitably 3barrel a lot of boards vs this guy, esp for example Q72T or something like that should be a nightmare for him to calldown vs you. Q727 the same - if he's calling all pocketpairs flop+turn, decent chance he folds them and some Qx on the river.

In my opinion the best strategy would be to start 3barreling him a lot, and once he sees you doing it with air - readjust by playing solid abc vs him and watch him station down in spots where you always have it.

As for hero's turnbet... It's definitely fine to mix in some pure bluffs in this spot, knowing you personally I'm guessing you don't overdo it. Bet certainly isn't terrible, and if you think it is you're probably very easy to play against on these textures (Since you're never bluffing turn...)

its ok to give up on complete blanks with close to no equity (and the 7 is even better for him than us), hero has enough turn cards he can barrel on (basically half the deck).

but from what i see at the tables it seems to be common understanding to barrel zero equity on blanks. its just lightening money on fire.

and the adjustments you are missing is the most important one: value bet thinner!

Well... if your range for getting to the turn is:
Top pair+ - betting
Flushdraws - betting
Pocketpairs - check-deciding
Air - check-folding

Then as op stated, you don't have enough flushdraws and villian would be correct to fold most of his range to a turn bet. This implies that unless villain is incorrectly calling turn too wide (as this guy is fwiw), you can profitably add zero equity bluffs to your turn betting range. If you bet only flushdraws and QJs+ on this turn villain would actually be correct folding QJs himself which means he is for sure folding enough for you to add bluffs!

Value-betting thinner is a good adjustment as well, but I think you can exploit this guy harder than that :-)

we can bet any FD and Ten+ on turn

thats enough hands so we dont give up to much on turn

and also, when you feel the urgent need to set money on fire and barrel zero equity hands on blanks, then at least barrel the pairing of the 2, not the 7. he has more 87 A7s 67 in his range than 2s.

i stick to it, turn is horrible (not judging villains play).

regarding "exploiting" you can obv exploit this guy more, but the first thing which must come into mind when someone calls to much (also called "callingstation") is to value bet more, not to bluff more.

or tripple potbetting any runout??