Basically, I'm trying to plug all the little leaks i have in my game. So apologies for the boring hand.

But this situation happens a lot of the time & i think i may be losing some EV... I should really try to steal this at some point right? (villain is 31/5/2.4)

If yes, when should i bet?

Party Poker $200 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Hero (BB): $264.78
UTG: $389.50
MP: $265.62
CO: $216.60
BTN: $192.00
SB: $196.00

Pre Flop: Hero is BB with 3 2
4 folds, SB calls $1, Hero checks

Flop: ($4.00) 8 6 A (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($4.00) 7 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($4.00) 5 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

The 31/5/2.4 comes in two varieties: The one that contests every pot that their opponent might steal, and the one that plays semitight until they get a hand, then overplay it a bunch. I would bet the flop vs the second type, and the turn vs the first type, if I ever bet against the first type.

goddamnit why can't I just post "nh"


nh

****

his WTSD/W$SD is 24/39 over 5K hands.... so i guess that makes him the second type.

imo, a river bet isn't great as in this situation, only hands that have you beat will call.

if you wanna steal this pot, i'd bet the flop

if you wait till the turn then you need to fire a lot of rivers, and that makes it a riskier play--no sense it getting too crazy here imo

bet the flop...with any 2...everytime

lol.
i think river is the best place in this spot

sometimes pf if you havent been too active, but flop pretty much always. As played bet the turn, as played bet the river

Elaborate?

if you're gonna bet, it has to be the flop... never the turn or river

made my day

i bet the flop usually. betting the turn is tricky as we get called a lot and have no idea which rivers we should fire and i don't think firing all rivers is profitable.

Betting flop is best. It is most likely that he doesn't have anything and will therefore fold. I would fire 100% here.

Betting river is the worst. He is expecting a bluff here and will likely call with any pair and sometimes K high. Thus you are getting called a lot more.

qft

bet flop all day, it's like free money

qft

wow lots of tough decisions here.

i think u can start by betting the flop and going from there

If a donk limps the sb and then checks the flop, a bet takes it down a huge % of the time. A half pot bet on the flop is very +EV imo.
A 31/5 wants to see flops cheap. He got to see it cheap. And 2/3 of the time he misses.
He checks so he's saying he missed this one. I'm presuming from his stats that he's not in any way tricky.
As played I'm not betting that turn as he may have picked up some draws.
As played I think you can maybe bet pot on the river and rep the straight.

these are more important to winning than 95% of the posts we see in this forum

I'm also glad you posted this as I think these are important and I'm always curious about how other people play in similiar spots.

Sometime I'd bet turn and if he calls like 2x pot river. Against stationy players I sometimes just give up the whole way. I think it's also okay for meta purposes since there is value in slowing down some bad hands to improve your image and give later blind battles bet more (or less) credit depending on what you want.

There was a CTS blog recently where he had a similiar near nut-low hand, and after checking in the BB in a headsup match he led a blankish looking flop and his reason was just that his hand has no showdown value and next to no draw value so getting raised obviously doesn't matter, and it's more +EV than giving up.

by the time the river comes along, villain has checked to us three times

So I was thinking about this thread on the way home tonight. I would anticipate that villain knows that IStrong does not have an Ace or any pocket pair here as he would surely raise this up preflop, so we should anticipate that villain would call here with any pair.

Given that villain is like 2:1 to hit a pair, the flop bet should still be +EV as long as villain is willing to fold if he misses? Or am I oversimplifying this?

without history/reads, i think the first point is thinking at a level that is too high for these stakes.

but even if villain is thinking to that level, istrong could easily have an 8 or a 6

couldn't agree more..

you have no draw and no chance of winning the pot unless you hit a pair that never could be paid off with worse.. and villain completes from sb and checks flop, thats not the strongest line in the game.. so bet here with any2 to take the pot, if called just shut down.

only way i could make a case for checking is if you flop something so big that you want him to catch up on you or bluff at it.

Does nobody raise this preflop? I thought you were all agrotards preflop and would never let anybody limp your BB!

I usually play these hands way too passively and they happen so often so I've started raising them preflop, especially against these guys.