Seeking advice/opinions on my play of this hand:

villain is largely unknow; quiet, no tells, asian-ish, younger, in good shape. only played with him once before, cant remember much else

i have Q-6o

Folds to me in the SB. I raise, bb calls

flop J-2-8 rainbow; i bet he calls

turn 7 putting two hearts up

i check, he bets, I fold


Is this standard? Ive been raising 100% of my range (minus 9-2, 2-7 etc) from the sb. if anyone accually knows this I feel like they can just call-steal me to death since ill miss so often

When and under what circumstances(or board textures) should i be barreling?

nh

Yea we dont have much fold equity on that turn, as any piece is calling you down. Even unpaired hands like Q9, QT and KT see the river, so you have to barrel off if you bet turn. X/f seems fine.

Time or rake?

we shoukd dbl barrel aces of course right?

maybe a king?

what abouta jack?

rake $5

Fold or chop maybe?

i play in a time game, but yeah if raked, i'd def chop or fold

im not sure I agree on not-chopping, though I have no empirical evidence one way or the other.

If we dont chop and theres a raise preflop and a bet on each street the final pot will be $280 of which the rake then represents 1.8%. This is probably an underestimation of the average rake in heads up pots, maybe its between 3-5% which is standard

Also most, if not all players in my 20 game play horribly heads up. They fold WAY too much, and so ive been raising pre 100% OOP and in position. id say maybe 20%-30% of the time the bb just folds outright

this coupled with Q-6 being an above average hand I think we should play, and I would encourage you guys to try it out in your own games, perhaps youll be surprised how much $$$ you leave on the table when you chop( i dont really know how much, it just feels like its +EV)

The computer says Q6o is below average.

The problem with opening say 95% of your range in a raked game is that you'll constantly be losing 3 SB when you x/f the turn and winning 1.75 SB when your opponent folds the flop. In a time game you can overcome this by outplaying weaker players and collecting 2 SB, (b/c obviously your opponents will be folding the flop at a slightly higher frequency than you). Chopping would be theoretically correct here b/c that extra 1/4 SB lost makes a huge difference over a large sample of hands.

Theoretically there are more outcomes than just your opponent folding the flop and you check/folding the turn

nh

How many handed are you guys?

Chopping / Not chopping debate aside, Q-6 off seems too weak be opening from the SB. You're OOP and don't have much show down value.

Some players do tend to spazz a little more because the other blind doesn't chop. If that's true, than it would make more sense to open your Ax+, pocket pairs, and broadway cards, and just go to value down. Seems unnecessary to play marginal hands and ride the variance wave.

i just chop. i feel too badly taking so many pots from my opponents. i know poker is supposed to be all cutthroat and all, but there still has to be some level of charity.

i know i'm sitting here next to the person the whole session since we're sharing blinds and there isn't a wall between us.

this is even the case when the person next to me is sending over thoughts. you know they don't send over their good thoughts. they're sending criminal thoughts. they're hoping i'm on drugs and playing badly. they're sending thoughts of raping me of my chips. despite this, i still believe in charity.

if i didn't chop, i'd end up with all the blinds. as everybody knows, i'm highly educated at poker and i know the blinds. i have all the best blinds.

you're giving up a lot and putting yourself at a disadvantage by chopping in timed games. you're forfeiting ev by not playing hu with fish and are only playing bvb with the competent players who realize this. you're there to play. that's what you're paying time for. + in full ring games i'm looking for any opportunity to play a hand since it's so boring.

+1 raise pre.

As to what to do on the flop, I cbet everything and have no idea if it's the most profitable. It's a good amount of work to construct a balanced range of c/c, c/f, c/raise, given a specific hand and flop, to start checking flops.

As played, I'd c/f the turn as well. I don't think you beat a single hand in his continuing range on this turn. However, if you do think he's animal enough to have hands like 96/54 or whatever, you can start mixing in c/raises on the turn with your stronger value and semibluff hands.

If you want to get better at HU, best start is to look at HU bots, LDO. The blind structure makes things a bit different, but that will be a lot more useful than most of the advice here.

I have played a lot of HU LHE vs real people and bots, but I don't find it helps in BvB situations at all, because of the positions being reversed.

"..Don't find it helps at all" -- larf

Fwiw if I thought bb played better than me I would fold Q6o here, I think it's only profitable against some people.

@dd:
what about k2o?
how do you feel about using a limp/call with entire range strategy vs good players?
and what would your range look like?

fwiw i have been playing q6o in these spots, but admittedly feel i've been too loose.

thanks for the replies guys

we were 9 handed

I think i got the "raise everything" stratedgy from phil newalls book. i dont know if its working, it feels like it is given how bad people play bvb (folding their big blind too often, just folding missed flops, never 3-betting me). but i dont have any hard data

its a lot of fun if nothing else...

Would fold K2o against wizards too. I used to limp/call but the bots never do it so I'm convinced it can't be optimal.

where have bots played bvb? i don't know much about them