Texas Hold'em $0.15-$0.25 NL (real money)

Seat 1: C ($24.50 in chips)
Seat 2: D ($35.60 in chips)
Seat 3: E ($24.25 in chips)
Seat 4: F ($24.75 in chips)
Seat 5: G ($25.25 in chips)
Seat 6: Hero BTN ($23.95 in chips)
Seat 7: SB ($41.15 in chips)
Seat 8: BB ($21.20 in chips) 10/8 after 49 hands.
Seat 9: A ($33.20 in chips)
Seat 10: B ($2.35 in chips)

Hero is dealt K 3

PRE-FLOP
7 folds, Hero calls $0.25, SB folds, BB bets $1, Hero calls $1.

I've got 21-1 in possible implied after BBs raise and will be in position all the way, I thought that K3s is a very concealled hand in this situation.

I put him on AJ+, 88+ for his preflop raise as a typical NL25 player usually do not raise 76s and the like.

If you do not agree with my call, then which types of hands would you call with in this situation? T9s, pp, 76s? JTo? Or other hands?

BBs problem in the remainder of this hand will be that he has no good range to put me on, and therefore will be easier to stack, as he must assume that I am bluffing rather often, if I hit.

Do you agree with this statement?

FLOP 7 7 3

BB bets $1.50, Hero bets $3, BB calls $1.50.

I figure that I am ahead of the AJ+ part of his range where he would be c-betting and might be able to scare him of on 88, 99 at least some of the time. 33, TT is in my range for limping BTN, but he might not know that. And I might be able to slow him down while it is still cheap. Had he raised I would have been forced to fold.

TURN K
BB checks, Hero bets $5, BB calls $5.

Now I am ahead of almost all of his range except AA, AK and KK, the latter being very unlikely. It seems correct to try to build the pot.

RIVER 3
BB checks, Hero bets $14.70 and is all-in, BB calls $11.95 and is all-in.

Now I am ahead of everything but AK and KK. As he will have great difficulty in reading my K3, he should call at least 35%-40% of the time on the river suspecting a bluff from me from game theory reasons, therefore I need him to call a bet like $5 100% of the for it being better than shoving and perhaps a shove looks more like a bluff.

SHOWDOWN
Hero shows K 3
BB shows A A
Hero wins $43.80.

raise PF (and wtf at open limping TT OTB?)

I dont like the flop minraise, first off, he will NEVER fold 88, 99 there. I just dont get the point of these minraises, if you are going to raise, raise more. All you are doing is building the pot since he prolly calls with his entire range. The point of a raise here is because you think you have the best hand often enough and want him to fold out overs, or to push him off a better hand on the turn (I dont advise this at these limits tho) Personally I just call and then decide if im calling or folding the turn.

Turn: check behind now. He prolly folds out his mid pair hands now (even if he doesnt, you arent getting 2 streets from them unless hes a HUUGE drooler, and you are more likely to get one street after you check behind turn) And The K hits a decent part of his range (AK). Building a pot is bad, because if a lot more money goes in, you are losing this hand, and if you check maybe you can also get him to a call a small river bet with AQ AJ hoping you were bluffing

River, you are ahead of everything but KK, AK just has a pair. Your opponent has zero clue what game theory even means, hes only calling if he cant bear the thought of folding his big PP or thinks you are bluffing. But yeah after he calls turn I think hell have AA, AK enough to call here, since everything else often folds anyway, you might as well shove.

You're going to hear "raise preflop" a lot here, but there's a reason for that.

Generally limping otb should be a specific play designed to induce bluffs from aggro opponents, ,or to otherwise see a flop without having to face a re-steal preflop. IOW you'll want a specific read and a specific hand in order to make pf openlimping make any sense.

Absent such reads, you should be raising when you enter a pot for Three specific reasons:

1)you'll generally want to inflate the pot in position and then take it down with a cbet when you both miss.

2)you'll want to be able to raise with primo hands and not have the raise be suspicious.

3)[this is probably least important] You'll want to prevent the blinds from realizing the flop equity in their trash hands for free. IOW, you don't want BB to have 73 in this hand and then get to see the flop for free if he'll just fold it down pf.

Nope. My default play against a button openlimper is to check and then donk out on the flop if I whiff, or otherwise check if I connect. If I get action then I'll usually assume that I'm up against a hand, and if I don't then I've won the pot.
If someone limp/calls pf and then starts putting big action in postflop then I'll also want a hand to continue.


On the flop I agree with your assessment that villain's range hasn't changed with the cbet, but if you're going to raise I think you need to raise much more than you did. The minraise prices in all overcards and flushdraws against you here, and gains you just about zero information, since 7x and AA are as likely to call the minraise and look for action later on as they are to threebetting you here. also, you should be just a little worried about the fact that villain overbet the pot here, since I'm not seeing a lot of overbet bluffing in these spots. As played my tendency is to either call or fold, and if I call I'm assuming I'm behind here and I need to either bluff him off on the river or catch on the turn.

I was going to respond, but Alobar + Guru have this one 100% covered. Listen to these guys.

Surf

FWIW, you don't necessarily want the BB not to see the flop with, e.g. 73 or 86 or what have you, if he will make enough mistakes postflop to increase your expectation. The problem is that K3s isn't really the type of hand that is going to induce him to make mistakes and it'll often be you making mistakes b/c you won't make very many strong hands (and none of them are disguised).

I don't mind limping OTB with hands like Q9 or what have you if the BB will put in multiple bets with a hand like 95 when the flop comes 973.

That said, open raising in position should be your default, especially in passive games where a 3bet by your opponent indicates exactly what it represents, a big pair or two big cards like AK. You are just going to make too much money having them call with a weak range and give up when they miss to take a different line.

So the consensus on this one is to sometimes limp late when folded to you with some hands like Q9 but depending on reads. But in general open raise.

But what kind of hands would you fold on the button? 72o, 32o, what about small unsuited jacks and tens?

As I've started to see more sb threebetting [yes, at 25nl] I've begun to tighten my button range pretty considerably, depending on who's in there.

if your blinds are at all willing to threebet pf, then your best recourse is to skew your range a little bit towards hands that can play vs the threebets either with calls or with fourbets. If they are not willing to threebet pf, call a lot out of the blinds and if they fold to cbets more than 50% or so, then you can start to raise ATC there because you're not really playing for anything more than an inflated orphaned pot.

I have to admit that I don't find myself in that specific situation as a default at 25nl though, and if I do then I'm generally sitting in the wrong seat.