Yatahay Network - $0.10 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 146.6 BB
SB: 121.3 BB
Hero (BB): 121.5 BB
UTG: 125.9 BB
MP: 334.2 BB
CO: 134.7 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J A

UTG raises to 2.2 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.2 BB

Flop: (4.9 BB, 2 players) J 8 5
Hero checks, UTG bets 2.4 BB, Hero raises to 7.2 BB, UTG raises to 16.8 BB, Hero calls 9.6 BB

Turn: (38.5 BB, 2 players) Q
Hero checks, UTG bets 19.2 BB, Hero calls 19.2 BB

River: (76.9 BB, 2 players) 3
Hero bets 83.3 BB and is all-in, UTG calls 83.3 BB

Hero shows J A (One Pair, Jacks)
(Pre 28%, Flop 25%, Turn 11%)
UTG shows K K (One Pair, Kings)
(Pre 72%, Flop 75%, Turn 89%)
UTG wins 231.4 BB
Rake paid 9.7 BB

This is an embarrassing hand from my session just now. I just wasn't really thinking. Thought process was that a J would be good enough to bluff-catch turn, and then if the flush hit I would have an out to bluff if he called my turn bet. Obviously I don't really rep anything other than maybe T9hh and 76hh, as all my bluff-catchers are going to be paired with one of the hears otf.

Anyway, I think I like the x/r otf, at least some of the time (unlucky he has kings here). I also think the bluff catch ott is decent, but I imagine I should x/r this some of the time if I am to bluff, and only then does it make sense to use the Ah flush blocker to rep the flush. OTR ap, I imagine I would just have to x/f, or maybe go for a thin bluff-catch as a J is just dead at that point (although maybe it's just a pure fold even with the flush blocker, idk).

Have I got this right? Or was this just a pure donk play from start to finish? I've noticed when I do something that puts me in a tough spot, I've normally just fkd up an earlier street completely, but I'm not sure if I've correctly interpreted this spot ott and otr.

What do you think made this spot bad? How would you have played? Do you think it's even a good idea to have a x/r range otf? I'd imagine this flop is pretty good for OOP and gives me something to work with, but then since my range is relatively capped idk how much I'm really raising here.

Yeah c/r is whatever I wouldn’t do it a ton but definitely some. I’m folding turn, fairly certain holding the Ah is bad as we block a lot of his combo draws we still beat.

i'd be more into raising flop vs 1/3 where people might be range betting, vs 1/2 i'm not convinced you need a raising range here although in practice i do have a polarized one built around the sets (as such im never raising to the size you did, always bigger). not saying your flop range construction is necessarily bad though.

either way yeah fold turn i think, most of his str8 draws either just hit or turned a queen, and you block the NFD

then as played on river, if you want a donk jamming range this hand should 100% be in it. i'm not sure whether you want one or not. what do ppl think about that?

The flop looks fine to me, but I would def fold to the turn bet. We are just in awful shape against villain's likely range. The river donk shove is interesting. I think it is how we would want to play a flush, so it makes sense to use this hand as a bluff now that we are here. I just worry that we will get called by almost 100% of villain's holdings. In practical play, I don't think I like the river bluff. But I am also probably somewhat biased by seeing that villain called one of the worst hands in his range.

OP, dont bluff fish, villain river call is ridicolous

Flop is almost a pure call - you XR your weaker Jxs since there are more overcards that can hurt you.

You also want to XR hands that have more good turn cards for you - a hand like J7s would be better to xr since the 7 interacts with the 8/5 and we can turn a bunch of equity.

Just fold turn - his 3bet range OTF is very nutted.

Brokenstars tells me this when I try to make some crazy bluff. Ask yourself, will Villain fold a hand like AA/KK here? Most people won't fold those hands. I don't want to try to bluff into strong ranges - I want to bluff into weak ranges.

doodoo if we do get to the river this way do u have donk jams or nah?

yeah probably. I don't see many flush draws in UTG 3bet range OTF

what are our bluffs for that?

We aren't playing even close to equilibrium since that 3bet sizing OTF isn't a thing. So we don't need to worry about bluffs

When you say range construction, do you mean you sit down and figure what you're doing, or that on the fly this is how you'd think? I don't have the time/ patience to actually put work in away from the table, and any time I spend studying is typically just learning concepts, or just reading threads on here. I wonder if I should put some time in to figure some of this stuff out next time I think of sitting down to play? This isn't even a primary hobby for me though, so maybe that's too much work.

This is definitely something I need to work on haha. Whenever I run a sim in GTO+ to figure when I'm bluffing in a spot I don't understand, 95% of the time either villain or I went off the tree many decisions ago.

That's interesting. How do you go about constructing ranges thinking of different runouts? Tbh I think I'm just too dumb/ inexperienced to think of stuff like that atm, but idk how to start. Do you typically want to polarize the turns that hit? The idea of J7 is that then if the 7 hits, we have a nut advantage, right? But then what do we get value from?

I kinda always assumed you want to spread as much as possible, so that ideally on most/ every runout you have some strong/ nutted hands, but I gather that's maybe not the case? For example, in this case I'm thinking of the possibility that an A hits and most of my hands (such as Jx) are crushed, now I have top 2. But after reading your post I gather that then villain will have just as much top 2, but then also have AA, so maybe the equity realization isn't quite good enough to justify bloating the pot with my good hands and I should just use them to protect my weaker hands to help get them to the river?

Another weak part of my rationality, though, is that if I x/r tpwk, I feel like I'm just getting called by stronger kickers - but (although most people I play against would probably be over-folding if they miss the flop) this probably isn't the case just statistically. But I guess I just don't have faith in my ability to defend such a condensed range ott if I'm mainly raising for protection/ thin value - I won't know which runouts are good for me, which are bad, when to lead, and how wide to defend vs bets.

a little bit of A a little bit of B, depending on how serious you want to take it. at the table definitely be thinking about how you would want to play other hands, and like the bet sizes each would want to use. so on the flop i usually have 1 size for my whole range in that spot, on the turn and river i'll split into whatever discrete number of sizes needed, which is usually 2 or 3. if this is like the only hand you want to use this sizing with its hard to balance against good opponents, whereas if you just put this into your x/c range and have one big raise sizing for 2+ plus and bluffs against his half pot sizing its much simpler to manage. not saying a good player can't have success against another good player with a strategy involving x/ring with Jx against this cbet sizing but ironically i think that would take a lot more work away from the table to figure out (and also i suspect the sizing would be smaller than yours). but obviously if the only other player in the pot is a rec you can and should do whatever you want and ignore any of this