25NL, effective stack 100BB.

V is on the LJ opens to 0.55$, folds to Hero on BB with KcJh I call.

Flop 7h8sKs.
Pot: 1.2$.

I x, V bets 1$ I call.

Turn 2c.
Pot: 3.2$.

I x and he bets 3.56$.

From my experience in 25NL when people show big aggression 1 pair isn't good enough, but I feel like folding these spots can be exploitative.

how do you go about these spots?

I believe you have PT4, use it to post your hands. It formats them and you can copy the code straight into the forum post text box . That way you don’t have to worry about getting table positions right etc. It’s very intuitive.

Go to a hand, double click it and a pop up box will appear. There will be a button that is blue (I think) and looks like a V. You can press that and it will copy the hand for you, you also have a load of options in a drop down menu to hide player names etc if you like. If that doesn’t make sense I imagine they have a video on their website showing how to do it, might be a sticky in this forum too, not sure.

Thanks! but actually I saved this hand in GGnetwork hand history, and it shows it in a picture. What I can do is import the hand to PT but that takes longer than just writing the hand manually.. if this hand isn't clear then I'll start importing instead.

I call turn (but its close)
If river is a blank I fold to a big bet from villain...

This.

The turn:

- Always pay attention to if you have a bluffcatcher or a hand that beats some value. (seems obvious but I'm serious)
- In this spot you are playing vs an UTG range where villain bets big OTF and slight overbets the turn. You have a pure bluffcatcher.
- When you have a pure bluffcatcher blockers/unblockers come into play immediately, and they play an insanely big role.
- Villain bets over pot = you don't have to defend very wide.
- Your KJ here rarely improves to beat villains value
- Equity to the nuts go up in value, and TPGK hands down in value
- Your range consists of ~30-45% top pair+ (considering you called a 3/4 pot size OTF) made hands and maybe ~5-10% of good draws (combodraws / pair + FD/ nut FD) that can call/raise a turn bet profitably.
- Villain bets over pot so you only have to defend about ~45% of your range
- Just call TP hands that unblock most of villains bluffs and good draws or pair + draw type hands that can win at showdown in some way. Even K6s should be a better call than KJo here.

This is all without considering exploits and should be close to equilibrium. Exploitatively you can't go wrong by folding KJ pure I don't think vs an overbet, even if this is a small overbet.

Very good points. I imagine KQ would be call right? I can see folding KJ here but KQ seems a little too strong especially if we have non spade Q. Would you agree?

Yeah I think so. KQ is probably the bottom of villains OB value range.

Word. And as for river, would you call w KQ on blanks for a 2/3-3/4 pot bet? I really wouldn't want to but I don't know if I'd be able to lay it down, or if we ever should due to the missed str8 and flush.

This. You made some good points, but what do you do on a brick river facing a big bet on a big pot? hero call K6 no spades?

OTR: Without reads probably mixing Kx that blocks bluffs and closer to pure calling K6s type hands that block no bluffs. If villain doesn't bet over pot it might still be KQ for value, so calling KQ goes up in EV.

It all makes alot of sense, but I swear to god every time I get check raised 3x barreled in 25NL it's never a bluff.

Usually it seems like it. I think pot/pot/pot lines are way too value heavy. XR/bet/bet is imo more bluffed on textures with a lot of natural bluffs. Villain should in theory show you a bluff only about 33% of the time OTR, so that's that. If they show a bit less, which they probably do, just call your best bluffcatchers (good blockers/unblockers) and ditch the indifferent ones. You won't get exploited imo.

Nobody is check/raising in this hand....

A Check/raising range is much stronger that a normal betting range...

And dont get me wrong - but your mental attitude seems to be bad ("I seear to god I am always unlucky"

It would be much better to play NL2 or NL5 until you know the fundamentals...
I think you will get eaten at NL25 from the regs...

Playing at lower stakes has definitely given me more space to work on my mental game. I was playing 10NL and making very poor decisions, often based round emotion. I moved back down to 5NL and over the last 35K hands have worked hard on tilt issues etc. I’m now rolled for 10NL again and very confident in my ability to control myself. Long road ahead but I’ve had multiple occasions in the last week where previously I would have tilted off my roll etc. Now I’m able to just shrug it off or at worst I walk away for the day, accepting that you can’t win every session. I think micros is the best place to learn it, tilt can do serious damage to a bigger roll.

my mental attitude is definitely bad at the moment, I'm gonna take a week off.

what tilts me the most is people telling me to know fundamentals without giving a solid advice/solution. I've got the fundamentals covered, unless you teach me something I don't know regarding how to play hands like these correctly.

Here's the same type of hand I'm having trouble with online (I don't wanna spam the forum with threads of the same sort of hand):

Sure he could have a flush draw, or an OESD, but do I call a x/r and a pot size bet? Calling turn seems wrong, so I keep folding these spot and it tilts me that it's happening quite often and I can't tell if it's correct to fold or if am I getting pushed around constantly.

On a side note, my All-in adj graph is way higher than my actual winloss graph. Doesn't that mean I should be profitable on 25NL? (real question, as I stated before I'm not experienced with PT stats and all that).

I don't think you're a losing player. You might as well be a winner in these games. It doesn't take an advanced theoretical player to beat 25nl.

There might be a difference in how we define fundamentals though. When wacker1913 talks about fundamentals he is referring to:

- Pre-flop theory (optimal sizings, why 89s generally performs worse than 65s as a flat vs 3b, rake considerations, etc)
- Ranges (nut advantage, equity advantage, cappedness, linear & polar, etc)
- Sizings (different textures, heavily dependent on range theory, etc)
- Bluffing/defence (MDF, blockers, etc)
- Frequencies (heavily dependent on all of this stuff)
- etc...

You don't have to master all these to beat 25nl, but as you go higher up you should know quite a bit of these things, atleast how they affect the game and your EV.

Correct me if I'm wrong, and I'm not trying to be offensive by any means, but I think you might lack understanding about a lot of these things (which I'm not a master of either) and how to apply them in your game.

There are a lot of resources though and we talk about theory a lot here on uNL but also in the Poker Theory section.

Shameless self-promotion: I've written quite a few theory posts in my PG&C. I have them all listed in one of the last ~8 pages of my thread.

But that's all the free stuff on here. Getting a solver will help you a lot when you start grasping these things on the surface.

By studying theory and understanding how GTO/solver "thinks", you will figure out spots yourself without having been in the same exact spot before.

If you have time on your break, these are fantastic things to study.

GL brother

Yea I lack some knowledge on a few of those. I need to decide if spending all that money on solvers is worth it, given I'm playing micro stakes.

Probably the best response I've ever gotten on this forum btw, much appreciated.

I also do not want to be offensive.
I already told which stats are very bad on the other thread.
You open too less, your AF is too low, you fold so much to 3bets that I would raise you with ATC and your worst stat is your WTSD - its way too high and indicates you are a massiv calling station.

So I dont understand what you mean with not giving advice...

Your flop cbet is too small .I would bet bigger to protect my vulnerable TP like 2/3pot to pot.

Don't get me wrong, I loved that comment on the other thread, I didn't realize it was you. But I'm posting a hand and instead of responding to the issue I'm struggling with I get "work on your fundamentals". It's a pretty vague advice isn't it?

I just bought PIO solver to help me with these spots, I'm certain I know the fundamentals, I guess online play emphasizes how rusty I am about my game.

Too late now, but GTO+ probably would have been a better buy for you with it's play against the solver feature.