Villian is 73/6/4.25 over 15 hands. No other reads.

3rd orbit at table. I haven't played a single hand yet. Players are either loose/passive or nitty 8/1/.25 types.

I have been getting crunched since moving up to 10NL and I am pretty sure hands like these are the reason why. Please give me some feedback on what I can do better here.

Poker Stars $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked

MP1: $1.25
MP2: $9.65
CO: $9.85
BTN: $8.20
SB: $10.50
BB: $7.20
UTG: $2.40
Hero (UTG+1): $9.70
UTG+2: $8.35

Pre Flop: Hero is UTG+1 with J A
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.40,

As I haven't played a hand in 2 orbits, I raise here, trying to represent AA/KK. Otherwise I would fold this UTG+1. Table is pretty passive and I haven't seen any 3 bets preflop. Is it a waste of time to play like I have AA/KK here?

6 folds, BB calls $0.30

Flop: ($0.85) J 8 5 (2 players)

I want to get 3 streets of value from KJ/QJ/TJ/2nd pair here and charge villian to draw.

BB bets $0.50, Hero raises to $1.50, BB calls $1

In hindsight I don't like my flop raise size. I think a raise to $2.50 is better for the purposes of getting villians stack in the middle with worse hands and charging him to draw. If he shoves I think I can find a fold in the absence of reads.

After this action I think it is unlikely villian has a set. I put villian on a TP type hand with a weaker kicker.

Turn: ($3.85) 9 (2 players)
BB bets $0.50,

Villians small turn bet suggests to me he doesnt have a set. I think a set in this villians hands would either be an openshove or a checkraise all in.

Hero raises to $1.50, BB calls $1

I think this another street that I played badly. With 4.35 in the pot after villians bet and only 4.80 effective stack sizes, I think I should push here as villian will still call a lot of worse hands.

River: ($6.85) 8 (2 players)
BB bets $3.80 all in, Hero calls $3.80

As played I think I have to call this shove. I still think this is a bizarre line for a set, but what other types of hands do you think he shows up with here?

Thanks for your time and I look foward to some constructive criticism of my "line" in this hand.

As long as you get your money in here everything is fine...

I'd raise more on the turn though because board gets really drawy and his range is most likely very wide.

I don't think its a set, its either j8 or QdTd/Td7d or overpair.
I would have just called the turn bet. He min-bet on the flop and called your raise and again put a donk bet on the turn. Its a big hand (set, overpairs...) or a flush draw

I don't think there's much value in trying to "represent" anything at 10NL. As played, I don't mind getting all in vs this guy (though a pretty irrelevant sample size, you can at least start to tell their tendencies when they're in 10 out of the first 15 hands, none of which were for a raise). In general though, I don't like getting all in with TPTK.

+1

ABC TAG poker wins at 10nl. Play good cards for your position, hit hand, value bet to winning. Most of the players aren't paying any attention to you and will have no idea that you haven't played for a while. The ones using PT aren't going to rely on 16 hands to make a judgment about you.

Even 100 isn't enough. I've looked at 100 hand spans of my own play and my VPIP has ranged from 5 to 33, depending on the cards and the table.

Word. Even over 100 hands, I run anywhere from 5/4 to 12/11. But you still get a general idea of how aggressive a person is, even after a small sample. A 15/15 over 50 hands is much different than a 15/2 over 50 hands.

FWIW I am currently working on a strategy to beat 10NL that is slightly different than "standard TAG". I will update (make a post) probably at the end of the month with my results.

Thanks for the comments.

Anyway, villian turned over K8o. Guess I must be playing badly if I even need to question getting the money in here.

I agree, a limper is a limper and you can see that pretty quickly. I look forward to your thesis.

Preflop: You're not trying to represent anything here. Noone is going to automatically put you on AA / KK just because you raise UTG. You're raising here both for value and to thin the field so you can frequently take this pot on the flop even if you miss. If you're going to try and represent a big hand preflop you should be raising something like 57 or 64, hands that are going to have a lot of deception value if you hit, and a lot of fold equity if you miss and cbet. A hand like AJ is too good to have deception value, but not good enough to go broke w/ pf. Just play it straighforward. Personally I would prefer to raise to .25 or .3 here rather than .4 simply because you are in early position with a marginal hand that you don't mind being aggressive with, but don't want to end up in a big pot situation with just a pair. The smaller pf raise is just a personal preference though, as it will generally do the same thing as your 4x raise without building a big pot you don't want yet.

Flop : BB led into you for about 1/2 the pot and you likely have the best hand. I would also raise here, but would make it about 1.80. That's going to be about a pot sized bet, and if he's coming along for the 1.5 raise you made he's coming along for 1.80. If he's just donking into you with air then he's folding no matter what raise we make so oh well. One problem I see here is what happens after we raise if he shoves? This puts us in a bad spot where we might have the best hand, but now we're in a huge pot that we don't really want to play. If BB was to shove over our flop pot bet then I would really want to lay it down as there can't be anything reasonable that we beat if he's willing to stack off after we've shown this much strength. If he is the type of player who's going to stack off with jt, qj, 99 here etc . . then he's going to give his money away soon and we can take him once we have a better feel for his play.


Turn : Ugly card, this could easily have 2 paired him, it completes a straight, and 99 is not out of the question. The line BB is taking here where he donked on the flop, led for the same amount on the turn is a fairly common line that I see where someone will min bet flop, turn, and then shove river. At this point in the hand I don't want to get all in just because of everything in his range that he can have that beats you, but there is also enough value in the range that you beat to call here. I would mostly call, and sometimes shove. If I call I'm not going to be surprised if he shoves the river and we'll have a decision to make.

Rive : He shoves as expected. Middle pair pairs the board here which sucks because as weak as he has played his hand, and as weak as our raises have been something like A8 / T8 is still in his range. I would probably grit my teeth and call getting two to one and wish I had played this differently. If he flips over KJ / QJ / T9 I would be very relieved, if he flips any one of the numerous hands that beat us I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't mind a fold here as typically when villain takes this weird line of small bet small bet shove it ends up he had us crushed the whole time, or he got there on the river, but people do stupid things enough that I hope we can call here for a small profit.

This hand is a pretty good example of why some of the weaker broadway combos can be difficult to play. They do have some preflop value in raising, even from early position, but you have to be very careful not to end up in a big pot with a hand that's likely second best. As it was it ended up he played very badly and got there on the river, but if we had played this differently with a bigger flop raise, then he might have checked the turn which would have let us put the pressure on him, or we could have just called his turn bet and then not faced the favorable river odds that made us pay him off.