Hi all,

First time posting in the Online No-Limit Hold'em Cash subforum. I am active in the live forum, as I play 1/2 pretty frequently. Online, I play Microstakes on Bovada/Ignition - 10NL mostly, but I have been taking shots at 25NL and have a ton of hours at 5NL.

This is a weird spot that came up for me recently. Would be curious to get some feedback. Going to try and post the hand history without the results, hopefully I don't screw it up. Because the hand is from Bovada, I have hole cards for all players.

Ignition - $0.10 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

SB: $9.90
BB: $12.85
Hero (CO): $9.95
BTN: $10.00

SB posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) SB
Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) BB
Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has 9h Ad
Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) BTN
Hero raises to $0.30, fold, SB calls $0.25, BB calls $0.20

Flop : ($0.90, 3 players) Jh Td Qd
SB bets $0.65, fold, Hero calls $0.65

Turn : ($2.20, 2 players) 5d
SB bets $1.00, Hero raises to $2.70, SB calls $1.70

River : ($7.60, 2 players) 8h
SB checks, Hero bets $6.30 and is all-in

Villain in this hand (SB) was new to the table, so I had no notes or significant stats on them. Clearly a fish though, as they are cold-calling out of the small blind and donk leading on a board that should never be donk led. I am somewhat averse to trying to bluff fish off strong hands at this limit but this felt like a pretty mandatory spot, given I have the Ad, an open-ender, and all of the strongest hands in my range.

Should I be raising flop here? I chose to float and then raise on the flush-completing turn, though I contemplated just calling this turn.

River is a weird spot as I end up making a straight on a one-liner board with a flush out there. I thought about checking back but ended up jamming, trying to get thin value vs. a sticky two pair or maybe the occasional set. Is this too thin, even vs a fish? I know I will be value-owning myself vs. flushes here pretty often. Maybe betting smaller works better if I am going for value? With less than a pot-sized bet, I figured jam made the most sense.

Let me know what you think. Will post villain's hand and the results later.

River is w/e given spr and we have a hand that beats some hands.
Turn we should call. If they jam over us it's gross and we have good odds to hit and an ok combo to bluff rivers on missed runouts when they x or bet small

But when a fish donks twice like this they're rarely going anywhere. you will see all kinds of value in this line so I prefer to be cautious

Yeah, I think calling turn getting a good price with a plan of possibly bluffing river makes sense.

I also agree with the second part of your comment. A big leak in my game at one point was too often going nuts trying to bluff vs. fish/donks. Really hard to get this player type to fold top pair (let alone two pair plus) without a favorable run-out. I also don't think it's impossible for such a player to have AK in this spot, even though it obviously should be.

The small bet on the turn in this hand encouraged me to raise, but probably better to try and realize equity. Getting 3bet jammed on on the turn here definitely would have sucked.

Just realised you have an OESD. yeah, well, in that case can't go wrong really. Raising doesn't look as bad to me now but if we're after fold equity maybe we should go larger (intending to call off) just to crank up the pressure. If he is stationing us with 2p then this line prints, his line would suggest a 2p level hand

fwiw CO is the one position I like to open smaller even if every player at the table is a rec, because you have a wide range yet still have to worry about a guy behind you. Flop call is good I don't think you have a ton of fold equity on these 3 broadway flops, especially when he leads into two players. Turn I'd like a raise if the SPR was bigger, but as you can see its really awkward here, because you can't raise big enough to generate folds and still have a bet left for the river. So I'd just flat, though there may be some merit to just jamming it in. But I wouldn't make a a non-jam raise. River I think the bluff is good because he could still have like KQ/KJ/AQ/Q9 type hands, and might fold some 2pair here since the high straight is AK specifically and even recs can think "pfr = AK", plus there's a flush possible and you block it. But I don't like getting there this way.

Yeah, SPR is definitely uncomfortable on the turn. I ended up raising super small in order to have enough behind to reasonably bluff river, but you're right that this raise size is not really going to generate any folds. Jamming turn is interesting, that is not something I had considered.

Your point on raise size from the cut-off is helpful as well. I have defaulted to a 3x open from every position since I started playing online. I understand why this isn't necessarily optimal though, and it's probably something I should look into changing soon.

On this particular river, my hand has improved to the Queen-high straight, so the question is jam for value on a one-liner board with a flush possible or check behind? I thought there was a decent chance this villain would call a jam with two pair, so I decided to go for it.

Oh lol my bad I didn't notice the river was an 8, thought it was a brick for some reason. Yeah jamming is thin for reasons I stated, I certainly don't hate it (especially if you have a read that the guy is a station) but I might check behind idk. I'd certainly jam if it wasn't a 3flush board... yeah with the flush blocker I think the jam is probably good

And re: opening sizes, if you want to play 1 size across all positions make it 2.5x. On tough tables where people are 3beting a lot you really only want to be raising that big from the button, and go even smaller in earlier positions so you can still open decently wide. On passive fishy tables without much 3betting but lots of calling I sometimes flip to 3x in early positions to get max value and not go multiway every time, and vs blinds that call too much but don't 3bet often I sometimes go to 3x OTB to maximize the mistake they're making (since in theory the larger the open size the less the blinds should call and the more they should 3bet) and win more when they fold to a c-bet, which they do too much.

Appreciate the feedback!

Anyway the result of this hand was that villain had K9cc for the flopped King-high straight, and he folded the river when I value-shoved a worse hand lol. Obviously a fantastic result for me, but it definitely made me question my play in the hand.