Hello. I'm having trouble laying down strong hands especially after I slowplay them. In this particular scenario I even said to myself he has JT most of the times here, but I still decided to f it and call.
This isn't a bad beat story but rather a mental blindspot of mine not trusting my own instincts and judgment. How do you operate in these type of spots, not poker wise but more what are you thinking in these spots and how do you lay down a hand like this? I know for some of you it's probably that would be not that big of a lay down but for me I'm just starting this journey and want to figure out how to trust my judgment more and not to be too much connected to the money I would win/lose if I made this call and he shoved for example QJ? How do you force yourself to trust your own judgment?

Particular hand:

PokerStars - $0.02 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 100 BB (VPIP: 8.92, PFR: 5.19, 3Bet Preflop: 3.26, Hands: 214)
Hero (BTN): 117 BB
SB: 100 BB (VPIP: 13.51, PFR: 2.70, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 37)
BB: 97 BB (VPIP: 7.14, PFR: 4.76, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 42)
UTG: 189.5 BB (VPIP: 64.71, PFR: 26.47, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 35)
UTG+1: 84.5 BB (VPIP: 47.06, PFR: 29.41, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 17)
MP: 148 BB (VPIP: 41.18, PFR: 29.41, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 17)
MP+1: 103.5 BB (VPIP: 16.36, PFR: 1.82, 3Bet Preflop: 3.23, Hands: 56)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 7 8

fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, BB calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (5.5 BB, 2 players) J T 9
BB checks, Hero bets 2 BB, BB raises to 9 BB, Hero calls 7 BB

Turn: (23.5 BB, 2 players) 7
BB bets 17 BB, Hero calls 17 BB

River: (57.5 BB, 2 players) J
BB bets 55.5 BB, Hero calls 55.5 BB

BB shows T J (Full House, Jacks full of Tens)
(Pre 65%, Flop 19%, Turn 13%)
Hero mucks 7 8 (Straight, Jack High)
(Pre 35%, Flop 81%, Turn 88%)
BB wins 162.5 BB

Wait, what?
How does he have JT here most of the time?

With a calling range of 7% JTs is not even in his range.
We have to give villain a calling range of 11% to include JTs:
77-TT, A9s+, ATo+, KTs+, KQo, QTs+, JTs
Let's assume villain is raising pre with JJ+

Of those hands KQ, JTs, TT and 99 would 3bet you on this flop.
A hand like AJ might, but I really doubt it.
Maybe villain is bluffing here sometimes with something like AQ, but again, I doubt this villain is capable of bluffing.

All of these hands have you beat on the river.
It is literally impossible for villain to have a hand here that you can beat.

You said it yourself, you know you should fold, so just build the discipline to fold.

He doesn´t have JT most of the time. But I think most of his range beat you otr (I would expect 77, 88, 99, TT, JJ, JTs, QJs or KQ as his range on the river). Maybe QJs is out since he seems to be a nit. Your play until the river seems fine, but one thing I think you should consider before playing this type of hands is reverse implied odds. You can´t expect to play for stacks vs a nit with the bottom end of a straight and win often enough. Btw, 87o is too loose to open, use instead only 87s.

Cheers

You can't really assume anything with 42 hand HUD sample. In the big blind he's going to have bigger range.
Post-flop, I don't think he's bluffing that much on the turn anymore, a lot of people in these limits aren't capable of firing barrels on scary cards. At the river I don't think he's betting or at least betting that big all his T9, so the only hand I could see him tripple barreling the way he has is JT a lot of times, he probably doesn't have sets there too. Because I think he would 3bet hands like TT and 99 pre-flop. Also I think he's giving up on the river if not on the turn with all his Qx bluffs/semi-bluffs. The only Q that we would beat would be QJ.

Again, I'm not making any adjustments against a guy with small hud sample. I think something like 100 hands would be good starting point for basic understanding how he plays pre. I also think he would 3bet 77, 88, 99, TT, JJ and maybe sometimes QJs pre. He would definetly call JTs or JTo pre imo. I agree with QJ, it's only hand that I would beat, but again he may just 3bet that against Button open.
In general what would you stack off with most of the micro players post-flop? I seem to be having problems with this, sometimes stacking off too wide. And also what hands pre-flop would you open with good playability post-flop vs fish and vs regs?

Vpip/pfr converge quickly. You can´t be % sure he is a real nit, but you can be sure he isn´t loose with these stats.

Agreed, forgot he was on the blinds. Tough spot, but I still would give him a lot of credit here.

Stackoff ranges in srp? Vs really big fish, in safer boards, tptk+. Vs anyone else, top 2p in safer boards or better. Remember even some hands that seems strong, like mid or top sets, may be just bluffcatchers on some boards.

Opening range from BTN, something like 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q7s+, J7s+, T7s+, 97s+, 86s+, 75s+, 65s, 54s, A4o+, k9o+, QTo+, J9o+, T9o seems nice. Close to what pokersnowie seems to be recommending, and I trust its preflop game.

A little bit looser if blinds fold too much vs steal, a little bit tighter if not. This range as a whole seems to play well in every board texture.

I need to seriously disagree here.
48 hands gives us a LOT of information on villains play style.

I was just using the 7% to show he doesn't have JT here mostly.
Maybe he's calling range from the BB is closer to 15-20%, maybe it's even smaller than 7%, well obviously not in this case.

But 48 hands is a LOT of info.
And if you wait to adjust until you have 100 hands on a villain, you're spewing money.

I'm re-raising the flop, you crush his range at that point.

How is that going to make you money?
I'd even fold JT at that point, the only worse hand that might call is JJ but even that is hard if you 3bet on the flop here.

General approach
Here's how I like to think about it. Say I have AK, flop comes A93r and I get check-raised. I divide their range into three buckets. 1) Value that beats me, 2) value that I beat, and 3) bluffs. Value that beats me here is two pair and better. Value that I beat is something like AQ or AJ. And bluffs are bluffs.

I like to start off asking whether they have anything in that second bucket - value that I beat. Often times the answer is "no". Like, in the example I gave, I feel pretty confident that most opponents are just flatting with their weaker top pairs instead of check-raising. So in that example, I think there isn't really anything in that second bucket.

When there isn't anything in that second bucket, your hand becomes a bluff catcher. This can be counterintuitive when you have a strong hand, but you've got to acknowledge this to yourself.

Then, once you know you have a bluff catcher, you have to ask yourself whether they have enough bluffs in their range to justify your continuing. In smaller stakes games, the answer is almost always "no". And when it is "yes" it'll often be because they're an aggro nut, so it'll be clear. If you were against someone who had a good balance of bluffs and value, they'd probably be playing NL100 or higher online, or 5/10 or higher live.

Check out https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-new...aying-them-off for more info.

Particular hand
Here, it's sorta kinda possible that they have some stuff in that second bucket - AJ, KJ, QJ, possibly QQ+. But that does seem pretty unlikely. Are they really just flatting preflop with QQ+? Are they really check-raising this scary flop with a single pair hand, or are they trying to get to showdown? I think it's pretty unlikely that they actually have things in this second bucket.

Which means your seemingly strong straight actually becomes a bluffcatcher, and this being small stakes on a scary board, we can assume that they don't have enough bluffs to justify calling. So that's how I'd justify a fold here.

(This is tangential to the main question, but I'd like to point out that I think you should have played your straight "faster" on the flop and turn - just keep raising until you get it in. And also that 87o is a little optimistic as a BTN open IMO.)

On the flop we are ahead of all the sets and two pairs, we only lose to KQ, and I think we can get value from sets and two pairs because people get attached to hands that have strong absolute value but mediocre relative value.

love this post, thx, I really learned something here!

Against loose players, yes definitely, against nits, nope.
I'm leaning way more towards nit here, even though the sample is nog huge.

Maybe they will call with trips some or even a lot of the time, looser and bad players will probably almost always call.
But any decent/scared (nitty) player, will see your 3bet for what it is and put you on the straight and fold.

To be honest, I don't think I have ever seen anyone 3bet on the flop.

Very interesting read too!

Opponent is v tight but BB defending vs button steal may be slightly different. He could just be calling with QQ. On the flipside, he may defend relatively wide...What suited and unsuited combinations of JT, J9 and T9 does he have?

I think the steal is OK as long as you recognise it for what it is: a light steal against a very tight player who you think will likely fold most of the time.

On the flop, he has all 16 combinations of KQ, but he also has 9 combinations of sets and somewhere between 0-48 combinations of 2 pair depending on how you read his PF calling range. You could also add QQ, 88 and QJ into the mix - again, all hands that you beat but which have equity against you.

I would cbet slightly larger but only call the check-raise. If you come over the top he can cheerfully throw away his 2-pair hands and maybe get away from some of the sets as well if he's tight.

You can call the turn, yes you are going to be behind some of the time and chopping some of the time but plenty of times you are still ahead.

The Jack on the river is an exceptionally bad card for you which moves a load of the hands you were milking for value (JJ, JT, TT, 99) into hands which are now milking you. He'd be pretty spewy to make that play on the river with QJ (or even KJ, AJ). There are so many hands you lose to that this can be a fold against this opponent.

Given he's in BB and it was only 1.5, I'd say his range is wider than 7% here.