Lemme try one of these. I have lots of hands in my history which when I look at them now it's obvious I made a donk play (tilt, frustration, whatever). But here I'm not sure:

Villain is VPIP 19.4 PFR 4.2, IIRC quite passive in later streets. I am easily trappable by these guys I think. This is NL2 and the tables are quite nitty with the occasional fish, I raise small and c-bet often here from LP just to steal blinds and limps (my red line looks good I think, way better than my blue line anyhow). The call on the flop made me think I need some help here but the turn was a false hope. I am however not sure about what to do on the turn after getting re-raised. Just a call on the turn looking to fold the river instead of shoving?

Fold pre-flop. Your hand is not a good candidate for iso-raising here. Also when you do iso-raise you want to make it at least 4bb versus 1 limper. I realise this is not what you wanted help with but it's the shoddy foundation on which the later streets were built on.

I think it's actually just the help I needed, thanks sprout

EDIT: I have actually tightened up my stealing also, would not try to steal against a limper here anymore, at least not with such a small raise.

If UTG+2 had entered for a raise then I think if you want to try balance your value raises here you should start with some suited wheel aces as "steals" and if you are feeling frisky (that is if villain has a high F3bet stat) you could then add in a couple of 54s, 67s type hands.

Seeing as Villain open limped I would say that you could definitely widen your range to isolate what is likely a bad player with some broadway cards to go with your suited aces (and maybe forget the low suited connectors).

This is just my understanding of the strategy that I am studying and certainly not expert advice !

Hi betts and thanks,

let me try to say this in my terms: I shouldn't consider this Q4o raise as a steal but just as a fishy bet? :-D

I understand that Q4o is loose to play at all and it should be quite transparent for the other players that I have a very unbalanced range here and they could exploit that (reraise more? defend more?) but most of the players don't seem to do that at all (some do, and I adjust). What I mean is raising in LP with basically ATC seems to be a +EV play in lot of the tables. Or is it the fact that I'm doing that and fall in love with a bad flop (or a turn) lead into a leak like in the OP?

Your hand is trash. It has a small bit of dubious high pair potential. It's only going to be a good open in the rare circumstance where you know for a fact that you have massive fold equity post-flop. And if that were the case then you should be raising more preflop in order to increase the pot for when you take it down with your c-bet.

Furthermore, the 2nl villains might not pick up on the fact that you're opening 80% from late position but at higher limits they will and will react accordingly.

Thanks sprout for your input, I think I hear you 100% and

this has also been on my mind, will not work at higher levels. It doesn't work on all tables at NL2 either and it's not a default play I start a table with, it's just something I've gravitated towards to and I do also pick my spots.

This.

When constructing your pre-flop 3bet range yes you want to have some bluffier type hands to balance your value hands but you want to pick hands that can make the nuts, such as, the most common, suited wheel aces, which have the additional benefit of blocking some of your opponents value hands. Small suited connectors have this capability also (making the nuts that is) and they are more concealed, as your opponent is less likely to think you have the nuts on a 3 6 7 board for example and you get to stack him with his overpair.

Picking trashy hands are just asking for trouble. The only outcome you want to see is a fold, and its just not going to happen enough to be profitable. Hitting your Q here is more likely to cost you than make you money.

Another thing to note is the earlier the position of your opponent the more likely he is to have a premium hand, that is, the stronger his range, and hence, the less you should raise in general (both for value - because you might not be raising for value if your opponent has a strong range, and thus you bluff less also)