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zZzTILT's picture
weak top pair in limped pot vs turn donk

Hey everybody,thrilled to be working with you again mers and of course also with all you others guys, too. :)I plan on writing down my thoughts on several general topics like c/r bluffing, donking, playing paired boards vs regs, multi-barreling etc. supported by specific hand histories. This is I think the best way to detect flaws in my game / thought process but it will take some time.Meanwhile... here are the notes I had on villain:limps weak and strong handslikes to massive overbet the pot / openshovec TT on AQ9r after min3b prethinking long and then checking = weak ??On the turn I have the option of calling and raising. I decided to raise because:a) if I call and he overbets or even jams the river I just play a guessing game for stacks with a marginal holdingb) I think this is a hand he continues with quite often (draws, weak pairs, monsters) so I wanna let him pay on the turnhe quickly 3bets me, so I think this is an fold. To much out that beats me. Poker Stars No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t50.00/t100.00 Blinds - 2 players - View hand 1230730 DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter Hero (BTN/SB): t1535.00 15.35 BBs BB: t1465.00 14.65 BBs - VPIP: 41, PFR: 12, 3B: 7, AF: 1.3, Hands: 104 Pre Flop: (t150) Hero is BTN/SB with J 6Hero calls t50, BB checks Flop: (t200) 5 3 J (2 players)BB checks, Hero bets t100.00, BB calls t100 Turn: (t400) 2 (2 players) BB bets t100.00, Hero raises to t310, BB raises to t1265, Hero folds

bbq's picture
I like the preflop and flop

I like the preflop and flop play, but personally I wouldn't raise/fold this turn. If you're worried I'd just call his turn bet and then probably call most rivers.When I saw you raise to 310 on the turn I though you were doing it to induce from worse hands, and I was surprised when you folded to his shove. He could have a lot of mediocre hands that could shove over a raise or call. I end up calling his donk in a lot of these spots, and I feel like if you decide to raise it should be with the intention of calling a shove.Now i'll let mers yell at me and berate me for being wrong, after all it's what I'm paying for ^^

mersenneary's picture
Yellow spades! I'm not sure

Yellow spades! I'm not sure how I feel about that.The hand is played well, I think, but there are still things to say just about these general spots. First of all, you didn't give any reads about his 3bet shoving tendencies and play in limped pots, which are extremely important for our limp or minraise/fold decision preflop. I would say that anything weaker than J6s, like even J3s, is going to be a minraise readless (can still be a limp, but you'd have to tell me why - maybe he plays extremely fit or fold in limped pots and doesn't raise limps very often). But J6s is getting to the territory where it can be a more standard play - I wouldn't have said anything about J7s.On the flop against a random, I do something very exploitable: I bet bigger with my better hands and the smaller half pot without my better hands, if I feel my opponent isn't contesting the flop very often with his air. I would never ever do this against a good thinking player, but I think it's optimal against random fish who largely aren't capable of noticing and adjusting by c/r your half pot bets more often, etc. It feels dirty and weird to be so damn exploitable but we're here to make money so let's not pretend we're playing against H2Olga.On the turn I think you have to raise and I like your size. I think you get shoved on very rarely here, but it's obviously a puke spot when you do. On the one hand, it's hard to see what the hell he's doing this with that you beat, but on the other hand, there aren't exactly a ton of value hands in his range, either. 52/32/J2 make the most sense, 64 as well, slowplayed J3/J5/53/lolAA sometimes, A4 could happen as well if he won't correctly jam pre. He can also have better jacks that say "f it I think I have the best hand". Because only like 54/J4/24/34 and then random wtf are you doing stuff is what we're ahead of, and none of that is actually played competently, I think your fold is fine. But the main point I want to make is that I really don't think we're getting shoved on here that often so I wouldn't worry about it too much.nh 

mersenneary's picture
The reason why we raise the

The reason why we raise the turn is because we're ahead a large percentage of the time and can get a ton of value from worse pairs who are generally not folding to a raise. The thing is, most people very rarely jam those over a raise, either.This can definitely be a call with reads, but I disagree with bbq that we can't raise/fold here (although I think that decision is quite close/pukeworthy). When people do this with thier draws/weak made hands, they're usually trying to see the next street somewhat cheaply, and I don't get shoved over with those type of hands very often. But there are definitely players I'm happy raise/snapping it off. We only need 32% equity so even when he has two pair that's not like a massive disaster, A4 jams a lot pre, 64 makes a good amount of sense which sucks. I just think we don't get jammed over very much by most villains and are missing way too much value from worse pairs by just calling - for most people that's why they only bet 100 on the turn, to not face too big of a bet and control the cost of continuing in the hand.

zZzTILT's picture
Regarding the bet sizing on

Regarding the bet sizing on the flop. I usually do the exact same thing you described. But on this flop I just dont think there are a lot of hands calling a t140-160 bet. So I bet t100 to get floated by random hands with one or two overcards which would have folded to a bigger bet.And maybe some words about limping. I really was unsure what to do preflop vs this guy. He didnt 3bet much and called around 50 % up to this point. Postflop he donked 40-50%, mostly overbets/shoves and somtimes minidonks. So I tried limping which he didnt attack at all. So I limped quite a bunch, 2,5-3x my strong hands and threw in a minraise with hands K9,Q9,J9 etc. What would your strategy against this guy would look like (limping/raising range)?

bbq's picture
nice, mers is getting me to

nice, mers is getting me to reconsider my default strategies already =) definitely interesting stuff in those two posts. I'm gonna have to start collecting hands I've played so i can post them and get advice :O

mersenneary's picture
"Regarding the bet sizing on

"Regarding the bet sizing on the flop. I usually do the exact same thing you described. But on this flop I just dont think there are a lot of hands calling a t140-160 bet. So I bet t100 to get floated by random hands with one or two overcards which would have folded to a bigger bet."I think this is a very good point, it's much more valuable on wetter/higher textures. Most of the time I'm betting t100 here as well even against fish, it's just something I wanted to point out rather than just saying "nh"."And maybe some words about limping. I really was unsure what to do preflop vs this guy. He didnt 3bet much and called around 50 % up to this point. Postflop he donked 40-50%, mostly overbets/shoves and somtimes minidonks. So I tried limping which he didnt attack at all. So I limped quite a bunch, 2,5-3x my strong hands and threw in a minraise with hands K9,Q9,J9 etc. What would your strategy against this guy would look like (limping/raising range)?"Let's get a little more specific, it depends a lot on exact stack size. Are we talking 15bb deep as in here?

zZzTILT's picture
Oh sorry, I missed that.

Oh sorry, I missed that. Let's say we're 30-75bb deep. There I had more trouble adapting than in the endgame.