Shove and he calls with 66-1010. GL on the flip.
Your play here is to shove with any two. It’s lucky you have a decent hand.
Cash hand from last night that’s bugging me
Iggy fast fold, no reads other than stack size
50nl, hero has 200 bbs villian 150
Villian opens from button, hero !3 j9hh from Bb, v calls
Flop: jx 3h 7h
Ck, v bets 3bb hero c/r 11bbs v call
Turn Ax
Hero half pot, v call
River 9x
Hero?
Playing and running bad this month :(
Probably jam the river as played.
As deep as you are I would definitely be fine with just c/c on flop
1 Like
Thanks for the reply. I agree with you. Turn is probably a c/c as well
I really slow down with these type hands in FR, especially in the deep games. Just the connected hands don’t make enough nutted hands and you’re often seeing flops 3-5+ way.
Hand from my 2/3 cash session:
I raised to $12 from MP with AQo, SB ($150 stack, had been playing pretty snug) called
Flop QT3r. I bet 2/3 pot, he called.
Turn 5. He checked, I checked behind thinking I’m probably not getting 3 streets of value with TP and maybe I can induce a bluff on the river. Thoughts?
River 7, he bets 1/2 pot.
I call but I thought for a bit about re-raising and he probably thought I nit-rolled him. He had 88. Not sure if he was bluffing or tying to get value out of AK. I like my line for this particular hand obviously - but not sure if it’s the most profitable. At least it was good so mix it up. He quit right after that. Heh.
They weren’t bluffing or trying to get value. You checked so they thought “they must not have a pair so I’ll bet.” Theres no thought of what worse hands will call them or what better hands will fold. Its lol live small stakes.
1 Like
That’s a pretty normal way to play TPTK. When I first started playing, I was just about the only person to take that line with top pair, but I may have been underestimating my ability to get three streets of value.
As a bluff, it’s specifically targeting JJ, Tx, and 99. Whether that is a good bluff, I can’t say without knowing more, but your opponent is probably not sophisticated enough to think on that level. Personally, I’ve been working on looking for spots where I should turn a hand with showdown value into a bluff.
That AQ hand is one of those you played it perfectly given moron live donkey’s holding but I probably just bet turn here–if he’s got a Q or KJ (J9 unlikely given snugness) you really blew missing out on his entire stack. I guess he could hero fold a T on the turn but I always err on the side of no until seems otherwise. Sure some are gonna chase gutters but I can’t rely on snug dudes to just bluff randomly or even have some gutters in the range and on top of that every draw bricked out. (of course this requires more than level 0 thought and it’s 2/3 live so…)
Also it’s bet->raise->reraise so you would’ve raised river and given bet size I probably would’ve done so.
I guess if he literally calls any pair on QTx and bets river with it anyway you’re better off with that line but sheesh what a donk.
I call. I’m fine with this line. He probably has KQ and is making a blocking bet on the river. I might be ok with a 2/3 pot bet on turn, but I don’t consider it bad to play a little light with tptk.
edit: just read the blurred text. Calling that flop with 88 is my definition of a bad player. I’m sure people can make excuses for it, but it’s just bad. I would never raise river with tptk. I might not have even bet if he check to me (well, I would have, but like 1/2 pot to get KQ to call).
Against an ABC player that’s going to be a pretty good line. 2/3 pot on the flop is a bit large, but if it’s getting called, go for it. How I play TPGK is pretty opponent dependent. Against some stations you can still get away with bet/bet/bet.
You can get value from a lot more than just KQ on this river. Any Qx, any Tx, and mid PP’s are likely calling. I agree with sizing down to widen the calling range, but a bet is mandatory. The chances of him having a hand better than AQ and checking the river are pretty small. Checking behind this river is leaving way too much money on the table.
1 Like
i shamelessly and fearlessly bet all 3 streets with TPTK on that board in a low stakes cash game. But a smaller bet than 2/3 on the flop, I don’t usually wanna be shoving river.
but for me i usually have a pretty aggressive image and fire out at a lot of pots I have no business firing out at. People show up with much worse than 88 there, IME.
Well if he’s going to do things like bet the river with 88 then check might be good, but under assumptions of normal play I think checking is bad - SB usually has a pretty capped range here because low-stakes players are loathe to let the PFR draw for free with two Broadway cards on the board, so if they have something like 33 or QT they will typically checkraise the flop. You also just have a natural range advantage on this board, like this board is better for a preflop raiser than it is for a guy who flat called pre. From a theoretical point of view you should structure your ranges aggressively when you have a range advantage, and there’s just no reason to slow down with a hand this strong. If he’s folding lots, bluff more. Yeah, in theory against an overfolder with a static strategy, you can just bet bluffs and check strong hands, but in practice you don’t really know how players will respond to you getting really aggressive and it’s better to maintain some semblance of balance.
Slowing down is a better idea on a bad card for you, like a 9, where your range advantage evaporates and you don’t want to be going hog wild with bluffs.
1 Like
Of the two poker rooms nearest me, there is one where you get two streets of value max from TPTK against most players and one where you should bet all three streets.
I generally default to a tighter, more passive line, then loosen up and ramp up aggression as warranted. That means that I tend to cultivate a tight image, which I am fine with and more comfortable with.
Yea I mean there’s players at those tables where they call flop and I know they have me beat. But droolers call at least 2 streets with a lot of crap. The river bet is probably overkill and you’re only getting called with worse but I hate giving free showdowns to droolers. Plus sometimes they improve with a worse pair and pay you off. Make them make a bad decision. The only bad situation is when they raise you but c/r on river is basically nonexistent at these stakes and you only see that with flopped full house kind of hands.
I’m talking out of my ass but I’ve played a lot of this limit lately.
I try to avoid thinking of players as “droolers”. It leads some players into situations where they spew because they don’t respect their opponents enough and they think their opponent got lucky instead of realizing that they played bad.
“Pretty snug” usually implies tight-passive rather than tight-aggressive, unless you’ve seen aggression from him. Also, your skepticism at getting three streets of value kind of goes counter to the way you describe typical players at this level (and my experience the one time I played last month at HP).
I’d bet 1/2 pot the whole way. He’s very likely to call 1/2-pot bets all the way if he has TP, and you probably get two streets out of the Ten.
It just means not splashy - I hadn’t seen him in many pots.
Maybe I should switch to cash. I’m up $1k in my last two sessions of 2/3 and 1/3. Although the 1/3 game last night at Bellagio had a lot of straddling so it played a little bigger.
Fun hand that I borked pretty bad I think. Later at night the 1/3 table turned into 2 girls and 3 guys who all knew each other. When the second of the dudes showed up they made some comments like “John is going to to play”. I got the impression John plays a lot higher. He may have even come from one of the tables in the high-stakes room that busted (guessing 10/20 NL, but they did have a 20/40 NL on the board). But I didn’t see him walk out of there.
I’ve been around enough 2p2ers to know a pasty 27-year-old poker shutin when I see one. John looked like he’s memorized so many GTO tables that it was pushing out other stuff from his brain - like the London cabbies.
John’s 2nd hand at the table - there’s a straddle to $6, a weak player to my right limped. I make it $30 with AsKc. John makes it $75 from LP. He has $300 and I have him covered. Hero? I really hate calling here because I know John could easily be 3-betting light. But then again maybe I’m FPSing and am just up against JJ+,AK.
So I wuss out and call. Flop QT6 two spades (giving me a gutter and backdoor FD). Any point leading out here?
I don’t - John bets $55 into the $170-ish pot setting me up for the perfect turn shove. Fold? Call? Shove?
I fold. He shows one 5. Dammit.
1 Like