First hand (vs unknown) i've seen a lot of these random flop all-in overbets and they tend to be weighted more towards air and draws from what i've seen, very rarely is it nutted hands. do you think my high variance call was still +EV vs his range with top pair ok kicker? If no, then what would you do with AK here?
Isn't this one of the John theorems? If someone can bluff for less, they probably aren't bluffing but it's for value. I'd just fold the flop unless I have very specific and good reads.
This next one's interesting, reg has high barreling frequencies on flop (7/10) and turn (2/2). when he barrels turn i think his range is wider than 7x, and also he probably has to fold most non 7x hands to a raise. when he called my turn raise, again i thought he didn't always have 7x and could be being stubborn with a worse hand, so i thought maybe if i followed through on the river i could get him off it? oh i was so wrong...
You didn't raise enough on the turn. You can raise a little more w/o committing. Raising that much it's hard to fold out any hands even on a 4 straight board. I like the hand though other than that.
This final hand i made a somewhat loose open with A3s because it looked like there were a couple of fishy players and it didn't look like anyone was 3betting a lot. i checked flop (and turn) to balance my checking range vs a reg with fairly high aggression over this small sample, also because i knew my hand wasn't strong enough to go for 3 streets of value. When he bets so big on flop on turn he's basically only repping KQ, or possibly 89s that made a straight. i think he would bet all his Ax and sets on the flop. and my range is very capped so i thought he could be turning pairs into bluffs or have busted flush draw or something. do you think my call is +EV?
If he has high aggression, then checking the flop is fine. Otherwise you should just be betting. I think c/cing the turn is fine, and once you check all 3 streets you open up your opponents bluffing range so much you need to call down even though the sizing sucks.
(2 players)
MP1 checks,
wasn't sure how much to bet here, as he looks fishy from his bet sizing I thought he might call a small thin value bet
Hero bets $2.25, MP1 raises to $13.75 and is all-in, Hero ?
I think he may have backed into 2 pair AJ or AQ
I like the river VB against a fishy player, but I'd just bet more because you can fold to any shove here. So betting $5-6 I think is good sizing to get some crying calls from QK,QT and KJ. And if he's really fishy, sometimes worse. As played, fold. If your read is correct, then a fish isn't CR the river when you have good odds to call with air or turning a made hand into a bluff for that price.
Isn't this one of the John theorems? If someone can bluff for less, they probably aren't bluffing but it's for value. I'd just fold the flop unless I have very specific and good reads.
You didn't raise enough on the turn. You can raise a little more w/o committing. Raising that much it's hard to fold out any hands even on a 4 straight board. I like the hand though other than that.
If he has high aggression, then checking the flop is fine. Otherwise you should just be betting. I think c/cing the turn is fine, and once you check all 3 streets you open up your opponents bluffing range so much you need to call down even though the sizing sucks.
Thanks for the advice! Yea first hand should have remembered the John theorems lol. Guess i just felt like gambling, although i had a 25nl reg sweating me then and he wasn't sure what to do either second hand i do agree my raise was way too small, guess it got him curious.
third hand yea i guess betting does make sense actually since worse will still call, just worried that my checking range might get a bit too weak if i start betting all my weaker top pairs. i really don't want villains to just exploit me by betting whenever i check to them as PFR. what are your thoughts on this??
yea river those were kinda my thoughts for calling, idk how often villains are bluffing there though at 10nl.
(2 players)
Looks like he rarely goes to showdown so betting to try and take it away here. Can't see him calling without either the K or J of spades Hero bets $4, BTN folds
Results: $8.26 pot ($0.37 rake)
Final Board: Q
2
8
7
A
Hero mucked 8
K
and won $7.89 ($3.81 net)
BTN mucked and lost (-$4.08 net)
typically i think you have to call flop since if you're folding this hand you're probably folding way too much of your range and your opponent could profitably cbet ATC. Here it's closer since you raised UTG, there's an argument for folding pre since his range for doing this should be really tight. but if you call pre i think you have to call on flops like this, he only bets half pot and the board misses his range, also you have position. another point is you have implied odds if you hit an A or K since if he's bluffing then he's likely to keep firing on these cards.
but folding pre can't be terrible, he squeezed pretty big and his range is really tight. you can't call pre just to try and hit an ace or a king since that only happens 1/3 times and even then it might not be good, and you're unlikely to get much from hands like QQ.
maybe call 1 bet on the flop and see if he backs off.
His preflop raise looks a little big, more likely a small - medium pocket pair trying to take it down preflop or a large pocket pair trying to get Max value than something like AJ, AQ
NO reads as 1st hand
Played the hand awfully. I know its a fold preflop but got me thinking how differently should you play the draw when OOP or In Position.
Guess in position better to call and if you dont hit you have the option of bluffing and maybe when OOP take the initiative and check raise ???
Rhom 64 hand.... yeah some proper butchered bet sizing in this hand from the villain, which makes me think he's a bit fishy. The fact that the villain bets every street here suggests to me he has a K or less likely 99. If he has 99 id expect him to reraise on the flop you are repping a K so the money would likely go in.
In that case he probably thinks he is betting trips for value, especially if he's fishy. If he has Ace of spades with one of the kings he isn't going to put you on a flush. Im snapping this off and calling, what full house can he have here? The only realistic one is 999KK. much more likely he has Kx and trips.
Flop check raise was trying to take the initiative, hence the question about the difference between playing draws Out of and In Position.
Fold on river i couldnt think what he had If i was Villain and I had a flush Id just call.
As it was the 1st hand I folded, maybe called if I had history and he was aggro
check/raise makes sense if you can actually rep a decent number of strong hand combos. here you basically only rep draws and air since i doubt you'd ever play Kx or a full house this way, and even if you did there aren't many combos of these
check/raise makes sense if you can actually rep a decent number of strong hand combos. here you basically only rep draws and air since i doubt you'd ever play Kx or a full house this way, and even if you did there aren't many combos of these
i was talking about your check/raise on the flop lol. like are you really ever gonna have better than a flush draw when you check/raise a K9K board? when you check/raise you wanna be able to rep some strong hands as well as weaker ones. so you should check/call on this board.
I agree with Tom that this wasn't a very good flop to check raise. You really only rep a K or a flush draw and if he has a K or ace of spades he isn't going anywhere. Here you are bloating the pot with a really weak hand.
Your check raise is still a semi bluff and I prefer to save my big semi bluffs for hands were Im drawing to the nuts. If you bloat the pot you want to make sure you have the best hand if you do hit your draw.
I know Rhom you have been watching Somerville, one of the things I have learned from him is the value of bluffing if you have the ace of the same suit as three on the board. They can never be sure you don't have the nut flush if they don't have the ace. So it makes sense that these spots are some of the ones to check raise.
Here with 64 we could still easily lose to a bigger flush.
Oop I will usually just check call as long as my implied odds are decent.
Personally I don't play for flushes as the implied odds are often small, even a fish can see three of the same suit on the board. I will however sometimes call a biggish turn bet if I have the chance of a strong backdoor flush because your implied odds are much better with backdoor flushes.
All in all I would have folded 64 preflop and avoided all this.
yea i also agree call pre was a bit loose. i like that you are trying to defend your blinds wide vs LP opens but i don't think you need to call as wide as 64s vs a 3x CO open. i would probably call a minraise with this hand though, as our pot odds are much better then. if he's opening wide and folding a lot to 3bets you can consider 3bet bluffing instead
4 folds, BTN raises to $0.62, Hero raises to $2.11, BB folds, BTN calls $1.49
Flop: ($4.47) Q
6
3
(2 players) Hero bets $2.13, BTN calls $2.13
Turn: ($8.73) 6
(2 players) Hero bets $4.17, BTN calls $4.17
River: ($17.07) 7
(2 players) Not sure what he has here but as he has a weak range I think I can shift him off a weak Q with a 3rd barrel. I dont expect to be called by worse so no point betting too big. I want to make it value looking. Hero bets $8.15, BTN folds
Results: $17.07 pot ($0.77 rake)
Final Board: Q
6
3
6
7
Hero mucked J
J
and won $16.30 ($7.89 net)
BTN mucked and lost (-$8.41 net)
JJ turn bet is meh, may be preferable to check/folding since he should have a decent amount of floats and weaker pairs he might choose to turn into a bluff (/protection bet) if you check. although it's hard to get called by worse by betting, maybe he peels again with TT or 99 for that price, so i like your sizing.
river is actually a pretty interesting spot. you shouldn't be continuing on turn with many bluffs at all (do you even db with AK here) so JJ is probably close to the bottom of your range when you take this line. and his WTSD is pretty low it's very possible that villain folds a good amount of his Qx but realistically he should only have QT-AQ and it doesn't help that you block QJs which he might fold. you'd have to be really confident that villain will fold a hand like KQ for this to be a profitable play, which he may or may not do. it's marginal for sure
44 hand to me seems like a really easy value bet, don't even think it's close. flushes and straights make up such a narrow portion of his range here
typically i think you have to call flop since if you're folding this hand you're probably folding way too much of your range and your opponent could profitably cbet ATC. Here it's closer since you raised UTG, there's an argument for folding pre since his range for doing this should be really tight. but if you call pre i think you have to call on flops like this, he only bets half pot and the board misses his range, also you have position. another point is you have implied odds if you hit an A or K since if he's bluffing then he's likely to keep firing on these cards.
but folding pre can't be terrible, he squeezed pretty big and his range is really tight. you can't call pre just to try and hit an ace or a king since that only happens 1/3 times and even then it might not be good, and you're unlikely to get much from hands like QQ.
I think you backed into the answer a little more here. He's tight, he squeezed an UTG raise big. His range is pretty well defined here, and hero isn't in good shape. In fact, he'd have to rely on implied odds to make a flop call here profitable long term. But let's punch in a range and look at the exact numbers since this is a somewhat common spot.
Hey John, I've been playing .25/.50 on bovada this past week and it's been going ok. I'll come back with a hand or two later this week but I have a question. Should I play full ring or 6 max and why? I feel like I prefer 6 max because I like to play more hands but being a cash game novice I wouldn't mind some input, thanks.
Hey John, I've been playing .25/.50 on bovada this past week and it's been going ok. I'll come back with a hand or two later this week but I have a question. Should I play full ring or 6 max and why? I feel like I prefer 6 max because I like to play more hands but being a cash game novice I wouldn't mind some input, thanks.
That's hard for me to say honestly. In general I tend to tell students new to cash games to play more full ring first just to get the feel of the game since it's a little easier and straight forward, generally speaking. On bovada it's tough because you only get 4 tables. But it can offer you some time to really study what's going on and get comfortable.
On some business side news. For those interested here. We're taking on Tilt Breaker as they are leaving HM2. We're also working with GTO Rangebuilder to put together some new Apps. We'll be selling their products off our site.
And for you guys only in this thread on cardschat, I want to offer 20% off on the GTO strategy packs. I know they are pricy, but well worth it. Use coupon code: CC_GTO20
It's a little tricky right now if you use the coupon though. You have to click view cart, and then enter the code, and then checkout, rather than just going straight to checkout. I'll have this up until the end of June for you guys.
If someone can bluff for less, they probably aren't bluffing but it's for value. I'd just fold the flop unless I have very specific and good reads. 
