Never overplay King Jack
$1/$2 on a Saturday afternoon at Mohegan Sun in CT
Kind of a basic hand but there are a few close decision points and I'm not in love with my play.
V1 on BTN: Dorky looking Middle-aged white guy. Doesn't seem very experienced or studied but I haven't seen any huge mistakes. He is losing on the day but has been coming back. He tried to engage with me in some strat talk, commenting on the wild play of a fish on the other side of the table. $500 stack
V2 in SB: Younger white guy. Has the look of a good player but is playing pretty badly. He is on 3rd buy-in and seemed like he was tilted earlier. Is stabbing a lot on flops. In another hand he led for $15 into $7 on a low paired board. $200 stack
Hero in CO: 30s white guy. I've punted a couple times this session and have showdown a few bluffs so my image isn't good. I am playing tighter and more aggressively than most. $300 stack
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3 loose passive players limp from EP. Hero is in CO with KJo and calls. V1 on BTN calls. V2 in SB completes. BB checks.
Flop: J83r (pot: $12). V2 leads $10. Folds to Hero who calls. V1 calls.
Turn: J83 T (pot: $40). V2 bets $20. Hero calls. V1 calls.
River: J83 T K (pot: $98). V2 bets $20. Hero?
Feel free to provide feedback on all streets.
Raise or fold pre. In the CO, I'd probably raise to $20-$25, to fold out button, the blinds, and one or two limpers.
Flop is whatever. Calling seems fine. I might raise to get his HU with V2, and shut the others out. Yeah, he bet pot, but it's a tiny pot.
Turn is starting to get dicey, bringing in some straights and 2P. Seems like it's just a square call.
River seems like a clear raise when V2 bets 1/5 pot. But I suppose calling isn't terrible, with V1 behind us. I'd fold if V2 raises more than 4x.
I'm not sure how you can see results and decide that's the teaching moment from the hand.
Not that I think it's bad most of the time, but I think you get a lot of the same information from calling (for cheaper) where bad players tend to way overbet the flop for their hand in a limped pot ... but can still have random J8 or whatever sometimes.
I'd say the river is probably the biggest shining light ... As I've thought a few times recently, one of the secret weapons at 1-2 might be absurdly overbluf
Yeah it's interesting. Making sense of this hand would be a lot easier if I knew what the SB had.. did he hero call the river with one pair? Did he same bet for $20 with a weak two pair? I understand what you are saying about the river play but it has to be player dependent because SB didn't think twice about bet/calling here with a hand that he only thought was worth 1/5 pot on the river. To your point though, this is the 3rd hand history I've posted from MS where the end result was that I accidentally got a Villain to fold middle set (once it was the correct fold, but still).
I don't necessarily think that "I should have raised the flop" is the big take away from this hand, just that it's an interesting idea and a good play (maybe not better than call, but still good). If I raise flop to $35 and BTN cold-calls (or 3bets), I know right away that my hand is basically worthless. I also think there is plenty of value to get from SB. At the same time, I think you are right that I get the same info by calling... in this hand, if the river is a blank, I think I can fold KJ when SB bets into two players for any size above $20.
i dont really understand the information thing. you are raising the flop for value. in general people play these spots poorly so what is the leak and subsequent exploit? raise thinner for value / be more aggressive in general because they are too depolarized. even if you don't believe that about the general population (you should), the op indicates this villain is very likely to fall into that category
we're never really going to be able to get a magical ev answer here but almost all of the strong hands end up significantly discounted from pre actions from v and because he has alot of offsuit / suited combos of weaker tp etc your hand has alot more value vs tp with worse kickers than you would in a raised pot
This hand illustrates why I prefer to play most of, if not my entire range as raise-or-fold pre, from every position that isn't the BTN or the BB.
If we want to limp, we should have some idea about how we're going to play post-flop, depending on the board and action. When we flop thick value in a limped pot, the default should be an aggressive line, hence the suggestion to raise flop, not for information, but simply for value.
What information did we gain by flatting the flop? The BTN had a better hand, but didn't raise with it. It seems like we had no idea where we were at, at almost any point in this hand, ultimately resulting in our unknowingly turning a thick value hand into a bluff.
It happened to work out in our favor this time. But more often than not, the BTN is going to fold when we raise the flop, and we'll get this heads up with the SB, who apparently will pay off with worse than top 2 on the river.
Even if the BTN calls our raise, he could be calling with worse, like QJ, JT, J9, or T9. If we flat call, the BTN may not raise with better, or he could conceivably decide to raise with worse. The only way we get really useful info is if we raise, and the BTN 3B's, assuming he's not capable of 3B'ing with worse.
I don't hate preflop. KJ is too much hand not to play against chuckleheads but your image suggests you'll get no respect from a raise.
On the flop, you've underrepped your hand, so now is the time to make QJ or JT pay for thinking they're betting for value.
