Not Quite Threadworthy--Low Stress Strat Questions

River sizing here? Table has been exceptionally passive (hence my overlimp pre) but Villain is new and seems action.

UTG (old guy) limps. Hero limps UTG1 with 2d2h. 3 more complete including V in SB.

Flop: T22ccs (pot: $25). Checks to UTG who bets $15. Hero calls. Folds to V who calls. 3 ways to turn.

Turn: T22ccs 5c ($70). Checks to Hero who bets $60. V calls. UTG folds.

River: T22ccs 5c 4c ($190)

$400 behind. Bet small and target something like JcTx? Jam for 2x pot cause he never folds the Ac if he somehow has it? Surely he can’t have a full house here right?

Mostly I lean to jam. Very weak hands likely aren't calling anything. New action players are unlikely to fold Ac+ (especially if they are unaware of any nitty image we may have) but aren't going to raise themselves due to paired board. In general people don't bluff enough to attempt to induce.

We sometimes feel like an idiot when they manage to fold something that would have paid off a reasonable bet, but the times they do manage to call the large overbet will make up for that.

Might argue different in well known nit-on-nit situation, but against unknowns I would always go for the gold here. Still a hand haunting me from earlier this year when I did not follow my own advice that likely cost me a BI+.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Do you think v pays with Ac to 2x pot? Unless he’s absolutely clueless , seems like a snap fold with Ac to 2x, 2x pot is mainly only targeting boats.

I’d go with pot, targeting Ac and boats will jam regardless.

I agree that a good player should be able to fold the Ac to 2x pot. I think a bad player always calls though. Does a slightly below average player call? I’m not sure.

Full pot seems like a nice compromise between jam and small bet.

Thanks GG. I think I agree with you. Although you did get one thing wrong.

$75 - $100 for some value. He will probably shove boats and might call w/ flush. Unless he is an idiot or thinks you are, he is not calling much more.

Edit: LOL. Just saw results.

Lol yeah. You and I were basically on the same thought process. I thought it was an awful river but I guess not!

rts

I'm just betting around 100 hoping his counterfeit hands will still call.

Sorry, wasn’t sure of the protocol for posting results in this thread. I’ll wait longer next time. Thanks for the feedback though, happy to see another poster choosing a sizing in the same ballpark as mine.

Lol @ villain.

Gstep1:playwithidiots;step2:therearenootherstepsG

HU in position on river, we should essentially never be betting small for value, even thin value. And consequently we should never be betting small with our bluffs. So our choice here is either betting a larger size like 2/3 - 3/4 pot or bombing it (because obviously quads is not in our checkback range). Hero's 125 is not a bad choice.

Check behind, only getting action from straight flush.

The inner nit in me sigh-called the river expecting to see a straight flush and knowing my room’s $85k BBJ would not be triggered (needs to be quad fives or better).

2/5 1k effective

Utg+1 opens 15 main vilain, young asian kid 4k stack, giving off reggish vibes or rich asian parents, maybe both.

Btn fish 50 yo calls 200$ stack
Sb 60 yo woman fish 500$ calls

I flat in bb with QsJc my second hand at the table, 1k stack

Flop QdTs7c (60$)

Checks around

Turn QdTs7c Td (60$)

I check, utg+1 bets 20$, btn and sb folds i call

River QdTs7c TdTc (100$)

I check, utg+1 snap bets 200$

Fold pre. Seriously. Your range should tighten up substantially when the action is multiway. Yes, you are getting a "good price." This is an illusion, because you are substantially out of position, and it is going to be very difficult to realize your equity if you flop anything.

In particular, QJo plays horribly multiway. Throw it away.

As played, river should be a snap-call, if you think there is the slightest chance villain plays JJ, 99, or 7X this way.

Looks like a pretty easy fold. You need to risk $200 to win $50 if he has a Q.

P.S. PF cheese is still cheese, even if it's cheap.

Definitely fold pre.

River is obviously a call in theory, and I'll just have to trust your vibe read since I wasn't there. I don't think I can fold with second boat against someone wearing a designer shirt, double shuffling their chips, and cracking their gum or whatever.

$1/$2 game at Mohegan Sun on Wednesday afternoon. It is a “Mystery High Hand” day AND a “Double Momentum Dollars” day (aka $4/hr in promos) so the room is packed.

I have recently table-changed to escape an extremely tight-passive and elderly table and have very few reads in this new game. Sitting with almost exactly $400 (the table max) and both the PFR and main villain in this hand cover me.

4c4d

Main V (loose passive MAAG) in the hand open limps in EP, older white guy in MP raises $10 next to act, nittier player calls in MP, I am in CO and overcall, and the limper comes along.

Flop is KK5r ($43 before rake) and checks around.

Turn is KK5 4ss ($43 before rake)

EP limper leads for $20, PFR calls, and I just call.

River is KK54 Qsss ($103 before rake)

EP limper bets $55, PFR folds, and it is on me with around ~$360 back.

My main question here is on a river raise size. Is jamming for nearly 200bb too thin with bottom full house? It does cross my mind that I could be beat, although I don’t think villain is open limping KQ and this line with K5s or 55 is pretty awful. I wish I took note of all the suits to know exactly how many combos of K5s and K4s were available.

Do $1/$2 players always call off with something like KJo or A8ss? If so, is choosing a non-all-in size, like $190, missing a ton of value? Is it ever possible to find a bet-fold sizing here in the event that V is somehow betting this small with a better full house?

Why is limp/calling 55 or K5s bad, when you are overcalling 44?

River is much worst spot than turn to put more money in IMO, although you probably still have to raise. Probably similar to betting flop.
Some loose passives (esp. from EP) will have a decent amount of KQo here.
raise 2x pot (7x bet) seems... exploitive.

No, do some of them do sometimes ... I guess. KJo would be a huge punt, A8s seems pretty bad but maybe more likely.
Just seems like a bad, and transparent, strategy to call down and then shove river huge with top N value hands. Esp. on bad cards like this.
Would be difficult to work out if you get paid off 4x more often enough from population with $135, plus the savings when they shove and you fold.

Do you think they ever bluff 3bet or value own themselves with worse?

actually this is probably a good question for the thread

how does one table change with etiquette?

i always feel awkward doing it, so i tend to do it with the floor quietly while i'm up on break and then if/when i get the change i'll make some comment like "you guys are too good, scared to play with you" or something or say if there'd been a running joke about someone farting I'd work with that like "tired of getting crop dusted" or if i'm down then it's really easy "tired of losing money to you guys"

as for this

this should answer your question

you have an open limper, someone who opened small, and nobody 3bet, in fact, it's somewhat odd the blinds didn't stick around as well. you can accurately put the tables range anywhere from 27o to AA in this spot without better player specific reads

can easily see someone checking a king on that rainbow board so flush draws are definitely active since they faced no pressure when there was no draw

as played, again, it's hard to say what villian will do without much of a read here

there's definitely villians in the population who will stack off with a naked king here despite paired board and flush draw

there's also a far more common villain who won't fold a flush on a paired board, some even won't fold a weak flush

i think it's a safe assumption that villain is not bluffing, he has AA as a floor here and far more likely Kx+

i also think you can't discount K4o and K5o, although far less likely, there's a lot of people in the 1/2 pool who are 80+ vpipping because they'll play face rag offsuit all the time

as for sizing, again, at this level, it's all about personal exploits based on player reads - i know we're readless here, but based on him being described as loose/passive i'd not jam here because if he's passive then he's more likely to fold his flushes and trips

i'd probably raise to 155 total of something like that, maybe a little less, to make him feel priced in to call and then fold if he shoves because he's never doing that without a boat and if he has a boat we're definitely beat

yeah not raising the turn 3 handed was a major gaffe imo

honestly man, you're overthinking 1-2 - none of those people are good at poker nor have any real understanding of it so you can't act as if they do

crushing a 1-2 game pays about the same as working a register but without paid time off, 401k, healthcare and other benefits

there may be competent players such as yourself, the occasional good player when there's nothing higher spreading, but it's going to be mostly people who are there for fun covering a spectrum of knowledge from viewing it no differently than playing blackjack to someone who has done some basic study

so don't even consider the possibility of them having 54s because they don't and if they magically do it's such an outlier that it's not worth studying for - ie you'll occasionally get someone 4betting J8s because it's their favorite hand but that doesn't mean you should begin including J8s in a 4bet shoving range for 1-2 just because you've seen someone do it - the proper adjustment is to just be a little less certain about their exact holdings knowing how derpy your opponent could be at times

in your earlier example of KJo, while definitely unlikely that hand calls a shove from you, i've seen board like there where someone calls with ace high in these situations because they have the ace of spades thinking "oh this means i block the flush" wholly unaware that there's much scarier hands on this board than a flush

look at the j4 hand and how it's a reasonable argument to say she didn't cheat (i think she did fwiw) simply because people do really stupid things all the time in poker

I don't like to be a burden on the floor, so I usually wait until there is open seating. I would also feel weird about rejecting a table change so I try to make sure that there are definitely better seats available.

I don't tend to worry about offending my tablemates -- in fact, I think the people I try to avoid playing with at Mohegan Sun (the ultra tight-passive limp-folders) prefer not to play with me anyway. They would rather continue to see flops for cheap, particularly during a high hand promo. Shortly before I left this table I witnessed a three-way top boat vs. trips vs. nut flush hand where the final pot was barely more than $40 and the winner seemed content because she got to chase quads for the HH.

Appreciate the feedback. I agree that ranges are probably wider than I am considering. This particular limper did have an open-raising range, so I eliminated a lot of the stronger hands (including potentially a lot of KQ combos) from consideration. Also agreed that he is not bluffing and that something like 155 will basically always get called by worse hands, even by something as weak as K2o or 23ss.

yeah i really struggle in wanting to "scout" other tables without making it obvious that's what i'm doing

i sort of default to stack sizes, if there's more 2 or more massive stacks it's probably a pretty loose game but there's been a bunch of times where i picked based off that and it was a very tight group of omcs who apparently must have coolered some people before i arrived

now this is way more valuable than middle aged loose passive asian - knowing he probably wouldn't limp KQ i think we can feel a lot better about the overall strength of our hand and this also discounts quite a bit of K4o and K5o - unsure if it would change how much i size it up at the end, but would be far less concerned i'm beat and more concerned about extracting the max from his naked king or flush

I feel like if the table is bad enough to table change then it's worth it to just roll the dice on next available table, which is likely to be better due to the law of averages