Folding overpairs facing aggression from low stakes weak opponents?

hand 1 i think you have to call the turn. you can probably fold to a river jam. old guys sometimes play KK, QQ, like this but then shrivel up on the river and bet small or check. if he checks river id jam all in for value.

hand 2 id fold the turn to the huge bet. flop call is fine.

I think there are definitely times to fold overpairs, but I'm not sure either of these are that time.

Hand 1: Against an unknown, I'm still trying to get all the chips in the middle. This could absolutely be KK/QQ/AJ/KJ/QJ and that's if we assume that V doesn't have bluffs. With no particularly scary draws, I probably flat and look to call or shove all-in OTR. If we're beat, we're beat. V does have all the 2-pairs here. His chips are a mess, that usually means he plays tons of hands, so I'd assume he is folding nothing on the bb. So yeah, we're going to lose sometimes, but oh well. As a general rule, I have no problem paying off a fishy, distracted player immediately on my right. That money will come home, so if you double him and learn something about how he plays that's not the end of the world.

Hand 2: It's a wet and dynamic flop where we have a lot of hands dominated. V donked, which suggests to me he probably doesn't have a draw. He's donking because he's afraid of the draw, maybe he has a OESD and if he has something like QJ or QQ unlucky for him because we block his outs. We don't block KQcc, which is the ugliest hand we could be against, but would he just donk lead with the nuts and a super strong redraw? Probably not. I'd take heart that the worst I'm against is probably JJ.

I don't hate flatting here but I'm probably not getting away even if the turn is ugly and I think we can get called by worse a lot, so gii on the flop and let the cards fall where they will. When you're starting with a few hundred bucks, you just shouldn't be folding big pps often.

If you're limp backraising - make it huge. I don't get doing this move for $40. Go for $80-$100 minimum. Get that SPR as low as possible, and your flop decisions are a ton easier. You can get aggressive - they will call.

You're going to lose a lot of these big pps because you're playing shallow and Vs will call with too much garbage and that means sometimes they will hit their garbage and win. Sometimes you will go on a streak where it seems like you can't get AA to hold up because you lose bit pots 4-5 times in a row and in live poker that could be a month without winning with AA once. Don't let that influence your decision-making. You have a hand that's a 55-60% favorite over V's range, get the money in. Yes, that means you'll lose 40% of the time, which can feel like a lot when you have some downward variance. But if you react by playing your good hands more passively, that will lead to you losing with them more frequently or winning smaller pots when its your turn to cooler your opponents.

You could be against JJ in both of these hands - but the play makes sense for both Vs to have QQ too and since there's one jack accounted for they have 6 combos of QQ and only 3 combos of JJ. It's twice as likely they have QQ as JJ. If QQ and JJ were the only possible hands, you win 66% of the time and lose 34% of the time so gii. It's more complicated as you add in more potential hands, but it isn't like there are a lot of hands that have you beat on either board. You're also adding in a ton of combos that you have crushed that might play similarly. Don't fear the monsters, get the money in, and be ok with losing a good chunk of the time.

I'd be more likely to fold H1 than H2 due to the higher SPR.

In H2, dude could technically have a lot of worse hands ie QQ, AJs/o, KJs, QJs, etc at around 3 SPR. Not to mention some semi-bluffs and merges. Not hero folding without very good reads. Re-raise bigger preflop if you're going to do that. Just jam the flop as your hand doesn't like a lot of turn cards and the pot is already pretty big in relation to your stack. As played, calling the flop and folding the turn makes no sense as he puts the rest in most of the time, so your decision is on the flop.

In H1, I suppose I call the turn and fold the river to a big bet. I'm not expecting a bluff, but we're still beating some value hands on the turn that will shutdown or size down on the river.

Just because you say this to yourself doesn't make it true.

Both hands have a lot of text about random stuff that isn't useful reads, but it's hard to find what the action is.

H1 looks like a coin flip at every point ... he can have AJ/QQ and maybe even KK for "value", that assumes you have worse due to the flop size.

Or he might always have 55/33.

I think checking back flop is probably best, unless you know wtf villain is doing with actions post.

If you are betting IP, then betting 1/3 pot with AA isn't great it gives very little information about wtf villain has if he calls or raises ... and you get a lot of random folds that you are crushing. Would be much happier betting that size with AK.

H2 probably just shove or fold flop ... you have an overpair and gutter, you block KQ and have outs vs. 2 pairs and sets.

Limp back raise UTG looks a lot like KK+ to anyone with a clue (unless you've done weird things previously) ... don't be a random fish doing fish things. If you want to keep doing it, raise to a larger size that can just shrug stack off all the time for the obvious information you are giving away preflop.

More related to the title than the HHs, but I did research on Beluga Theorem in my database when I thought I was finding too many excuses to ignore it, and I basically found two seemingly contradictory things, which I think explains the wide divergence on how to play these spots:

1) Filtering for hands where I continue to a raise* with a single pair has catastrophically negative bottom line results. One of the worst filters I’ve ever run, at least as far as ones that are agnostic to whether I won/lost the hand.

* I was looking at turn raise, so again not directly pertinent to either HH.

2) The actual action profit of calling/reraising was positive.

I mean, it’s not too surprising, this is broadly true for facing any aggressive action, but I think it’s especially stark for spots where stacks are being leveraged.

So there’s a sort of reversal survival bias (death bias?) that happens when you’re only reviewing hands where you get stacked.

This certainly doesn’t mean you should just jam and pray in these spots. Just that I don’t think they’re automatic folds or they hold as much promise to save you a ton of potential for saving you money long term.

I don’t think I’d stack off in either HH, because of tells as much as anything. I’d call one more in H1 and fold turn in H2.

#MoreLikeBaluga’sFallacy

Would you mind explaining a bit more on this point please? Is it the profit of calling or re-raising?

Not sure I'm parsing this correctly.

What I think what you are saying is that if you bet turn and get called it's a lot better for you (and your winrate) than if you bet turn and get raised ... but you still win when you call often enough that it's slightly +EV (but if they call instead of raise it's much more +EV)?

FWIW I think Beluga Theorem applied to online for the time period it was "invented" in, and online has moved away from that by a lot but live is still slowly moving away from it.

Hey thanks for taking the time to write a detailed response. I think if the turn completes the flush, we (KK) shall be able to get away, we will then be drawing dead to a made flush and still in bad shape against 2 pairs, sets and straight. If v checks to us on the turn, maybe we can get called by worse. Facing a shove from a non-aggressive player is very different.

With H2 I think folding is slightly better than shoving, but honestly I don't think I am good enough to fold the flop.

Calling on the flop is similar to calling a pre-flop 4 bet with QQ (as opposed to other option of folding), the significant underlying assumption of which is that we have the skill edge on the next street to make more correct decisions, and our opponents are exploitable.

Still, very glad to hear different thoughts.

I'm only folding if I know for certain I'm playing supernit because we only need to have 33% equity and V easily has a bunch of offsuit single club hands that would shove. Even tight fish will find semi-bluffs with strong combo draws. I'm not going to be fist pumping because I'm probably losing more often than not, but the odds are right and this kind of board is one where it's easy to find natural bluffs. I think a tight V probably isn't shove two pair or sets because they'll fear the straight or flush, but they will shove AcJx or QcJx.

TBF, the theorem just says you should seriously reconsider the strength of your hand, and I *do* give an audible “fuck” in his honor every time it happens so …

Grunch:

I wouldn't be too quick to fold AA in hand one. I'd just call and let him continue to barrel off with Jx or whatever this is.

Not sure if he's displaying a timing tell, but I'd think he'd take a moment to consider before snap betting turn.

If he bets huge on the river, then I might fold, maybe. It's possible he flopped a set and is just fast playing it.

In hand two, if you're going to back raise, I'd go bigger. At least $50.

I wouldn't fold to the flop donk. We have an over-pair with a gutshot to the nuts and we double block the nuts. I wouldn't raise, because he could have all the 2P+ combos here, and he'll just fold all his bluffs that might continue betting on the turn.

I'd probably call the turn jam. We could have the best hand here a lot. Even if we're behind 2P, we have something like 12 outs, so around 24% chance to improve. With the possibility of improving, we only need to be good here around 10% of the time, and I'd estimate we're probably ahead way more often than that, when he takes this line.

Before I call, I might take a moment to see if he displays any tells. If he starts glaring at us, or starts talking, or shuffling his chips, that might push me towards a call. If he's just sitting silently and staring at a point in space, I might find a somewhat nitty fold.

All I can say is what's helpful for me is the mantra: The hand really starts once the turn card hits.

When you get dealt aces, there are so many scenarios where you either win a pittance or end up on the defense unimproved by the turn.

Even if you flop a set, there are so many anti-climactic flop actions and/or troublesome runouts and actions, it's just not worth the heartache to get pissed every time you don't end up in your dream scenario of "The pot's huge and they have <20% equity."

If the pot gets big and your fortunes badly change with just one card to come, then I give you permission to let out a neaqah fit to make the poker gods weep. Until then, just ride the ride.