[5-5]: Pocket Pair Against Passive Whale

I think this spot can really go either way - raise or fold. Raising to say 60 should be enough to fold out any bluffs without the FD, and if he does have a FD he probably calls and checks river if he misses and some rare times we're good. But we have 22, V has a minimum of 12 outs if he isn't paired already, so I don't think folding is ever wrong.

I think calling is a pretty big mistake.

Villain appears to be a player that stabs if you show weakness, so I don’t think the turn bet has a lot of meaning.

While he might be looking for value with a ten, I think it’s more likely he picked up a flush draw or maybe paired the seven.

I don’t like checking behind the flop. Honestly, I almost didn’t respond, because I fold ducks most of the time. But I could have done this - raising in position. However, once I jump in (been accused of mis-using aggression at times) I’m fighting for the pot.

In fact, I would pot the flop and try to take the dead money down. Villains pov I might have a ten. Point is, I don’t want to get deep into this hand, maybe playing for stacks with a pair of twos. Playing fast and finding out.

When you get in there with ducks, it’s a bluff. If you’re not willing to use maximum pressure and fold equity, you should probably fold them like I do most of the time.

Just for clarification, we're just slightly behind on this Flop (I have Villain defend top 90% of hands, uncapped because I've seen him not 3bet premiums before).

Similar on the Turn (modulo updating his range based on the bet, of course)

I’m hearing you prim, but I think it’s hard to get to the river and win with 22.

So, call it equity denial, but the point is with early aggression you can win with 22.

I think raising the turn is going to generate more folds than betting flop. Hands like 88, KJ, Ax are probably floating the flop frequently, and are we just going to barrel turn when called?

It's very natural to check back Tx on this flop and then look to raise when the FD comes in. Raising turn is probably only be called by pair+ and FD and V should be discouraged from any bluffs on the river because we do have strong inelastic hands in this line. So river checks a ton unless V has a monster.

We will face a tricky decision on whether to bluff river, but if V 3!s or leads river it's an easy fold.

(I think raising the Turn has merit, but didn't do it in the hand.)

Continuation:

Hero calls.

River (90€): 7♠
Villain bets 30, Hero ???

Well, Continuation

Hero tries to bet 140, Villain folds before the chips go in

idk i not sure that necessarily applies otf. also folding even something like 54o on this board is a large win with your hand.

i think you're probably isoing too wide in both hands tbh

fyi hj vs bb and i have bb defending ~85% without the top 6% or whatever

i dont really see a compelling reason to deviate from that with 22 in particular. something like AK or KQ where u can cooler him if u check back and he hits or even just something like AA that needs less protection and does a better job bluff catching would be different imo

vs top 92% since u said he doesnt 3b premiums. is same thing he just too wide to be able to deal with small cbet effectively and you have a hand that really benefits from him folding anything

yea fair enough, I should have cbet the flop.

Thought about it more, and actually this is pretty cool because the hand inadvertently demonstrates the value of equity protection. Like, all pairs benefit from equity protection a little because all the hands that currently behind have 3 outs per overcard (so either 0 or 3 or 6). But of all the pairs, 22 benefits the most because the largest number of hands-that-are-currently-behind have all 6 outs (all except the X2 hands). Specifically if I make a board of 3 random disconnected cards, like K♠8♣3♦, then any random hand that completely misses the board (like J♥4♠) still has around 26% equity against 2♣2♠ (and the hands with backdoor straight+flush equity go up to 34%). And then if I also make the board paired instead, like the one we have here, it jumps to at least 37% because all hands gain additional outs to counterfeit my pair (which is in fact what happened).

So yeah this board + my hand happens to be just about perfectly optimized to maximize the value of equity protection. Like it's gonna be super rare that a hand is ahead of most of the opponent's range, but doesn't beat anything by more than 63% (other than exactly the X2 hands), as is the case here. Which is something I should definitely recognize in the future.

You all know better than me and though I’ve missed out on some big scores, I think I’ve saved money folding deuces most of the time.

However, from the button, I likely do exactly what you did pre-flop. Maybe this is wrong, but my next move would be to pot the flop and take it down now or be done with it.

I can’t fault what you did, mostly keeping the pot small before running him off on the river.

Also my take when villain checks flop and comes out small on the turn:
Yes it looks like the way a fish would play a ten here, but no, it won’t be most of the time.

A reminder perhaps to always bet the flop if you have a ten, don’t wait.

Most of the time what happens:
You didn’t bet, so I’ll take a stab at it.
I got a little bit and maybe you’ll fold.
You didn’t fold, so I’m done.