blonde poker forum

25p/50p 6 max,i have £105 villian has £102. ive been at the table for maybe 30 hands the villan had his £100 since i sat down. hes been fairly solid with only played a few pots taking the blinds and rasing after a couple of limps.

the hand in question. 1 limper, i make it £2.50 in the cut off with  Qh Qd. villan on the button makes it £8-limper folds. i flat called is this a mistake? should i have defined my hand by making it 25 then passing to a shove? . anyway i flat called and the board came  Th 2d 4c. i bet out 3/4 of the pot , he then re raises to 40 . at this point it feels like im beat but could he have jacks? or a badly played ak just trying to take it off me with my c bet? anyway i shoved and he had aces. these are spots i always struggle with when im playing against someone and we are both 200bb deep . thoughts and advice please thanks

cambo

The first thing I would say is invest in pokertracker and pokeracehud. It is much easier to say after 30 hands: "villian is very tight, 17 / 10 / 2.2; villian is a loose passive, 30 / 2 / 0.7" - i.e. talk about how they are playing with a bit of accuracy rather than your perceptions of the same. There is a possibillity that the stats after 30 hands could have given an indication that AA is much more likely than JJ here.

Secondly, you are 200BBs deep at the start of this hand. It is imperative not to go broke to a bigger overpair that deep. Defining your hand or looking for information or whatever preflop would be very, very bad. Calling the raise to 8 is absolutely fine because if his range has you in big trouble (JJ+ / AKo+ for the 3 bet where only KK and AA gets all the loot in pre) you are in excellent spot to just play for set value. Plus, the stacks are going to be very deep in relation to the pot on the flop so you will have plenty of options available. As such, calling the 3 bet and re - evaluating on the flop has to be the correct play.

Once we get to that flop I check 100% of the time. If his range was tight preflop (JJ - AA / AK) then leading this flop is kinda silly because we give him all the chances in the world to fold the hands we beat and make it easier for him to stack us with the hands that have us crushed. Therefore, I would check with the intention of calling most bets and letting a turn peel. Many players will have a tendency to continuation bet too much if you check to them, so let him do that and keep his range as wide as possible.

The problem with the way you have played the flop is that you have massively overrepresented your hand. You are bluffing with QQ when you bet / 3 - bet shove this flop! How could he call with JJ or AK here? What would he beat? The only fringe benefit of the line you took is that some players may fold KK fearing that you have AA or a flopped set of tens!!

So, I would have called the 8 preflop. I would have checkcalled a lot of bets on the flop and probably checked a lot of turns to hims aswell. At that point, if he fires again we would have to fold the vast majority of the times because he is extremely unlikely to double barrell hands we beat. If the turn goes check / check we can start thinking whether to value bet the river.

In this way, you are maximising your expectation from the hand. Taking a line that will loss less when you are crushed and will induce money into the pot from the lower part of your opponents range which you beat.

Shoving a lot of money in because you could potentially beat one hand that your opponent might have sometimes is far from ideal.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

Not sure on the answer but I always find that when I play QQ and JJ aggressivly in cash I always run into AA or KK. So you either win a small pot or lose a big one.

great post Lloyd lots to think about there that will deff help me in the future when i find myself in similar spots

Alex will be along soon I am sure.

He is THE expert on playing QQ lol

Each to their own...

Lloyd - excellent post, makes perfect sense.

To expand the situation, what would your advice be in exactly the same situation, but with 88-JJ?

Is this online or live, 200bb starting stacks playing with English money.

Lloyd has pretty much nailed the hand imo, like him i flat the 3bet. Check call the flop and let go to a double barrel on the turn.

Regarding preflop we can profitably call the 3bet against most opponents with any pair, by set mining in the main.

on williamhill, ive been in this spot quite a few times on williamhill and at that level ive moved in and other guy has had 99 jj ak and and obv on other they have had 1010 aa and kk , its just those times when i think back to when my hands been good that i hate to let go of it.

but the way Loyd has described how to play in that situation is the line ill take in future can only make me more money and lose less at the same time, best bit of advice ive been given i think

I flatcall the 3 - bet preflop with all.

Check call a slightly lower percentage of flop bets with JJ and give up on the turn a lot. I would need to know that the villian has a wide range and a very high c - bet frequency to continue postflop with 88 - 99.

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If we flop a set, I check call the flop always. A checkraise here on this board texture screams mega strength and you give people a perfect opportunity to get away from KK - JJ (they prolly get all the loot in with AA whatever you do, whatever the action).

On the turn I look to check, raise every card in the deck huge. If it goes check, check I overbet the pot on the river for value. There is virtually no combination of turn and river cards that I don't try and go broke on.

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Everyone should understand that these lines are massively simple and standard. But as a default they make you tough enough to play against and make you 'solid and mistake free'. You'll need to show an awful, awful lot more creativity against good players at the higher levels.

But as long as the discussion is 100nl or less; live cash; tournaments - taking these lines should help you win.

Thanks again.

I don't think I'm alone in needing the 'massively simple and standard' lines, creativity can come after that!

By Check/calling the flop and folding to a double barrell are we not just letting an aggressive player with position completely run over us in most situations?

Yes but (a) These players make up less than 5% of the small/micro stakes players
           (b) By using PT and Pa Hud which should be able to pick out who these players are likely to be.

just noticed the 200bb starting stacks bit....id already double through in the first 30hands with 56s against aa when he gave me a free card on the flop to hit, other guy had doubled before i came to the table

Was that bit for me?

v. standard spot. Spot where heaps of players lose lots of money. Need shit loads more info on villain to give decent assessment. But here's my thoughts.

I dont play this hand this passively in this spot, it loses more money than opening up his range and bluff catching makes.  Situation is ugly. Whe you are re-raised preflop by this guy, you know his hand pretty well. Its a different world if ur playing highly LAG and/or so is he, in that situation i like a more passive cc line down the streets.

Preflop is FINE, if he is (as i expect) fairly nitty then he has 4 hands here, sometimes 5, nearly never 6.  The number of times solid nitty players re-raise 1010 preflop @ 200nl is pretty much obsolete compared to the rest of their range, id guess less than 5% of the time. But in this spot at this level you should be extremely wary and bear in mind this is where you lose a lot of $ in the long run. Dont start thinking this is a fist-pump shove.


On the flop i check raise a lot (to protect our hand if its ahead (stop A/K dropping on 4th)) which also lets us know if we are winning. If he calls the cr you are dead. Period. Think if a hand ur beating that he calls a check-raise with. This is the world of multitabling low-stakes NL and he wont be thinking on a high enough level to try and outplay you now without a hand. JJ is the ONLY hand you are beating v this guy. Shut down and c/f turn a lot.

Check calling flop can be a nice alternative versus a lot of players, ones that dont fire the second barrel/are good aggro players, but out of position it wouldnt be my default. I only like this if you have good enough feel to c/f turn if you know ur beat.

Check calling flop, turn and river bets is something you should only do against true lags.

Some really good replys on this thread.  I think Lloyd has given a well thought our answer. 

I don't really much to say other than that I think I go broke here because I'm not passing QQ, I know i should have been in situation both in cash when I know the right move is to pass either pre or on a low flop but simply not good dnough to pass it. 

in this spot i can shove pre, or 4bet all in on flop everytime
you still have fold equity after he bets 40 if u jam I think (he'll certainly pass 77-99) - maybe he isn't respecting your cbet and thinks he can push you around.. perhaps he has have ak, in which case you are in good shape if he does call a shove.. if he has TT KK AA, and he calls you can still suckout. If not, you reload, and nh him imo.

how did i let you own me so damn hard the other night? Rematch later, 4am please. Ill be on all 2/4ipoker tables. Lets get the table tilting ;)

AlexMartin, shout me on msn for a game (u got me on there) and I'll pwn u faster than superman folds sheets.