blonde poker forum

Hi chaps,

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Hi guys,

I've been at this table for only 30 hands and have nothing on the CO. I have played the 6 hands I've been in v aggressively, having had decent starting hands and hitting the board except for once, when I bluffed and showed.

CO has lost three pots to me and has just rebought. The first was for half his stack when I turned a set against his top pair after cold calling his raise pre flop from SB. The second (with aces, not shown) and third (a shown bluff) were taken off him on the turn after I'd cold called his pre flop raise and fired two barrels with position. These were smallish pots.

I think he may be tilting slightly, and I'm damn sure he wants to win a pot against me. I know I do when a player continually calls my pre flop raises and I keep losing. So, on with the hand.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (9 handed) Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver Cards)

MP1 ($61.25)
MP2 ($35.55)
MP3 ($56.65)
CO ($50)
Button ($12.50)
SB ($49.70)
Hero ($82.20)
UTG ($51.20)
UTG+1 ($25.25)

Preflop: Hero is BB with  Ahrt Qc
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.50, 3 folds, CO raises to $2.5, 2 folds, Hero raises to $6.5, UTG+1 folds, CO calls $4.

Flop: ($13.75)  4c 2d Qs (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $8, Hero raises to $20, CO calls $12.

Turn: ($53.75)   8s (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $23.5 (All-In), Hero calls $23.50.

River: ($0)  (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $100.75


So, knowing that he's possibly tilting:

1) Do we like my 3-bet pre-flop, do we tolerate it, or do we hate it?
2) Do we like my check raise on the flop?
3) Do we check call the turn or do you prefer a bet there? Or do we even check fold the turn?

Look forward to your thoughts.

3 bet preflop is fine though im not sure it is totally standard in full ring.

Given your read i think check raising is fine here, but i would normally lead.

I would just get the rest on the turn we have tptk on a super dry board. Our hand rates to be good here most of the time and we are looking to stack kq/qj and pocket pairs here, the danger of letting a nasty card from their point of view hitting the river and passing their hand would be disaster.

Pre is good.
Flop i like lead but c/r for mixing strategy is nice.
Given reads and action i really like ur turn play tbh.
Well played.

As  a side note, i noticed you said you were cold calling. This is not a good idea@ 6max. Ever.

perfect play and you most definately had the best hand on the turn..

What happened?

Obviously I'm going to be in the minority here, but I'm not sure about the 3-bet PF, given the history you've got with him. It works nicely here (or looks like it does...) cos you've hit TPTK and you've got the best hand most of the time. But I just don't think it looks so pretty when you miss the flop. You think he's desperate to win a pot off you and probably isn't going to give you too much credit. So what are you going to do when the flop comes T or J-high? Do you really want to be c-betting out of position into a inflated pot when you think there's a good chance he's going to play back at you with 66 or something? It seems a bit weak, but given the context I think I prefer to flat call and keep the pot under control here.

Having 3-bet and hit the Q I think I also prefer leading out. It might not make too much difference in this particular spot because he's likely to play back at you fairly light. In general though I think you might be over-representing your hand a bit by check-raising here - at full ring at least it makes your range look like KK minimum and could well fold out most of his range that you beat. Leading out makes your range include all sorts of hands like 99+, AJ+, and so can get get action from KQ and even worse.

I'd also be a little bit wary of adjusting his range too much based on your idea of his potential tiltiness and his image of you. At low-stakes full ring people generally don't react very willingly or very quickly to what you're doing - it often takes a lot more than you'd think to get a standard taggish player to play back at you, much less to get involved in a 3-bet pot without a monster.