How would you play these hands?

[Narajin007]

‘ve recently played some hands which I found interesting. And I am wondering if there should have been some room for improvement. This is $1/2 NL Live.

Hand 1: H: Q J P:HJ S: $200 Villain Stack: $200

I raise $10 and CO calls. Everyone folds.

Flop is J 2 7 rainbow. I bet $15 and CO calls.
Turn is 3. I bet $25 and he calls.
River is 9. I check and he goes all-in.

How would you play this hand? My thinking is either has a set of two’s or 7’s…maybe 9 7suited (most likely not), pair of J or is bluffing.

Hand 2: H: 88 P: SB

Everyone limps to me, I raise to $12. Folds around to BTN. BTN calls This guy has been raising for the last 5 times each preflop which I think he is stealing blinds. My read is he is LAG or maniac. One pot he open raised $90 into a 3 way flop with a $45 pot (with I believe to be nothing, he didnt show).

Flop is J 9 7 rainbow. Gutshot straight draw and 3rd pair.

My read is that he has nothing. I check with intention to re-raise. And soon enough he bets to $50 on a pot of $30. I have about $90 left.

What would you do?

Hand 3: H: QJ

Folds to me in HJ and I raise to $6. Folds to SB and he re-raises to $15. I call. We are heads-up

Flop is Q 9 8

He bets $25 and I re-raise to $50. He calls.

Turn is 7. He checks. My stack is about $60 left.

I put him in a range of mid pocket pairs, maybe a set or also pair of Q’s.
Since he just called my re-raise, most likely not a set. Maybe a straight draw as well.

What would you do?

I’ll post my results after I get a few answers. Feedback is greatly appreciated.

[Chuck M]

Hi Narajin,

Hand 1 (QJ)
I like the pf raise, i like the cbet.
Turn, we can either bet another time as you did (valuing against JT-J8, 7x), or we can check since the board texture doesn’t change. The 3 changes nothing (unless he played 65,64,54 kinda hands). We could go for a check/call, let him bluff, or value worse than our hand. But i don’t hate the bet either.
River, check is ok, and i don’t really get why villain would shove here…
He might be bluffing, but I might fold and wait for better spots.
Is he shoving top pair? Two pairs? Is there a busted flush draw on the board?
He bets 155 into 100…
Maybe he felt we weren’t that strong, raising AK, AQ pf missing the flop and barrelling twice, and miss river.

Another option would’ve been bet/fold riv.

. . . .

Hand 2 (88)
Being oop with a mid pocket pair, in a multiway pot, maybe I would just have completed the sb, and see a flop.
Maybe that’s a little weak from my part, maybe the iso raise is better. But we most likely gonna play postflop in a 2 or 3 way, with overcards.
You say that btn is kinda lag, but in this hand, he’s just limped/called. I think his range is pretty wide.
I don’t think i like the idea of c/r the flop, i’d rather go for a c/c, i think. By check-raising, we turn our hand into a bluff, but if villain is loose, i doubt he’ll fold a better hand (and he’ll fold worse hands). That board hits a good part of his range, imo. Our hand has enough showdown equity not to turn it into a bluff. Your pair might be good already, and I’d rather try to get a cheap turn and try to hit our gutshot.
Here, he overbets, I’d just fold. We could also take the high variance and shove, hoping to hit. (And maybe villain would fold 9x…)

. . . .

Hand 3 (QJ)
I like the open, I like to defend vs the 3bet, since it’s not expensive, and we’re in position.
But I wouldn’t have raised that flop. I would have flat, having pretty good equity (tp + gs). If we wanna raise, I’d go all-in right on tge flop.
Cause I don’t think villains gonna fold to our min-raise, and we leave ourselves with pretty much the same amount of our raise (we min-raised for half our stack). Yeah, I’d either flat, trying to get a cheap showdown with top pair or improve.
We can also play for our stack, but I’d rather do it on the flop (having 2 cards to come : you have more equity than seeing a brick turn and having a decision for your stack with only one card to come)

My humble opinion

[Narajin007]

Thanks for feed back!

Hand 1: I had the same thoughts as you. I felt that he was after me and was bluffy. I had blockers to top pair. I called and he had 3 2 off suite. I was a little miffed. He called my pf raise with that.

How could I have gone away from this? Maybe not risk too much on just top pair. Play it safe.

Hand 2: I’ve seen his pattern where he limps or maybe raised pf. Then overbet the pot 2x-3x. He did this 4-5 times already. I had a strong feeling that he didn’t have the goods.

I go all-in and he tanks for a little bit then calls. Turn is a K. River is a 3. I turn over the pocket 8’s and he gets a little surprised. He turns over K 5 for a pair on the turn.

I felt I had a good read…but variance happens? I wanted to exploit his play but I played instead. lol. He got me with garbage. I felt if I didn’t go all-in and maybe just bet 1/2-2/3 pot..he might have folded because going all-in he might have thought I was bluffing.

Hand 3: I agree with you on the flop…a flat call would have been fine. I was trying to make plays in the wrong spots.

I guess I was feeling impatient because I was card dead for a little while and wanted some action (too loose).
I go all-in and he tanks for about a minute then calls. River is an A.
He says that I might have him beat…then turns pocket A’s for trips.
I guess I almost bluffed him out by repping a straight. Maybe my stack was just too short to do it.

[John S]

Hand 1: Fold all day. Doesn’t make sense – huge bet ($150 bet into $100) and you’re kicker isn’t that great. Pretty safe to fold here.

Hand 2: I don’t really like the check-raise. Problem is this flop doesn’t hit you as well as it does him. J97 is a great flop for a limp caller. He can have all sorts of 78, 89, 9T, JT, and gappers here. I feel like more often than not you’re getting worse to fold and better to call. This one time you got him to make a terrible call, but this feels like this is a losing play long-term.

Hand 3: Pre-flop is fine, but what is your intent with the min-raise on the flop. He 3-bet you pre-flop, which means he should have a pretty strong range. Your QJ is being everything but AK and JJ, but he can still have QQ, KK, AA, and AQ here that all have you fairly crushed. With your chipstack it’s either call or jam. I would call and hope he slows down on the turn or maybe you make some more equity.

[Narajin007]

Been card dead for a while, so having been dealt Q J I thought I had it and made a play.

BIG mistake. Should have been more cautious and patient.

How would you catch yourself before doing this?

[John S]

I never really found a way to avoid boredom at 1/2 and 1/3. The problem is your stack as always so small it’s easy to get bored and bluff off $100 or more. I find myself much more disciplined at the higher levels.

I guess if you’re card dead, try getting up and walking around for a few minutes? Or if you’re just not having fun, call it a day and leave. I’m always interested to see what others do at the table to avoid boredom and bad play.

[Author]

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