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I kind of feel like you’re being results oriented, as far as the melodramatic “why do I play this game” bit. As for the hand (Much of this will depend on your personal playstyle etc):
You could 4! JJ a portion of the time, depending on villain. I’m okay with flatting the BB’s 3! but if villain had been OTB then my 4! percentage would go up.
Check the flop. Almost always. Checking JJ here protects your range, because you’re going to have worse hands that will want to check.
If you’re determined to bet it, effing bet it, man. $25 into $93ish dollars is going to get called by anything. Seriously, I tried for 15 minutes to think of something that I’d raise to $40 with pre that I’d muck on the flop for just over half of my preflop bet. Couldn’t come up with a single one. Can you, if you were villain? Stop using feeler bets. They haven’t been a thing since 2004. Either bet to get worse to call or better to fold. You don’t need to see where your at. You’re at the table and you know that.
As for calling it off, $65 in the pot isn’t enough to necessarily commit us. It can be okay to call off here If you have history with the villain or know his player type Not going to lie, low-limit guys will punt off stacks here with ATs and the like sometimes. But you’re also going to be staring at QQ+, TT, 66, 44 a lot too. This is probably a fold, given both the live read and the fact that villain hasn’t been there long. Generally speaking, most guys aren’t in a hurry to stack off right after they sit down.
This is going to sound like I’m trolling you, but I’m not. Before you call it off here, stop. Ask yourself this:
“What would he do this with, that I beat?”
Answers are: AKs, possibly ATs, complete air (there’s no draw really)
Now ask, “What would he do this with that crushes me”:
Answers are: QQ, KK, AA, TT, 66, 64s, 44.
Whether or not he “should be” jamming those isn’t relevant. If you combine all of villain’s range against your JJ you have about 33%. Against just AKs you have about 78%.
That’s not your biggest problem though.
If you really haven’t played in 18 months, relax man. There’s no one on the planet that wouldn’t have to knock off some rust.
This stuff though:
My ride was done playing poker and I felt like he wanted to leave. I convinced myself I’m just going to win this hand to get unstuck)
Get out. Find a new ride, ask if he wants to leave… Never. Never. Never. “Play one more hand to get unstuck…” There hasn’t been a time in history that this approach worked.
Villain is a reg. He shows down loose sometimes, but overall is a sound player
This would be my first problem with your hand. Secondly, your opinion on your outs might be a little optimistic. 2-outs for a Q, 2-outs for a J, and 9-outs for the 3rd nuts. And according to your read, the Qd is a dirty out.
Not saying you can’t ever make moves like this, but not at these stacks. If Villain put in the $40, I really don’t see him folding for $60 more if he already has $71 committed. Unless he’s super disciplined.
Read the results, and I think you’re right about not being in the right mindset. It’s alright though, pretty sure it happens to everyone. Good job on the reads, though.
Cheers,
~HavickThere seems to be a ton of traffic here. Anyway…
The solution to your problems are going to be dependent on a few things.
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Why you’re playing.
Whether or not you’re at the stakes you plan on being at for a while.
Whether or not you’re trying to be a tournament guy or a cash player.
How your partner feels about poker, and whether or not that matters to you.So…
Why are you playing? Are you planning on becoming a pro, semi-pro, or do you just want to have some fun as a rec? All of these are fine, but it’s important that you know what your goals are here. If you’re taking a rec line, then no worries, just take what you can afford and that’s that. If you’re leaning towards the other two, you’re going to need a bankroll. I don’t know what stakes you play, but the advice you’re going to get online is going to be something like 20+BI for cash, and significantly more for tournaments. What your exact number of BI’s are, is dependent on you. You need enough that the money doesn’t matter. That doesn’t mean you can donk it up, but you need to be in a position where you can make correct decisions without regard to the money involved. It’s much harder to call an AI, even when you’re ahead, if your rent’s in front of you.
Are you playing the stakes you see yourself playing for a while? Or are you planning on taking shots at higher stakes? The answer to this changes the bankroll requirement. At a basic level, it’s going to be the same, but how you allocate it and take your shots will be affected. I use the 10 BI shot method. Take a current roll for 1/2: $6k (Here in Vegas the 1/2 is a $300 BI game). I grind that until it reaches $16k. Then I take a 10BI shot at 2/5 ($1k BI). Lose those and move back down. Rinse and repeat until 2/5 becomes the new 1/2… That’s for an aspiring pro (and I wish someone would have advised me of this when I started). A semi-pro would need half or less of that. Especially if there is another stream of money coming in. I’ve seen others say that you should play x% at the new stake and x% at the old… I think that’s terrible advice. I much prefer the 10BI shot-taking approach.
Tournaments or Cash? I can’t give you much tournament advice, but what I can tell you is that the variance train in tournaments is exponentially worse than in cash games. I personally know guys that play small stakes ($250-$500) tournaments out here and they’ll go 30-50 without a major cash. Those are good players too. It’s not like they aren’t making it, but it’s difficult to hit those long stretches without incoming money. The ones that aren’t disciplined about off the felt (lol) spending end up going broke. Seriously, some of the ESPN superstars are broke.
That’s not to say that cash is necessarily easier. Most people don’t understand what “grinding” actually means, so they play loose and fast for a few hours a week and call it good. The problem arises when variance kicks them in the proverbial teeth. For example, my volume has been low so far this week but since the 1st, I’m at 20.5 hours with $660 in gross profit. By the end of the 7th and into the morning of the 8th I should be somewhere over 50 hours. That’s a little lower than I would like, but I should be able to pick it up substantially when my wife leaves in a few months. If someone wants me to clarify those numbers, let me know. I feel if I do so now, it’s a bit off topic.
Does your partner think this is a good way to spend your time? If it isn’t, muck the cards or muck the partner. They can’t live together, one will inevitably eat the other. If you’ve managed to catch a unicorn, who supports you in this endeavor, then more power to you. Most will find an abundance of support when they’re winning, and a stack of blank job applications when they aren’t. It’s important to consider your partner and how much you value your relationship when making decisions like this. Some people need intimate relationships, or at least that’s what I’m told.
Finally, if you’re dead set on saving some scratch for poker… Stop spending it. That seems unfair. How could I know your issues/why you spent the money? You may be right. What I do know, though, is that if you continue to take from the poker fund that which is not for poker… You’ll just continue making periodical posts in poker forums about this exact subject. There isn’t a magic formula. Pick a comfortable amount, and when you set it aside, treat it like you used it to pay the rent. Besides that, if you’ve truly found Atlantis, and the games are as soft as you proclaim, you should be able to stock the bankroll and pay the bills that surprise you.
Cheers,
~Havick
Edit: Don’t go full GTO at the lower limits. When facing opponents that are open-mouth breathers… You’re going to go broke with GTO. Fact. Save that stuff for the higher live limits or online.
