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20 for cash is generally fine I think. Tournaments should almost definitely be higher than 25. I think 50 is probably enough but a lot of people use 100.
I’m personally a bankroll nit. I start a new stakes level with 60 buy-ins, drop back down stakes if i fall below 50, and build my roll at each level until i reach 120 (this would be 60 buy-ins at the next level). It’s easier to be a bankroll nit online than in live games but better to air on the side of cautious IMO.
I don’t see a link to the hand so I don’t know where the hand is from or who else is on the table. If it is an exceptionally aggressive game with lots of 3bets then it’s possible he does not want to get into a position where he has to play QTs out of position. Still, I agree, pretty nitty fold. Probably a “live read” lol
Also named Kevin but I’d be interested as well. I work full-time in Manhattan but play regularly online in New Jersey, and frequent casinos and home games. I’d consider myself semi-professional. I’ve been winning consistently at up to $2/$5 live and $1/$2 online (I’m a bankroll NIT), but obviously have tons more to learn about the game. Still, very few friends that take the game nearly as seriously as I do. The more the merrier as far as I’m concerned. If you’re curious about how I think about the game, I post frequently on offthefelt and I have a new poker vlog which you can check out here: https://youtu.be/nk4cD45yJa4.
Hey Jameson,
Interesting hand. Here are some thoughts:
1) If you’re never raising a flush draw OOP then what is your raising range on that board? Is it only sets and 2 pairs? In a way, that can become transparent if your opponent is paying attention. If you ALSO aren’t check raising sets and 2 pairs there is a real problem. This board is simply better for your range, so you need to have some type of aggression strategy with a mix of bluff and value.
I’m NOT saying to check/raise here with the nut flush draw. In fact, I think calling is correct because it’s possible you actually have the best hand with ace high. I don’t expect many better hands than A8 of diamonds to fold here. An overpair is going to call because the flush draw is out there and if he was bluffing with JT then you just folded out a worse hand. I’d prefer to use a hand like T9 of diamonds, etc. These have no showdown value. Now when we fold out his random KJ bluffs, we fold a better hand. SO – good play on the flop IMO.
2) My issue with this hand is the turn play. I definitely understand your reasoning for raising here, but I would not be check raising this river. You just turned top pair, top kicker, and, although you have toooons of equity against your opponents entire range and DID pick up 5 outs if he has an overpair, this hand still has enough showdown value that we don’t need to turn it into a bluff just yet. I would call and play some rivers, planning to check fold on some very bad cards like Ts-Ks (hit your opponents bluffing hands as you noted), check call some good rivers like board pairing and undercards, and check raise excellent rivers like diamonds, 8s, and aces.
I also don’t think you’re going to have much fold equity here against an overpair. Yes, you could have 67s for a straight, which you claim to be repping, but that is a very narrow range of only 4 combos. Do you think your opponent is going to give you credit for having 67s AND all of the sets and 2 pairs when you didn’t check/raise the flop? You can certainly have 88 here for turned top set, but surely some of those other strong value combos would check/raise the flop for value. A thinking player will call with a fair amount of overpairs here.
3) I agree that the river card isn’t a great card for you to barrel as it makes 67s less likely, but I think you can credibly rep more than just 67s here for value. It’s pretty unlikely your opponent has a 7, honestly would be reasonable to value bet some sets in this spot too. In that respect, not a terrible card for your range. A8s isn’t the worst hand to use honestly. It’s hard to be bluffing without having previously had a 7 so you have to get creative. The 8 blocks top set. I’m not sure how to put this hand into a bluff or shutdown range because I wouldn’t check/raise the turn. Still, your opponent can have some overpairs, of which I think many can fold if you put $100 in on the river. Not sure what % of overpairs would fold if you laid him 2.6:1. Maybe that’s a limiting factor too?
If you aren’t going to barrel off on the river I think you definitely have to check fold. You have diamonds in your hand which means you block a lot of his bluffs. As you said, you can still have some sets and 2 pair hands that don’t block his bluffs with which you can call his bet here.
Overall: I think you worked yourself into a weird spot by check raising the turn with a hand that has showdown value. Usually if you check raise the turn with a bluff and give up on the river you can easily check fold instead of debating whether to bluff and then RE-debating whether to call.
I’d read and master these three books in this order.
Poker’s 1% by Ed Miller … The Gateway Drug. Really strong tool that teaches you the fundamental concepts of “GTO” play, but also gives your exercises and study tools to improve your range construction. It’s not super advanced mathematically, but the core concepts are great.
Applications of No-Limit Hold’em … If you’re looking for something more in-depth, this is the place to go. It doesn’t come as intuitively as Poker’s 1%, so you should probably be familiar with the language of math and probability (nothing crazy, just familiar) as well as with GTO fundamentals. This book is more rigorous in actually determining correct frequencies in different situations.
Once you’ve really got an understanding of the information in those two books (seriously, reading them will take a week – you can’t put them down – but really really really understanding them and applying them to your strategy will take much longer) then you should move on to:
No-Limit Hold’em for Advanced Players: Emphasis on Tough Games by Matthew Janda. This book talks about some really advanced concepts related to range construction, bet sizing, and many other things that make you very difficult to play against and help you make insanely profitable range-based plays.
Seriously though. It can be really easy to just skim through the first two books to get to the one with “Advanced” in the title. I did this myself when reading these and ultimately found I had just wasted my time. Super advanced strategies are only useful when you have a developed strategy based in strong foundational theory.
In general open sizes should be bigger in terms of BB at the lowest stakes live games and merge toward the 3x-ish rule as you move up in stakes. That doesn’t mean that 3x is “correct” but generally it lays the correct price to fold out opponents’ very marginal holdings, narrowing both the field and your opponents ranges. The reason you should be using a larger sizing at smaller stakes is because players are inelastic with their continuation ranges, meaning that – all else equal – it takes larger bet sizes to get opponents to fold.
I generally open with a $10 size in 1/2 games, $20 in 2/5, and $30 in 5/10. These are certainly not hard and fast rules. In Los Angeles, for example, it would not be unreasonable to use even bigger sizings like $25 for 2/5 and $40 for 5/10 as opponents tend to be more action oriented and will continue with wider ranges of hands.
While it’s not “wrong” per say to use a $6 open at 1/2, I doubt that it’s optimal.
Fully agree with what Craig has said here. A few slightly different angles that are only echoing his points:
1) It’s a common mistake to make one decision early in a hand based on a set of assumptions (here, calling IP because Villain is loose) and then making a play later in the hand while disregarding or failing to account for the same assumptions. Namely, as Craig pointed out, if we are calling so that Villain will punt off his money with a WIDE range of hands on the flop, but then fold an overpair on the flop because we are afraid of a very NARROW range of hands he could have – KQ and AQ – then we have made an error. You actually got exactly what you wanted; he made bottom pair and put his money in the middle. Remember, a plan is only effective when you stick with it until the end.
When you are trapping with KK in $240 pot with $257 behind, your plan could be:
“I am going to stack off on 100% of flops that don’t come A high because my opponent is loose. If it comes A high I will play solid poker in position.”
Then when flop comes QQ9 you follow through.
2) There are lots of draws on this board. With a wide range of hands your opponent could certainly have lots of combinations of spades and JT that are bluffing. Be a skeptic. Don’t give your opponent credit when they don’t deserve it yet.
Andrew don’t second guess how you played this hand at all, it was quite good. You should be very pleased with yourself. I think you’re only second guessing because you ended up losing the pot – try not to be results oriented!
Preflop:
Excellent sizing discipline on your opening raise. Too many players use their default open size here, but it looks like you bumped it up a little bit to account for and isolate the limper.
Flop:
Clear value bet. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that you are using a big sizing on this board. This is such a wet, draw heavy board and your opponent has so many hands that can call a bet here. He could easily have worse top pairs in his range, easily have T8 and 68 for straight draws, easily have heart draws and LOTS of them because he limp/called preflop. He could probably continue with 2 club gutshots and some hands with a T in them. Good sizing. Keep it up.
On such a draw heavy board we clearly want to be calling this raise. Honesty he’s not repping too much value here and as seen above he can have limitless draws. As a limp/caller from middle position (idk how passive you think this guy is) he should never have KK or 99. He may have 77 sometimes. His value hands look like two pair hair hands, but if you think he has mostly suited combos of these hands then there aren’t too many. Doesn’t look like there is too much value in re-raising unless you think he’ll get all the money in with the nut flush draw or a hand like KQ. We don’t really want to be folding out some of his weaker draws here and since we are in position we know we can always get a chance to value bet the turn if he shuts down.
Turn:
I like your analysis that if he checks here he most likely has a draw and is trying to get a free card. This is why being in his spot – out of position – sucks. You can see what he’s trying to do and then can value bet to charge his draws trying to see the river for cheap. This is why it’s ok for us to just call the flop. We don’t have to check to him on the turn and allow him to check it back for the free card. It’s possible your opponent could sometimes be checking a hand like 97 here or a hand like Ax of hearts that picked up a pair, but he NEVER HAS A SET HERE. You literally have the best hand right now 99.9% of the time.
This is MANDATORY BETTING SPOT, and I like the sizing on your turn bet. It’s actually bigger than I would make it if I were playing this hand, but that’s OK at lower stakes because people will call for the wrong price with draws. His range is so full of draws and so little value a bet like $90-$100 might be better against better competition. I just think you’ll get called just enough more frequently by draws with that size that you’ll make more money. Obviously this guy is inelastic as many low stakes players are so we want to punish his poor play with value. Obviously a bigger sizing helps us get the money in on favorable rivers as well. Overall, getting him to call an 80% pot bet is a huge win here, but don’t count on being called too frequently by draws with this sizing.
River:
If the flop and turn action were different I think you could probably go for a thin value bet on the river too. Like if he had check/called both streets it’s more likely he’d have one pair hands or two pair hands that he played passively on the turn when the ace hits your range. These hands you might be able to get some small value from with a 40-50% pot bet.
Given the turn action, I think his range is just too draw heavy going into the river to put in a bet when the heart comes. He doesn’t really have many two pair hands anymore and are we really going to get called by a hand like KJ or KQ? Doubtful. We get snapped by weak flushes and check/raised enough of the time compared to being called by worse that checking back here is fine.
Last Thoughts:
This was just unlucky that he hit his card on the river. I really like how you played this hand and I think your bet sizing was quite good. Don’t let short-term results allow doubt or fear to creep into your thought process and keep the good discipline with your bet sizing.
From a theory perspective this should be an easy fold. When he overbets the pot on the turn for like 6x you can fold so many hands without being exploitable and KQ with the diamond is just too low in your range to be calling a bet of this size.
Assuming you slow play flops with some frequency especially against aggressive or tilting players, it’s not unreasonable that you could have SO many better hands to call with here. You could have sets like 99 or JJ, two pair hands, you could have straights with KT or T8 (hopefully only suited), you could have a bunch of flushes.
Additionally, your opponent has so many hands in his range that are crushing you. Considering he raised from the Hijack he should have every nut flush combo in his range, lots of middling flushes, all of the sets and two pairs, all of the straights, etc. When the diamond comes in it’s kind of hard to think of many hands that he’s bluffing with too. Yes he may be tilting, but is he really just exploding with a 6x pot bet in a balanced way? It seems more likely that he is either weirdly jamming for value/protection with a very strong hand, or overplaying a hand like aces, kings, or ace-queen that is just tilted that another draw came in and had made up his mind on the flop that he was going to double up no matter what. I think you have the best hand here maybe 10% of the time at best. This board pretty squarely hits a HiJack opening range.
Because of the fact that your opponent can so frequently have made flushes and, especially, the nut flush, I think calling here with the redraw is pretty poor because you can so frequently been drawing to 7 outs or just be completely dead against a significant portion of his range. If you had the ace of diamonds in your hand, like AQ with the nut flush draw, then calling here might be better because you can’t ever be drawing dead. Still, though, you aren’t getting the correct price to redraw here here with the ace of diamonds. Even if all of your outs are live (which would not be the case if your opponent tilt-jammed AA or AQ w/ diamond, jammed a straight, had a flush, etc.) then you still need a price of about 3:1 to call with 13 outs which you clearly aren’t getting.
I’d just throw this hand away, you’re calling with a horrible price against his made hands (numerous) and his very few bluffs (ace of diamonds?) have equity against you. Calling here is a donation.
BUT, i’m glad to see the T came on the river and you dragged a nice sized pot. A little run good never hurt 🙂
Hey Tony, as a default you should never assume/consider that you made a mistake by raising a wet flop with the nuts. If anything you should be MORE inclined to do so because it is much, much, much more likely your opponent will call with a draw or second best hand.
As played, you should 900% be jamming over the BB’s raise. Calling here would be a significant mistake in my opinion because you are out of position. What if you instead call and the turn is a brick? Are you going to check to protect your range? You clearly understand the importance of checking to the aggressor because you checked the flop in the SB when you flopped the nuts. If you check you are giving him a free card to outdraw you or to pot control with a hand like bottom two pair. Are you going to – instead of checking – jam for less than a pot sized bet? This is not desirable either. Maybe he folds a non-nut flush draw here (BAD RESULT), maybe he fold 98s for top pair and a gutshot (BAD RESULT), maybe he folds a hand like TT that he overvalued on the flop and is now scared of an overcard on the turn. The ONLY thing you’d be accomplishing by calling this flop raise is giving your opponent a chance to outdraw you or giving him a chance to “wake up” and realize he’s beat on a later street.
Aside from the bad cards on the turn for your hand (any board pair, any diamond) there are also action killers. What if he has a hand like 55 or 56 and a 7 or an 8 rolls off on the turn. Is he going to give you the rest of his stack 100% of the time? Probably, but MAYBE NOT. You don’t want to introduce the possibility of not getting paid off. All of the hands I’ve mentioned so far would have the correct price to call if you jammed as you did on the flop.
Basically, the BB can never have a pure bluff when he raises here. It’s almost 100% of the time a strong draw or 2 pair plus. Just get the money in now before one of many bad cards comes off on the turn or river. If you were in position maybe (and by maybe i mean like 10-15% of the time) consider flatting here only if you’re going to get it in on 100% of turns no matter the card.
A line I like even better than this is to just fast play your hand on the flop against the BTN’s CBET. This flop hits the BTN and BB’s range pretty hard and I’d expect to get action a fair amount of the time. Especially at the 1/2 1/3 2/3 level there are very few players that are just going to hero fold a 2 pair hand or the nut flush draw in the big blind when there is a bet/raise in front of them. Obviously the BB ended up being the villain in this hand, but usually you want to start building a pot against the BTN here, and we want to be raising for value on this wet board against him for the same reasons I mentioned above.
In conclusion, NEVER feel bad about playing the nuts aggressively on a wet board, ESPECIALLY when you’re out of position. Ok, my rant is over. Good hand and keep getting the money in good 🙂
Brad posted yesterday that there would be a game tonight. Check for details in “Vlog Meet Up Game w/ Andrew Neeme” on the right panel.
You should be re-jamming the AKo here in order to isolate the button and knock the BB out of the pot. You do not want him to call here. I repeat, YOU DO NOT WANT HIM TO CALL HERE. With only 20 BB this is an easy all-in situation, but you want to do the best that you can to get the pot heads up as AK does much better equity wise AND to avoid having to play postflop with a non-nutted hand in an SPR of 1:1 if BB overcalls. You also eliminate any chance that Villain in the BB can try to bluff you or something. You’d obviously never fold with AK here, but after he puts in 8000 and you go all-in, he’s actually going to have the correct price to call with all of his bluffs too. You probably don’t have much fold equity against his actual hand of TT, but you have LOTS of fold equity against hands like QJs, pocket 3s, etc. all of which have lots of equity against you and make up a huuuuuuge % of his range. If he happens to wake up with a strong pair, well, it’s clear you were going to get the money in anyway right?
So, yes you should 100% of the time be getting in AK in this situation, but the way in which you do it is the important thing. The ONLY acceptable line is to re-jam your stack to knock out the BB whenever possible and allow AK to realize its full equity by seeing all 5 cards without playing postflop.
Sorry it didn’t this time! You’re right, sometimes you just have to win some flips to go deep. You have to get your stack in here and hope to hit. Remember – it’s possible the button could be shoving a hand like AJ or AQ and you just have him CRUSHED.
Lots of interesting responses above.
I think either calling or folding the turn is fine in this position. In a heads up pot you should certainly be calling with top pair and up and down considering the price you’re getting. If he had bet like $100 we could easily fold even heads up.
The problem here is there are two players behind who could also have all of the two pairs hands, straights, and flush draws that are going to continue. If we call and get back raised we pretty much hate life and have to fold a hand with some decent equity against most ranges. I think it’s pretty unlikely we have the best hand and, considering our redraw is not to the nuts – we could be drawing dead – i think we can fold this spot and just avoid a difficult spot on the river. I wouldn’t feel comfortable calling again on the river if it came like the 3 of clubs and we faced a reasonably sized bet.
Sure, we sometimes have to call this spot when we have top pair. I’d save those moments for when we have top pair and the nut flush draw like A5 of diamonds or something. As played and with 2 players behind I think we can fold this holding.
I disagree with the comment above that you should be jamming over this $50 donk. This is a horrible hand to bluff jam with. For one, we have some showdown value with the A. We can definitely have worse hands in our range to bluff with. We also have a diamond in our hand AND a ten, which are cards we want our opponent to have when we jam so that they can call with some type of draw. We also can’t be sure that our A outs for trips are good so we have even fewer guaranteed outs when called. In general, I wouldn’t expect to have much fold equity in this situation. Usually when players donk bet later streets they like their hand and are just going to go with it pretty frequently.
I like your idea of setting your price on the river bet by bet/folding, Paul. I think if I had bet 40% I’d have saved myself 150-200 bucks by folding to the raise. That being said, that difference might be made up for by the fact that he could value bet worse straights at 60% pot. In that case, I’d be losing 150-200 bucks by not betting more on the river and getting called by a worse hand. The question is if he’d always bet 60% pot on the river with a 4 or if he’d bet smaller. Maybe, maybe not.
The more I think about this hand I think a line I’d prefer to take even more than this would be a turn check/raise. 1) From a GTO angle, I’m going to be checking like 99% of my range on this turn card, it just so heavily favors my opponent. If I don’t keep a few very strong hands back for check/raises then my checking range is very weak and a thinking player could bluff me relentlessly in position with two streets to go. I’d probably have to fold most if not all of my overpairs here or on the river. So, maybe hands like 89hh and 89cc are bets, while 89ss and especially 89dd are checks with the intention to check raise. To balance that out hands like 9Tdd and 9Tss would be good hands to bluff with as they have no showdown value, a flush draw, picked up a gutshot, and have a blocker to the nut straight. 2) We are also so deep at 300+ BB that a check raise can make it easier to get the money in. 3) If we do check/raise on the turn, get called, and the board pairs, we actually are more likely to have the best hand than if we just bet the turn and get called. This is because a non-zero % of the time Villain will be betting a hand like 56 or 67 for value/protection on the turn and then folding to a sizeable raise. We’d be contorting his range more towards hands with a 4 in them which are drawing dead and away from 2 pair hands and set that can fill up. He’d also have to fold some high equity semi-bluffs depending on the price like A5 of spades or something. Obviously folding out his equity is not the desired goal, we’d be check raising for pure value, but if we can win his bet AND deny his equity that’s preferable to just winning a bet on the turn when we know he’s never folding and facing lots of bad river cards.
