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Kudos to the guy who sent this in - he himself realises he played it badly - and probably has learnt from Nathan's analysis. Getting rivered (when you play a lot of hands in Zoom or Snap) happens all the time - in this hand he could have saved himself some money by check calling flop and turn and folding to the inevitable river shove. People just don't shove the river at NL2 as a bluff and second pair weak kicker just isn't good enough to call.
Again I have to agree completely with Nathan. Its important to remember, that when someone min-open the pot, we are paying 2 cents for a chance to win 9 cents. So we should defend a lot, but we dont need to fight very hard for the pots to break even. We just have to win it one out of 4,5 times essentially. Also Hero need to work on his rational for betting. He flopped a pretty decent hand but still mostly just wanted his opponent to fold, so he would not face any difficult decisions later. My default here would be to check-call twice but fold to a river bet. My reason for this is, I think, an aggressive player will C-bet with a lot of nonsense, and he will also continue on this turn card a lot of the time. But if he fire the third barrel on the river, most of the time we are beat. And yes I know, this sucks, because now we put quite a bit of money in the pot, and we did not even see the showdown, so maybe he bluffed us. But this is just, how the game work. We need to have some hands, that call and other hands, that fold, on every single street. Its tough to play out of position as the preflop defender, at it might feel like, they are always betting, every single time you check to them. But the truth is, most players C-bet the flop no more than around 60% of the time, and they C-bet turn and river no more than around 50% of the time. So if you defend with hands like this, you WILL be able to get to showdown and win sometimes.
I would play check-call on the flop, check-call on the turn and check-fold on the river. If opponent stat: Fold to 3bet is larger 90% then I would prefer check-raise on the flop. If opponent has stat: Attempt to steal from late position >= 50% then I would prefer call or made sometimes 3bet on the preflop. If he doesn't afraid 3bets on the preflop then I would made call on the preflop.
The TJ suited from the BB is a great hand to have, especially against an aggro fish. The problem is the flop and you are out of position. While the 56 hits the BB defence range and the J gives you top pair, the board is rainbow with not too many back doors with your JTc. You have a middling hand with an aggro fish behind. The K works in favour of the aggro fishes range and at this point, you are really setting money on fire. You are trying to build a house on a shaky foundation. The best strategy would have been to check-call the flop and think about check folding on the turn given the K works for your opponent's range.
Also with the scare card I believe I’d use that in a bluff situation not in a value situation. Against agro bluffing no good anyway, but if villain is a bad reg or tighter player we could bet the K if we had a draw on the turn. In this hand villain could have made a nice play by raising the turn with his pair and flush draw.
I'd play this hand this way: check-call flop, check - call turn and check call or fold river depending on the size of opponent's bet. If I don't get a bet on the turn I'd bet by myself on the river ( about 33% of the pot). On the preflop I wouldn't make a 3 bet because shortstack fishy opponents like go All in but I don't want put 50 bb in the middle of the table with TJs.
Completely agree to check call the flop...you could possibly lead the turn considering your opponent is a fish but again i would likely check call and the river...im not beating much, i know the guy is a big fish...but i would probably check fold if he bet all 3 streets, if he checks the turn and makes a reasonable river bet - i probably look him up and lose the min. Just because our Hero was actually betting the best hand (not that he knew that) doesnt mean he needs to get fancy on the river. Fish just do not fold, thats what they do. Ive lost more than my fair share of pots playing against them like this. I mean at the end of the hand when he shoves with a pair of jacks...he is certainly never getting called by worse (i wouldnt think)
Preflop: fine Flop: eh. This might be okay versus fish You have a strong hand and could get three streets against this player type Turn: I mean if we are betting this turn, it's a value bet. I don't know why we have to try and "represent" the king. We don't. And we have a pretty decent hand for this board. River: this is insane. A weak player is more likely to call worse than fold better. Don't turn showdownable hands into bluffs unless you're an advanced thinker.
If you are playing a LAG style, and there are no huge fish or aggro 3-betters behind, its a totally fine open. I would make it a lot of the time as well. So often you just pick up the blinds, and if you get action, the hand is pretty easy to play postflop in position.
for an agro fish like him with AF=4 (assuming he has that on a decent sample of hands)... I would have called c/c the river too... I believe he will bet the river with a flush but also with a busted flush and even complete crap or worse J pair
Knowing the sample size would have been really nice. 37/24 are not the most fishy stats in the world, if it’s a small sample like 50 hands. It’s a somewhat wide gap between the VPIP and PRF, but maybe he just found a few good spots to defend his blinds or call behind. Which is totally fine at 2NL, where a lot of players make really big postflop mistakes, as this hand illustrates.
Personally I almost never donk-bet in HU pots (the only scenario where I may consider donking is BB vs BTN single-raised pot with a low coordinated flop like 865 or 974, `cause I can have a lot of 2-pair type hands that my opponent can`t have), but if we actually donk the flop, we should definitely check\call the turn (unless villain does smth crazy) and probably check\fold on the river (depending on the size, but I wouldn`t be calling anything above 1\2 pot for sure).
I guess, its to make the bad players lose their money more slowly, so that they can pay more rake in the process. PokerStars did something similar with the now discontinued Split HolmEm games, where the buyin was capped at 40BB. To be perfectly honest, if you are new to the game, you will lose less by buying in for less, because its less costly to not be able to fold some second best hand like an overpair, when someone flopped a set, or a set when someone have a straight or flush. But I would still never play this game. For good players its more difficult to get a good winrate, and if you are new to the game, you want to learn a 100 BB strategy, because this is, what you will play, when you move up. There is no need to play in a game, where you wont learn much, and essentially its just a rake trap. The 2NL games on Pokerstars are perfectly fine, and the vast majority of players buy in for 100BB.
In that case I would suggest the Hero and everyone else to find another site for learning to play cash game poker. Its kind of important that you learn to play with a 100 BB stack, and spending time learning to play with 50 BB first just delay the process. If we are talking 2NL, the games are incredibly soft even on Pokerstars, so maybe just start there.
HaHa, this was a nice illustration of how not to play a top pair hand. Turn and River were both pretty awful cards for Hero. So much for putting your foot down and plowing ahead. Seriously Hero needs to try and adjust his thinking, I understand the frustration of the 2c No limit player pool. You just need to play these hands "normally" and I think Nathan is right. Give up on the fancy play syndrome. In fact, a check raise on the flop might have taken this hand down?
But then again its not the main goal in poker to take the hand down, when we are far ahead. Getting outdrawn is a natural part of the game, and the important part is to cut our losses, when it happen. Here Hero could at least have checked the river and either folded to a jam or maybe check-called a smaller bet from Villain instead of losing his entire stack.
OK, but top pair no kicker is not far ahead?? and villain actually had more equity?? But I get what you are saying( EDIT: Wrong about equity but I still don't like leading into PFR for 3 streets with what I consider a weak hand??
A pair of J´s with a T kicker is not a hand, we want to play for stacks with, so if we check raise the flop and get action, what is the plan for the rest of the hand? If you want to work in some check raises on this board, I would use 87 as my bluff and sets and two pair as my value.
Given that the stacks are only 50bb to start the hand, and we are up against an aggro-fish, I don't mind a flop check/raise here. In the vast majority of cases at the micros though, I prefer a check/call.
Good point. If we can get him to make some stupid move, where he come over the top and stack off with whatever nonsense, he have, then why not? I will say though, that on Pokerstars and particularly in the Zoom games, my feeling is, that people fold so much to flop check-raises, that it might actually be a good exploit to do it mostly as a bluff. And then obviously we dont want to use top pair as a hand to bluff with.
