Full Ring No Limit Poker Forums

Sthief, Thanks for the input man.
1. I'm isolating here with J9o. The cutoff is strong but very tight and the button is loose but very fishy. With a 5.5 BB open, I fully expected to have position with this hand and to pick it up without much of a fight. I definitely didn't expect to be put into the position that followed.

2. Yeah the one thing I didn't think about was what he put me on. Half of these guys are level one guys and one of the guys even asked him why he bet so big and his answer was "Well he called the first two bets." I should have taken this into account.

3. You're definitely right here. The justification for the call is a stretch to make me feel better. At the time it just made no sense for him to drive 88 like that. I went on "If the line doesn't make sense it's usually a bluff." I would never play 88 like that. Still I knew better.

I just think overbets are stronger online because the pot size and stack size are right in front of you. This guy probably didn't know how much was in the pot and he definitely didn't know how much he had left. He knew it was a lot though.

4. I'm probably going to repeat this to myself for the next week.

Thanks a lot.

2. Yeah the one thing I didn't think about was what he put me on. Half of these guys are level one guys and one of the guys even asked him why he bet so big and his answer was "Well he called the first two bets." I should have taken this into account.

He said this before you called? I know it sounds like Monday morning quarterbacking, but this would terrify me.

Sthief, Thanks for the input man.
1. I'm isolating here with J9o. The cutoff is strong but very tight and the button is loose but very fishy. With a 5.5 BB open, I fully expected to have position with this hand and to pick it up without much of a fight. I definitely didn't expect to be put into the position that followed.


Thanks a lot.

You didn't isolate. You called all streets. One of the first things you have to do as a NL player is learn the difference between absolute hand strength (you have a strong hand with trip 9s) and relative hand strength (you hand is just a bluff catcher with what he's representing).

CDA: Haha, no he said this after the hand was finished. I would really feel bad if I made the call after that.

prestonp: I absolutely did isolate here. I'm not raising to isolate, It's still isolation though. We were heads up going into the flop. The fact that I just had to flat to get there is beside the point.

I absolutely know the difference between absolute and relative hand strength. Thank you for explaining a very simply concept though.

I posted this hand because I thought it was a very odd line for him to take with 88. Not so I could be talked down to and reminded of what an incredibly horrible poker player I am. Where I messed up is posting the results of the hand. I'll never make that mistake again. Those of you who had something constructive to say, thanks.

You were in the HJ and flatted an early position raiser. By calling you were encouraging other callers behind you or from the blinds. This was not an isolation move.

No, you're right, it's not an isolation move. The decision to call was completely read based, expecting the C/O and BTN to fold. I don't mind so much if the blinds come along as I'm "usually" flopping the nuts or nothing with that hand. My cards could've been blank and I would've been happy to play that guy heads up in a pot. Heads up flops are rare in that game so I saw an opportunity for one and made a play at it. It didn't go well, but I'll learn a lot from it.

I cant even handle how tilting you are oh my days.

What's tilting is only getting 3 helpful replies out of 23 posts, and spending the rest of the time defending against fucking symantics. What's tilting is having to read your screwed up sentence structure. I know poker players are considered lazy, but come on, you could give some assemblance of a shit.

Question Anyone. How do I delete a thread???

You can't.

Jargon can be said to serve two purposes:
1. To make for good word economy.
2. To identify the insiders of a group from the outsiders.

We you say you had a set, we expect that to mean you had three of a kind composed of a pocket pair from your hand with another of the rank on the board. When you say you isolated, it means that you raised in an attempt to shut everyone else out of the pot and take it heads up.

When you say, "I flopped top set," it gives word economy because it's easier than saying, "On the flop I made three of a kind of the top rank on the flop on an unpaired board."

When you are misusing poker jargon, it can make you a target for ridicule because it clearly demonstrates that you're not familiar with the underlying concept of what you are trying to express. Thus, you seem like newb, This is further exacerbated by the fact that you played this hand poorly. Your pre flop call in position was a bit loose. You call the turn was too passive, and your call on the river is simply indefensible.

What's tilting is only getting 3 helpful replies out of 23 posts, and spending the rest of the time defending against fucking symantics. What's tilting is having to read your screwed up sentence structure. I know poker players are considered lazy, but come on, you could give some assemblance of a shit.

Question Anyone. How do I delete a thread???

I have a bunch of random thoughts/comments on this:
- to your credit, you've been open-minded.
- there is a lot of really, really misguided stuff that you've written (more below). that's okay, because you're being open-minded and if you manage to stay open-minded you'll learn a lot about how to approach a poker hand. this is critical and easily fixed.
- these forums are MUCH better than your typical internet forum but it's still the internet and you're going to get some comments that are more helpful than others. when posting a hand you're exposing yourself to being beaten down and occasionally trolled to some extent. I've been there and you'll get used to it, trust me. I hope you don't give up here.

now, on to the misguided thinking... I think you're following the postflop comments here. preflop is what's concerning right now:

- you can't predict that everyone will fold behind you. even super tight players in the CO and BTN will find a hand worth playing 20 or 25% of the time each. at least one of them will come along at the absolute bear mimimum 1/3 of the time. that's not even taking into account the blinds.
- you're not "usually" flopping the nuts or nothing with J9o. you are a tremendous underdog to flop two pair or better. when J9o hits a flop it's usually something like top or 2nd pair, gutshot, maybe open ended straight draw.
- why did you want to play a pot with a good player heads up? did you have some special read on him? even if you could guarantee that it would be HU on the flop, i have no idea why you'd want to take J9o against an EP raiser who is a decent player.

either you way overestimate J9o or you just arbitrarily decided that this is the hand that you're going to play and the cards don't matter. sometimes you hear stuff like "the cards don't even matter. i got a feeling and i'm going to outplay this guy right now." maybe Phil Ivey can do this but for us mere mortals, that is TV/movie nonsense. you need reads and ways in which you're going to exploit your opponent to play hands that you otherwise wouldn't play. everything you do should have solid reasoning.

3-betting this hand would have been much more defensible. you could have then said that he folds to lots of 3-bets or he's weak tight postflop, or you wanted to show it down because everyone thinks you only 3-bet AA and KK. those are defensible reasons. calling a raise with trash against a solid player with 4 players to act behind you is indefensible.

OP, if you want sound advice, fold pre. Simple as that. However, as played, calling flop seems pretty standard, you should have raised on the turn and the river would have made me puke in-game. However, let's take a look at it from a math perspective.

1. You didn't tell us your effective stack size left on the river, so I'm going to assume you were even stacked. If this is the case, you need about 70.4% equity to make this +EV.
2. Let's assume his value range is JTs, 77, 88 and 22...that comes out to 13 combos. Notice I'm not even going to add in things like 98s, 97s or even JTo...this would make it even worse.
3. In order for your call to be +EV, villain will need to be bluffing with 30 combos here. Even with TT+, that only gives you 27. If you add those combos that I listed in point #2 that I didn't include, you have to come up with even more bluff combos, which is clearly just not likely...especially if your read on him is a somewhat solid TAG.

If this is the case, you need about 70.4% equity to make this +EV.

I think you made a mistake in the math somewhere.

I think you made a mistake in the math somewhere.

right it's (450+189):450 not 189:450... little worse than 3-2