Small Stakes Shorthanded NL Poker Forums

Hand #1
Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 235078
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (CO): $169.95
BTN: $105.00
SB: $175.10
BB: $195.80
UTG: $100.00
MP: $100.00

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is CO with A K
2 folds, Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, SB calls $3, BB raises to $26

Villain is a decent laggy player 27/18/10.8. He sees me as an agressive player and we have some history together. What is best in this spot givin our stack sizes?

Hand #2
Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 235079
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $198.50
UTG: $27.50
MP: $98.40
CO: $117.00
Hero (BTN): $170.50
SB: $117.85

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BTN with 6 6
3 folds, Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, BB raises to $11, Hero calls $7.50

Flop: ($22.50) 5 3 3 (2 players)
BB bets $13, Hero calls $13

Turn: ($48.50) 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($48.50) 2 (2 players)
BB bets $60

Villain is a very light 3better, seems very fund of bluffing in big pots and is capable of making moves.

Should I have bet the turn to protect my hand or do you guys think that he is not bluffing this time and should I just c/f

View all 2 hands

Hand #1
You seem to have pretty good reads against him. If they are true, I will raise to 2.5x his bet (something around +$60), and call to a shove.
Why?:
- He is laggy, you have an history between, and this is the perfect situation for him to squeeze.
- He has raised too much (which is also a sign of weakness, or at least an indicator that he isn't so comfortable playing out of position against you, or he wants more FE, to compensate his real equity vs a strong range) so you have more money to get from him everytime he folds
- If he shoves, it's either because he knows you are doing this cos you think he is squeezing, or because he has a strong hand, and even in the last case, we have good equity/or outs to improve.
- If the stakes were smaller, I would definitely shove. (I believe you already knew that!)

Hope it makes sense.

Yea it makes sense. However, there are two very important things to consider in this hand.

-Both him and me are quite deep.
-His squeeze raise size is huge.

I feel like if he wanted to squeeze bluff here, he would have made it a lot smaller to make sure he keeps his blufs cheaply as possible. To me it seemed more likely he was setting up a big pot to play against me or ship it in pre.

I don't think I have anywhere near good equity against his 5bet shove if we would 4bet him to like 50-60$. Because we're this deep. I would really like your view on these points. (and from others as well obviously)

hand 1: I flat here, if you 4bet, you're folding out AJ/AQ/KQ and you want those hands to stay when they are deep oop.

hand 2: against the said opponent, I'd call and be happy about it. if he has an over pair on a fd board, he should be more inclined to bet for value/protection rather then trying to c/r you on the turn. His river bet screams A high to me more often than not.

The fact that you both are deep, is an argument for not 4bet/shoving pre. And I agree with that.

When analysing or highlighting different points of a hand that bring our attention over them, we should realize that there could be different interpretations about them. For me, when he raises so big, I don't think he is preparing the pot for a shove pre -if that's the case, he would be giving us huge (implied)odds to call, since we know his plan is to shove no matter what comes on the flop. I agree he can be doing that for value, but I also think we could be ahead of his range anyway, considering:
- the actual strenght of our hand
- the history between you both
- the reads you have on him
- the probability of a squeeze here
- the range he could be doing this with (KTs+, QJ+, A9+)

When he 5bet shoves, against another guy, I think we could assume his range is reduced considerably. I don't think that's the case, if your reads are correctly (Decent, lag player, considers you aggro, and he knows you could be bluffing against a perceived squeeze from him).
I believe a decent player could mix it up and 5bet shove here with any ATs+, 99+, against an aggresive player, in this particular scenario. Against that range, we have to do the math, but I think we can still call profitable.

1st hand I 4bet 2.5x to try and induce something spazzy. Also, I think if he has AQs/KQs he'll probably flat-call or raise.

2nd hand is tough. You say he likes to bluff in big pots; but by that do you mean on the turn? On the flop? What was his betsize? I could definitely call here given the read you've supplied but it would depend on how he'd played his bluffs and strong hands in the past

Hand 1
Did you see him 3bet this big before?
I'd probably flat, since we have position, and try to spike TPTK but I'm not sure if I'd wanna stack off 170BB deep with a one pair hand...


Hand 2
A'd call, and like terryfan said, be quite happy about it

Hand 1
Did you see him 3bet this big before?
I'd probably flat, since we have position, and try to spike TPTK but I'm not sure if I'd wanna stack off 170BB deep with a one pair hand...


Hand 2
A'd call, and like terryfan said, be quite happy about it

Like I said we've had some history. I've never seen him 3bet this big before. There was a hand(100hands ago or so) where he raised, I 3betted him, he 4betted me and I bluf shoved where he snapped with 99 which makes this even more complicated.

1st hand I 4bet 2.5x to try and induce something spazzy. Also, I think if he has AQs/KQs he'll probably flat-call or raise.

no,he's never flatting with those hands if you put in the 4th raise. You put him into 5b shove or fold situation.

ppl should really stop playing too aggro prelop and increase unnecessary variance for yourself. Just flat pre and play deep stack ip with a tier 1 hand. you want to stack AQ/AJ/KQ if both of you flop top pair

If you want to constantly move up, start focuing and playing more post flop rather than having "oh, I have AK, and i got 3bet, I'm arrrghh in" this type of mindset.

If you want to constantly move up, start focuing and playing more post flop rather than having "oh, I have AK, and i got 3bet, I'm arrrghh in" this type of mindset.

This might just be the best piece of advice I' got in a long long time.

Thank you for this. Seriously