Micro Stakes Online NL Poker Forums

villain was 27/20 and I don't really have any other reads or anything to go on. What should my plan be for the river? bet/fold? check/call? check/fold? Also what do you think of my bet sizing on other streets? Thanks a bunch.

Merge Network $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 1771497
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

CO: $27.18
BTN: $32.08
Hero (SB): $27.37
BB: $28.06
UTG: $22.75
MP: $27.37

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is SB with A J
4 folds, Hero raises to $1.13, BB calls $0.88

Flop: ($2.26) T 9 A (2 players)
Hero bets $1.80, BB calls $1.80

Turn: ($5.86) T (2 players)
Hero bets $3.75, BB calls $3.75

River: ($13.36) 7 (2 players)
Hero ???

I c/f.....his range hits this board a lot, And us dbl barrelling he should know we are v-betting, we look like we have a Tx+...So his river betting range should contain a flush+ that beat us...We are really only hoping he has 78s QJs...Just cause we have TP doesnt mean much on this board, even though we give a chance to bluff by checking river, most of his hands beat us anyways, a low Ax frequency to v-bet the river is smallish for villain when checked to.And even if we bet river, I wouldnt give lots of people enough credit to fold a Flush even a Tx here.

When you say we look like we have Tx+ are you saying I shouldn't be betting the turn with my A here?

Why did you raise so big preflop?

yeah its a pretty big raise preflop.. 0.75 should be enough.

as played I c/f river. there is almost no value, only weaker aces but they are probably not calling a river bet. also i don't expect villian to bet worse hands..

I usually raise big like this when its blind v.s. blind and I'm in the SB for a few reasons. First they are more likely to fold to the bigger bet and I don't particularly want to play oop so thats always nice to just get the fold. Second if they do call, the lower SPR will reduce their positional advantage. It also discourages light 3bets from the BB because they would have to be putting in significantly more money and they have to be concerned that I have a somewhat strong range. In this spot I'm raising about 18% so it's stronger than say a BTN or CO steal range by alot. I'm not sure if other people try to raise more often in this spot and if you do I can see why you want to raise smaller like you would from the BTN or CO. I didn't find much success stealing alot B.v.B. though so I cut back my range and think more of my sizing like you would if you were UTG as opposed to the wide range thinking of sizing like a BTN kind of thought process. Any thoughts on that? I would appreciate feedback. Thanks.

I usually raise big like this when its blind v.s. blind and I'm in the SB for a few reasons. First they are more likely to fold to the bigger bet and I don't particularly want to play oop so thats always nice to just get the fold. Second if they do call, the lower SPR will reduce their positional advantage. It also discourages light 3bets from the BB because they would have to be putting in significantly more money and they have to be concerned that I have a somewhat strong range. In this spot I'm raising about 18% so it's stronger than say a BTN or CO steal range by alot. I'm not sure if other people try to raise more often in this spot and if you do I can see why you want to raise smaller like you would from the BTN or CO. I didn't find much success stealing alot B.v.B. though so I cut back my range and think more of my sizing like you would if you were UTG as opposed to the wide range thinking of sizing like a BTN kind of thought process. Any thoughts on that? I would appreciate feedback. Thanks.

Well I guess if you're only raising 18% of hands when it folds around to you and you're in the SB then opening bigger is ok but I find I can steal more than that a lot of the time and since I open more I raise smaller. While they may fold to a bigger bet for a little bit, they are going to then call you with a pretty strong range in position. Also, I don't know if people will necessarily fold more to a bigger bet and you may just be falling for the old 'betting big because its scary' idea. I don't raise 4x oop myself though because I play a lot of hands once I get some reads at a table and on stars the standard of 3x is so ingrained that people just fold to a 4x raise unless they have a good hand, since they think you have aces or something... this isn't very good if you're trying to play a pot with people from the UTG position. I also dislike 2.5x or min raising the BTN because you get raised/called more since it looks like a steal, and I really don't mind raising 3x since I don't mind playing post flop in position with a marginal hand.

The 4x thing will work for a bit but when someone catches on they will still 3 bet you and it will work a lot of the time since you're oop, which will force you to get back in line and reduce your raise size to 3x.

I usually raise big like this when its blind v.s. blind and I'm in the SB for a few reasons. First they are more likely to fold to the bigger bet and I don't particularly want to play oop so thats always nice to just get the fold. Second if they do call, the lower SPR will reduce their positional advantage. It also discourages light 3bets from the BB because they would have to be putting in significantly more money and they have to be concerned that I have a somewhat strong range. In this spot I'm raising about 18% so it's stronger than say a BTN or CO steal range by alot. I'm not sure if other people try to raise more often in this spot and if you do I can see why you want to raise smaller like you would from the BTN or CO. I didn't find much success stealing alot B.v.B. though so I cut back my range and think more of my sizing like you would if you were UTG as opposed to the wide range thinking of sizing like a BTN kind of thought process. Any thoughts on that? I would appreciate feedback. Thanks.

While villain is less likely to call your steal BvB, your breakeven is also much higher when you make it 4.5x.

When you open 4.5x sb vs bb, you need villain to fold 72% of the time to breakeven. In contrast, if you minraise, you only need villain to fold 50% of the time for your preflop steal to be immediately profitable.
Look at how wide of a range 50% is in comparison to 28%. While it is fairly easy for villain to defend 28%, there are tons of hands he is not happy calling. I'm not advocating minraising SB vs BB but you're giving yourself such a terrible price to steal that you should look into what's the optimal PFR raise to give you the best success rate for your money. If the guy is folding more then the breakeven point, it means your steal is immediately profitable. That means you can c/f every time he calls and your steal is still profitable. Obviously that's not optimal but that just goes to show that its ok to c/f if you get called and you're not getting exploited if you understand the math behind your play.

Oh yea he was opening 4.5x which is pretty bad... I wrote something above hinting that I still thought 4x wasn't too great even if there is an argument for it. Opening 4.5x is absolutely terrible imo.

If you dont want to raise to 3x from the SB you can raise to 3.5x to give them a worse price although your steal has to work like 4% more. 4.5x is way way too big. River is c/f. What can you possibly get value from,what better hand can you make fold enough to make a 3rd barrel more +EV than c/ and hoping to get to showdown vs a worse hand.