PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($50)
Button ($55.50)
Hero (SB) ($50.50)
BB ($67.10)
UTG ($134.90)
MP ($15)

Preflop: Hero is SB with ,
1 fold, MP (poster) checks, 1 fold, Button calls $0.50, Hero raises to $2.50, 2 folds, Button calls $2

Flop: ($6) , , (2 players)
Hero bets $4, Button calls $4

Turn: ($14) (2 players)
Hero bets $7, Button calls $7

River: ($28) (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $9.50, Hero calls $9.50

I had not been sitting long so I don't really have any read on the Button.

I think I played every street in this hand wrong, agree?

I really don't like raising JTs OOP without any reads.

I think after the turn flat by villain, you played the river correct.

Wondering why we made the turn bet so small? I don't know if I like it or hate it, but I'm wondering what your reasoning is. From the last 2 hands you've posted, seems like you might be underbetting in some spots.

I think villain limping the button is a read. Generally people limping buttons are terribad, and isolating with a decent range including J10 suited is absolutely correct. Iso'ing with a wide range, even out of position, is gonna be really profitable. Raising to 3 here might be better, but thats just kind of arbitrary. As played, turn bet is kinda meh, but seems like an ok line to take here and I like the river check.

I personally hate raising this type of hand from the sb. The fact that the guy is limping the button at 6 max probably means he has a lot of hands like QJ, QT, KT that will have us in trouble. Sure he limps with a lot of crap as well, but I personally just complete and see what happens.

I'm not sure I like the small turn bet, just looks kinda weak. Maybe some good reasoning behind it.

Someone tell me why we don't lead the river?

What hands are we getting value from on the flop?

I'm not saying right or wrong, but we're getting value from naked flush draws and we're protecting our straight draw a little bit, too.

Naked club draws make up a small portion of villain's range, and it's really the only thing we could conceivably get value from. Also, we have showdown value against a lot of villain's range, ie TT-22, which will fold to a flop bet. TT probably calls a bet on the flop, but that's it.


I'd much rather bet 44 on this flop than hero's hand.

Raising PF is a huge leak. I'd check flop, check turn and bet river.

I don't know.

We had a post-limp and a button limp ...

But I guess there we sit with jack high ...

Why? To get 55-99 to fold?

I think we are going to lose more money getting called by J/Q/K then we are going to earn by getting 55-99 to fold.

I was pretty confused during most of this hand.

Preflop:
1 poster and someone who limps behind a poster on the button have a super wide range. I'm not sure if the raise is good or not but I raised because I thought they would both fold a lot and if they didn't I have a hand that can flop quite well.

Flop:
I wasn't sure to cbet here or not. I don't like a c/c and I didn't like the idea of check/folding a pair and an open ended straight draw. So I just cbet because I didn't like the other options. I guess I'm getting value from flush draws / TT/ an unlikely worse jack.

Turn:
Turn bet accomplishes nothing imo. Giving a good price to flush draws and not getting value from many worse hands. Turn should be c/f I think.

River:
I'm ok with this, but I may have lost value by not bet/folding? Might have got value from a one pair hand or KQ by b/f but gained value from flush draws/straight draws by c/c. Not sure.

This is ABSOLUTELY wrong. Playing out of position with J high when there is no need to is unprofitable. Whats the reasoning for raising from the small? Hoping to steal two bets??? This is an example of what is so wrong about this play, you flop a mediocre hand and youre out of position, it is very difficult to 1) properly read an opponent when you're OOP 2) get the value you should get out of your strong hands when your OOP and 3) likely leads to the place that most players lose a lot of money, in the blinds when there is no reason to play those hands in No Limit games unless, a) your in the BB and you don't have to commit anymore money to the pot, or B. you battling the other blind. Voluntarily putting yourself OOP with J high is a very difficult play to make profitable...I personally lean towards impossible, but few can.

Especially at low NL games you should just be playing premium hands OOP, there are going to be so many more spots where you'll be able to make more money, easier than in this one spot, why not wait for one of those?

lol really? If you can play proficiently postflop, you can play J high OOP v. a donk profitably. How is there no need? There is a ton of money in the pot already, IMO a lot of 50nl 6max is picking up dead money throughout, and this is some of the easiest dead money you can collect. Not trying to be confrontational, but do you have experience playing online specifically at these stakes? There's been a ton of thought from video sites and significant winners into specifically this concept; you want to iso the donkeys as much as possible, even sometimes out of position. I understand J10s is somewhat marginal and is probably at the bottom of my pf raising range, but in no way is this a huge mistake.

Yes. To fold out 55-99.

Not necessarily saying I'd bet with 44, just that I'd rather do it with that hand then JTs on this board.

It's perfectly fine to raise JTs preflop in this spot.

Normally I'd call with it though.

I think your argument isn't as strong for playing J10s in particular as it is just to play oop in general if you think you're better.

Yeah like I said, J10s is probably the very bottom of my opening range and I'm not saying you have to raise here. I'm just saying it's not a mistake to open here with J10s.

The problem with betting here is that, we are at best a very slight favorite over an A high flush draw. Even smaller flush draws have decent equity against us. And against hands like KQ, KJ, QJ, KT, QT, AJ and AT we are either way behind or drawing dead. It's also unlikely that worse pairs will call.

Meh. I don't doubt you have seen videos on this, but who is it? Sounds like a pretty horrible concept. I don't even understand what you are saying? Somebody posted, so he's a donkey, fine. Then button limps so that makes him a donkey. We can play the pot with those two players both donkeys, who are we iso'ing? They're already in the pot and so are we and we're last to act, what the hell did we isolate by raising, it's already isolated!

I also don't know if I understand what you mean by dead money. Do you mean money already in the pot, or players that suck? I just don't think very good players at their stakes will be iso'ing out of position with JTss. It goes against the idea of iso'ing, being that someone is limping much too wide a % of hands and that you will try and get the hand heads up against 1. their worse range or 2. your superior position + their inability to make good decisions. J high isn't ahead of most limping ranges, being out of position makes this hand hard to play.

How are you playing different boards when you iso raise here than from how you play them if you check your option? I'd assume you are cbetting a lot more when you raise. This seems very flawed. I'm actually interested in who the instructors are that think otherwise.

There's a deuces cracked video that I watched recently that talked a lot about this concept. I think it may have been the BalugaWhale Ghost vid 2 where he basically advocates raising a huge range utg (oop) when there's a poster behind. Obviously this is not the same situation, but it's similar. Additionally, a concrete example of this theory that I can actually remember is a 2+2 coach who ran >4BB/100 at mostly 100nl and was coached by whitelime. One of his key teaching points in a video is to advise his students to raise a much wider range of hands then even I'm saying we should raise here. So I think that would be an example of a really good player, with a ton of poker pedigree who's saying that you should raise as light as Q5 out of the blinds to iso limpers.

Thread is here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/101/coac...-thread-385742/

Vid link:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GUFTMGK0

I mean obviously the situation is kind of marginal, but IMO, there's no way this is a huge leak.

Cool thanks for the links, I'll check em out.

Bah. I just wrote a big long speech about how I feel the 2+2er is teaching all the wrong stuff to beat the limit but I deleted it. What he teaches will work, but it's a horrible framework imo. It's basically everything Samoleous talks about hating about poker and poker instructors today. He's teaching a set guide to beat bad players instead of teaching how to think about poker.

IMO the most important part about crushing the micros is game selection, value betting, and playing very solid fundamental poker. The way that he's teaching have many flawed fundamentals veiled by "aggression and isolation". That said his winrate is higher than mine at $100 max, and I'm sure he's a very good player.

I do agree that iso'ing with JTss against 2 bad players can't be a huge mistake. But I think iso'ing with anything might not be a big mistake either, because they are going to be playing fir or fold poker. And I also think raising UTG with a poster is a much different scenario, than isoing willing limpers.

Yeah I agree, I didn't really like the cbet but what else would you do? check/call or check/fold?

I would pretty much always raise JTs preflop here because I think there's a lot of value in it. You're building a pot with a good hand that hits a lot of flops well.

I agree that betting the flop isn't the best play. I think check/calling is a lot better against almost every hand in his range.

I agree with you to a certain extent as to people teaching simply mechanics without any regard to the why behind certain actions. I'm certainly guilty of not thinking deeply enough about my actions as well. However, in this situation I don't understand why the thinking is flawed. I feel like your previous point where you indicated that raising here doesn't really flesh out dead money in the pot is somewhat invalidated by Dictus's actual hand, in which the poster folded. The poster's range here is literally any two cards, and J10s is significantly ahead of ATC and it is pretty profitable to make the poster fold any two cards here. I feel like iso'ing here boils down to the fact that we want to play in pots with bad players, which is a pretty foolproof strategy imo. And I do think in this case, J10s is ahead of the limper's range; obviously being oop diminishes the EV of the play, but I believe it's still profitable if we can play proficiently postflop, which mainly involves cbetting. Regardless of what you think the particular theory is behind cbetting, it is insanely profitable, even in this situation, although we can all certainly strive to find frequencies that are more efficient.

I dunno if JTss is ahead of the limpers range. Against a completely random hand JT is 55-45. I guess I just disagree with that fact that we are going to win more often than not when we raise. Anyone have HEM or PT stats on a large sample of iso raising in these spots? I'm sure Simo could figure it out.