$10 NLHE 6-max: Bottom 2 pair flopped

Feel like I played this hand badly, but this time it worked out alright for me. On the river I just got up and left my laptop till I timed out, I thought I was beat but was annoyed at how I played it/ how the cards came.

How would you have played it?

pokerstars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (6 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.com

Hero (SB) ($11.17)
BB ($14.32)
UTG ($11.26)
MP ($8.75)
CO ($10.22)
Button ($16.71)

Preflop: Hero is SB with J , 10
1 fold, MP calls $0.10, 1 fold, Button raises to $0.40, Hero calls $0.35, BB calls $0.30, MP calls $0.30

Flop: ($1.60) 10 , J , A (4 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, MP checks, Button checks

Should I lead out? I figured someone would have an ace so was planning to x/r.

Turn: ($1.60) 5 (4 players)
Hero bets $0.80, 1 fold, MP calls $0.80, Button calls $0.80

I don't know why I only made it 0.80c, should be more yeah? Don't like the spade.

River: ($4) A (3 players)
Hero checks, MP checks, Button bets $1.50, Hero folds, MP calls $1.50

Total pot: $7 | Rake: $0.32

Results below:
MP had QQ

Fold pre.

Why are you calling in the SB with JTs? You're OOP and you have a mediocre hand and have one more guy to act after you that now has an incentive to call. I guess you hand does okay multi-way, but in general you should probably just fold this here.

The button does not even have to have that strong of a range to be ahead of you here. Like Ax,Kx,Qx, and pocket pairs are all possible and all run pretty close to you in equity. He also has position. When you hit second pair on the board you are either going to over commit or you are going to pay for a lot of missed draws.

Once you get to the flop you can probably bet pretty safely. I don't really like a x/r. What hands call a x/r? Big A's? Yeah maybe. I think most hands are folding to the x/r. So betting is fine.

I guess you have to bet this turn after everyone checks the flop. You should likely be ahead of everyone. I don't mind the sizing of the turn bet. If you are looking for a call its a good size. Half the pot and some bad A's, some back door draws with an A may be in there too.

Once you get two calls on the turn, with the flush made and a potential straight out there (though unlikely) you can check almost any card. The A makes it pretty easy.

Nothing to be sick about here, it's what happens in poker sometimes.

I think the best thing you can do for yourself is to just fold here. Calling pre is a losing move, imho.

There are different ways to play this hand.
First of all i think folding pre flop in this spot is best. Bit if one decides to call pre then the hand is decent enough. Looking at the flop i think you should have lead out on the flop and evaluate on the turn. If i don't get raise on the flop then i will consider making another stab on the turn if i only have one caller but shut down if there are two or more. But this is why folding pre is best because more often than not you are not sure where you stand post flop and this can be exploited by players in position.

Other way to play this hand which i like sometimes is putting in a small three bet pre flop so that we can have a better chance of taking the pot down post flop.

Fold pre-flop.

I'd lead the flop, this is probably going to get checked a lot. I don't mind the check, but I'd lead. Bet bigger on the turn, and c/c or c/f on river is appropriate.

This doesn't seem like an obvious fold pre, especially if the BB and limper are fishy. Our hand plays well multi-way, and the good player will be forced to play it straight with at least 1 fish in the pot.

Flop is prolly a bet. Don't check to the raiser so much in multi-way pots, since everyone plays more straightforward multi-way.

I'd be OK with calling or folding preflop, since it looks like we'll probably be playing this multiway.

Flop texture and getting two callers is likely to make the button play conservatively though, even if they have something like AK/AQ. KK/QQ are almost certain to check here as well. I think the only hands the button is likely to bet here are ones that beat you but are still worried about draws (eg: AJ,AT).

I think there's a good chance he calls with a bunch of worse hands though (particularly AK/AQ/KK/QQ that now have draws too).

So I'd be in favour of leading the flop, prob around the $1.10 mark. A lot of worse hands will call and draws don't get a free card.

How does a hand where you could have folded pre- but instead ended up losing $1.15 that you put in voluntarily constitute working out alright? Add in that there was probably a decent chance you'd have won the pot by taking the straightforward line of betting the flop, and it seems like a stretch to be content just because you didn't lose more.

UOTE=Arjonius;2365761]How does prend where you could have folded pre- but instead ended up losing $1.15 that you put in voluntarily constitute working out alright? Add in that there was probably a decent chance you'd have won the pot by taking the straightforward line of betting the flop, and it seems like a stretch to be content just because you didn't lose more.[/QUOTE]


Alright is the wrong word. More like wasn't a disaster.

Amazed at how many of you fold pre.

akaRobbo said:

Amazed at how many of you fold pre.

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I guess I am amazed at how many you DON'T fold pre. I think you will find playing loose at these low stakes is going to lose you more money than it will make you.

This is kind of a borderline hand pre, but you will find yourself in more profitable situations more often if you play a tighter range.

Since you are already there, I think you should lead out on the flop.

Let the Axs stay and those with draws be driven out.

With the bet on the flop, 60% of the 55 pair will surely go out on the spot.

c9h13no3 said:

This doesn't seem like an obvious fold pre,

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Why? It's already going to be hard enough to extract value being OOP in a pot we didn't even raise let alone with a drawing hand. Might as well just let this one go imo

akaRobbo said:

Alright is the wrong word. More like wasn't a disaster.

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It wasn't a disaster on the scale of getting stacked, but that's not the only possible context. For instance, if your win rate is say 2bb per hour, losing 11bb more than you would have by folding represents 5.5 hours of profit down the drain.

Amazed at how many of you fold pre.

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This seems to assume you're somehow right and those who suggest folding are wrong. Granted you have to play marginal hands from the blinds in order to learn how to do so less unprofitably than just folding. However, if you're learning to play them better, you should be able to state explicitly what you've improved or are improving, plus what specifically you're doing differently from before. If you can't, then are you really learning anything?

Also, advising you to fold isn't the same as folding oneself. If I happen to be good enough for calling here to be better EV-wise than folding, it doesn't mean I should advise everyone at the same level to play the way I do.

Is this call pre really considered wrong? Often players with raise up to. 40 with very marginal hands, just because the fish has limped. The BB calling was expected and I thought J10s generally played well multi-way?

akaRobbo said:

Is this call pre really considered wrong? Often players with raise up to. 40 with very marginal hands, just because the fish has limped. The BB calling was expected and I thought J10s generally played well multi-way?

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1: raising and calling are not the same thing.

2: in the example you gave, raising a fish that limped is good. The intent is to isolate the fish so that you can extract value from him when you hit - or if he is too tight you can get him to fold when he shouldn't.

JT does play well multi-way, but you are forgetting that you are OOP. You want hands that play well multi-way when you (1) are the aggressor or (2) when you have position. Having position is better than being the aggressor with these kinds of hands.

Your thinking to linearly. Just because a hand is "good multi-way" does not mean you should be cold calling everytime you get it when there is more than one opponent.

There are certainly times when this call make sense, and you can be pretty profitable with it. That typically needs a read, or some kind of edge over the other players so you can exploit that.

Giving advice to a 10NL player, where you should instruct them by the book, you should probably tell them to fold. However, it's way closer than you guys are making it out to be, and I'd play this hand everytime if I was sitting at the table.

The presence of a fish should change our range in a HUGE way, and we should be willing to play spots that otherwise aren't profitable. I've seen players setmine against players who fold 1 pair postflop easily, but they won't play this hand against a player who's obviously just waiting to lose his remaining $8.75. Our implied odds here are really good.

i would be agressive after flop, and probably i would lose much more money doing it.

My first thought was a 3bet pre, but since these threads almost always lack dynamics/history/profiles or simply relevant stats I'm not going to talk about preflop much.

Pretty clear flop lead imo. Relative positions and the board don't lend themselves very well to a check/raise. Pretty much everyone already said to lead but yeah just reaffirming.

akaRobbo said:

Is this call pre really considered wrong? Often players with raise up to. 40 with very marginal hands, just because the fish has limped. The BB calling was expected and I thought J10s generally played well multi-way?

Click to expand...

Don't automatically look at situations in a binary, right or wrong manner. When there are multiple reasonable actions, various factors can tip the balance as to which is optimal. That doesn't mean the others are bad. They may be, but they can also just be sub-optimal, and not necessarily by a lot.

Also, when a holding is described as playing well multi-way, it's not as if it plays equally well for everyone in every position / situation.