$2 NLHE 6-max: A Few Hands To Look At

Hello!

I was playing a cash game earlier today and I caught and exploited my first whale more than tripling my $2 buy in pretty much solely from him until he tightened up his game, I was hoping I could get my best wins and best losses from this game looked at by some more experienced players in order to try and improve my game.

Best Hands:
QAo - $3.83 Pot

A9s - $1.43 Pot

JTs - $1.21 Pot

Worst Hands:
T9s - $0.69 Pot

A8s - $0.54 Pot

Hand 1 (AQ): Optionally you can start raising larger pre (people either will notice or they dont care).
On the Flop depending what you thinking of the player you can either jam or call, readless perhaps a call is slightly better.
On the turn you have pretty clear check jam (I see that you want to get value from flush draws, however i think we make more money in the long run by check jamming and making him pay when he is behind or donating when he just flopped the goods)

Hand 2 (A9s): No comments

Hand 3 (JTs): Again same thing, DO NOT MIN 3BET! cbet larger, if you cbet so small put another bet on the turn.

Hand 4 (T9s): Iso to the very LEAST 7cents, ideally 8-10 cents, and bet 40-70% of the pot depending ONLY on your hand strength. You cannot go wrong cbetting entire range if you are not sure.

Will not analyze further, however will give the following advices:
1, DO NOT MIN 3BET EVER, UNLESS IT IS 4BET POT ALREADY AND YOU HOLD KK OR AA

2. Bump up sizings both pre flop and post flop.

3. Play tighter, the rake in these stakes are absolutely crazy, people are crazy wide, until you are not absolutely crushing everyone you face - DO NOT open wide range.

(Optional) 4. Follow my thread, i have a small challenge going on, where I will post some of the most interesting nl2 hands, that i faced.


Good Luck.

With the A9s, you minbet the turn. Into a pot of around 40bb, a 1bb bet is meaningless and mostly indicates fishy play. If you think you're ahead, bet larger so you leave less money on the table and if you think you're behind, bet larger so villain might fold.

Hand 1 AQo
You mini-raised preflop and got called by everyone, which is not ideal. You want to bet larger, so you give yourself a better chance to take down the blinds uncontested or isolate a single player. In soft games like this a standard open size of 3BB is normal and work much better than just a mini-raise. You can even go larger as well, if someone at the table call to much. Small open sizes are for tough cash games and short stacked tournament situations, not 2NL.

Postflop is generally fine I think. When I first looked at the hand, I did not like your donk bet on the turn, after he raised you on the flop. But looking at it again, I dont mind this play. You are still toast to his sets, but you beat 76 now, and his draws lost equity. He might check back draws on this card, because he correctly think, you are never folding a Q, when you just made trips. No need to allow him to do that, and you are never folding now, so if he has the set, he just got you.

Hand 2 A9s
Someone said it already, but that mini 3-bet is just terrible. When you 3-bet, and especially out of position, you want to give people a reason to fold. With this sizing you price him in to call you with any two cards. A reasonable standard size is 3x in position and 4x out of position, so you should have made it 20c here. When he 4-bet you, A9s is not a great hand to call with out of position. You could 5-bet bluff, but the whole situation happened, because you sized your 3-bet incorrectly, and I would probably just fold now.

On the flop your donk bet is again a little bit unconventional, but its actually not a bad play, and you used a good sizing. You flopped a gutshot to the nuts and a backdoor flushdraw, so you have some equity, and for some hands its difficult to continue here even against your sizing, so this is a fine bluff.

On the turn you picked up a flush draw to go with your gutshot, and this is a mandatory spot to continue your aggression, when you take this line on the flop. Instead you bet 2c into a pot of 88c. This is essentially the same as checking and many players myself included refer to this as a “fish bet”, because its completely pointless.

On the river you improved to the nuts, and bet around 1/3 pot. I prefer a larger bet here. You could even go all in to apply maximum pressure to him. 98 just made a straight and is not going to be able to fold, and he could have a worse flush as well. Finally an overbet can look bluffy and induce calls especially at these stakes. Something like 2/3 pot would also be fine, but I think, 1/3 pot is leaving money on the table especially at 2NL.

Hand 3 JTs
Once again you are mini 3-betting from the blinds. 3-betting is the best play here, but not with this sizing. You flopped some backdoor draws, and with only J high this hand is an obvious candidate for a C-bet bluff. Sizing is fine as well. As in hand2, you turned more equity, in this case a gutshot, so this is another mandatory spot to fire the second bullet. Something like half pot will get him off some hands, that called the flop.

On the river you backdoored into a straight. Always fun to run good. This time you bet nearly 5 times the pot, and this time its to much. Hand 2 and hand 3 are very similar situations, yet your bet sizing is all over the place. This is something, you need to work on. I dont mind an overbet here either, but maybe something like 30c not 1$.

Hand 4 T9s
Here you are isolating a limper, and as in hand 1 your sizing is to small. It need to be at least 4BB not just 3BB to give yourself a better chance of knocking the blinds out and isolating the limper. You flopped a gutshot and backdoor flushdraw, so C-betting with the T high is fine. You also represent the board well, since you are the one, who is supposed to have all the good top pair hands on A high.

I also dont mind continuing your story on the turn, even you did not pick up additional equity. On the river you made a pair, but I dont hate continue bluffing trying to get him to maybe finally fold a Q. It would also be fine to check back and take a showdown. With a weak pair you have at least a little bit of showdown value.

Hand 5 A8s
Yet another mini 3-bet out of the blinds. In this one you can either call or 3-bet, but if you 3-bet, you need to use a much larger sizing. You are bluffing, so you want him to fold, and he is not folding anything getting this kind of price and position. He is also not thinking, you must have AA, and especially not, when you do it all the time.

You flopped the nut flushdraw, so obviously fine to C-bet as a semi-bluff. I also like continuing on the turn, but now I think, you need to size it bigger. Once again you are bluffing, so you want folds, and he is not going to fold very much, when you bet less than a third of the pot. On the river you missed and made another “fish bet”. Just save your 2c and check-fold.

Wow, thank you for the responses especially with how much detail you have given me, I will be reading and re reading these and hopefully I can continue to improve my game and start making better decisions without thinking about it. You have given me a lot to think about and work on and I appreciate it a hell of a lot as I was just expecting a little info on a few of the hands!