$2 NLHE 6-max: I thought he had over pair

pokerstars, Hold'em No Limit - $0.01/$0.02 - 6 players
Hand delivered by Upswing Poker - https://upswingpoker.com/convert

UTG: $2.02 (101 bb)
MP: $4.42 (221 bb)
CO: $2.48 (124 bb)
BU: $1.30 (65 bb)
SB (Hero): $2.25 (113 bb)
BB: $0.65 (33 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.03) Hero is SB with K♦ J♠
2 players fold, CO calls $0.02, BTN calls $0.02, Hero raises to $0.06, BB calls $0.04, CO 3-bets to $0.10, BTN calls $0.08, Hero calls $0.04, BB calls $0.04

Flop: ($0.40) T♣ 7♠ J♣ (4 players)
Hero bets $0.06, BB calls $0.06, CO raises to $0.12, BU folds, Hero calls $0.06, BB calls $0.06

Turn: ($0.76) 4♦ (3 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, CO bets $0.28, Hero calls $0.28, BB raises to $0.43 (all-in), CO calls $0.15, Hero calls $0.15

River: ($2.05) A♥ (3 players, 1 all-in)
Hero checks, CO bets $1.83 (all-in), SB (Hero) folds

Total pot: $2.05 (Rake: $0.07)

Showdown:
CO shows 6♠ T♠ (a pair of Tens)
(equity - Pre-Flop: 40%, Flop: 47%, Turn: 66%, River: 100%)

BB shows K♣ 8♣ (high card, Ace)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 60%, Flop: 53%, Turn: 34%, River: 0%)

CO wins $1.98

Pretty hilarious hand. That CO is obviously a play machine, and fundamentally its ok to let these players bluff you. He will win a lot of small pots, but if he continue to play like this, you will get his entire stack, when you have the goods.

That being said your preflop and flop play was pretty questionable. When you are raising out of position against two limpers, you need to go much larger than just 3 BB. And then on the flop you lead for 15% pot. The standard play here is to check to the preflop 3-better, and if you are going to lead, what does such a small bet even do? Nobody is folding anything, and you are not getting much value either.

To be honest your way of playing might well have induced this bluff. If you come in preflop for a solid raise, this will look much more scary to him, and same story with your flop bet. It was really small and actually looked a lot weaker than checking.

This is a situation where having reads on your opponent would help (whether by observation or with a HUD) so you have an idea of whether villain is loose / aggressive.

I know your question is about your decision to fold on the river, but in my opinion, the key to this whole hand is how you played preflop and on the flop and the river decision would have been avoided altogether.

First off, I think playing KJo from SB is too loose, esp when you have 2 limpers before you (again, knowing their VPIP would really help). If it were me, I’d fold preflop.

If you are going to participate, then your preflop raise absolutely has to be higher. Playing from SB in a multi-way pot is the absolute worst position to play so your goal in preflop is to take it down with the raise. I think I’ve written this before, but preflop raise needs to be higher to at worst, filter out the riff-raff. I’d raise it to 6-7bb (3BB + 1bb/limper + 1-2bb for being in SB). If these players were reasonable players, then CO and BB would have folded preflop, and maybe even BTN. The ones that stick around, you can usually count on them having a decent enough hand to play.

On the flop, this is the horror of playing a mediocre hand from SB. You are first to play, top pair with 2nd highest kicker. I wouldn’t donk bet here and check to see what CO does with betting lead. I think check-raise would be a better play here and try to take down the pot with a decent sized raise. Maybe a 3/4 to a pot sized raise?

As played, you decided to donk bet, but your bet sizing is far too small and giving each player behind you progressively better odds to call. Your small bet also has the effect of building a large pot to play for with worst possible position. So I really don’t like the position you put yourself in. CO is showing some kind of strength, but not sure what I’m seeing as the bet sizing is odd. I’m thinking maybe some kind of a decent to good pocket pair, maybe KQ. Could even be suited connector or a weak Ax.

I hate playing OOP, and my goal is usually to take down pot as early as possible. I don’t know if I’d be at the turn without the betting lead by this point. Then again, I wouldn’t be this far into a hand with such a mediocre hand from SB. It’s be hard to fold after CO bet and then the small BB raise. This is really death by a thousand cuts.

On the river I’d fold after all of that action as A is a scare card and could complete a straight or 2 pair and all you had was top pair.

But all in all, I think that your first and biggest mistake was getting involved with this hand with a mediocre hand from SB. This was made worse by bad bet sizing preflop and then by too much passivity early in the hand.

nameless1537 said:

If you are going to participate, then your preflop raise absolutely has to be higher. Playing from SB in a multi-way pot is the absolute worst position to play so your goal in preflop is to take it down with the raise.

Click to expand...

I agree, that if we are going to raise preflop, it need to be larger. This 3BB raise is getting called by everyone, so it just create a monster multiway pot, where we are out of position against everyone with KJ.

It is however also allowed to just complete from SB, if we dont want to risk a huge amount of money against BB, who is yet to act, and could wake up with a big hand and 3-bet us. If we complete, we are investing 0,5BB to win 4BB, so we only to win it 1 out of 8 times.

I think, its to nitty to fold KJ here, especially when you look at the kind of garbage, people limp in with in the micros. Completing or raising to at least 6BB are both winning plays for sure.

Damn, I wish I could play on poker stars...

Pre- raise bigger. 3.5x + 1 bb for each limper.

COs play is certainly repping an over-pair, you are right to assume that. Take this info and in the future be ready to call down these 3 bets from this player.

But as played it's a fold. CO is showing a lot of strength... once you get a read, just wait for the right spot and stack him.

Flop- As played,don't donk bet into CO. Esp. with multiple players. Check and perhaps consider calling a bet.

CO's min raise is weird as hell. Maybe there you can consider looking this guy up. I don't know what he is supposed to be repping with that. I guess you can split his range up into sets + overpairs vs some draws (Ax of clubs) that he would be 3-bet bluffing with pre.

Turn: Another part of this hand is BBs range. He likely is flatting pre with pocket pairs, so when this guy starts acting up I think hes got a set. (He should have just shoved flop if he was going to stay in this hand tbh). As played, he has such a small stack that you have to call him.

Again, you really shouldnt be here at all. I'd fold to CO's bet.

River- If you weren't beat before, you likely are now. Fold. You will get to see their hands too since BB is all-in

Any time you're at a table of nutjob spewmonkeys like that, you have to adjust the range of hands that you are prepared to get a stack in with. Here, TPGK is clearly enough.

fundiver199 said:

I agree, that if we are going to raise preflop, it need to be larger. This 3BB raise is getting called by everyone, so it just create a monster multiway pot, where we are out of position against everyone with KJ.

It is however also allowed to just complete from SB, if we dont want to risk a huge amount of money against BB, who is yet to act, and could wake up with a big hand and 3-bet us. If we complete, we are investing 0,5BB to win 4BB, so we only to win it 1 out of 8 times.

I think, its to nitty to fold KJ here, especially when you look at the kind of garbage, people limp in with in the micros. Completing or raising to at least 6BB are both winning plays for sure.

Click to expand...

You are probably right... folding might be too nitty in this situation. For me, however... I've always been of the opinion that if your hand is strong enough to play for a pot, then raise (or call a raise)... and if not, then fold but don't limp into a pot. I'm beginning to call from LP, but I'm selective with those types of situations.

I don't like to limp into pots, especially from the blinds with a lot of other limpers. Occasionally I have completed in this kind of situation, and the only way I would allow myself to continue is if I flop a monster. In which case, I can limp in with any 2 cards if there is more than 5 players in the pot - if I flop a full house, then it won't really make a difference if its a 2 full of 5 or Ks full of Js. In my opinion, KJ is one of those hands that is too weak to raise and too strong to complete... so if you complete, then it's a play-with-caution kind of tag.

When completing into a multiway pot, I think you'd need to have some pretty strong post-flop skills to play from SB position because you are playing against others who can literally have any two cards. So you could very well have top pair up against bottom two pair. Without the benefit of a raise to narrow an opponent's range, I'd have a hard time dealing with any signs of strength when playing from the blinds in a 5-way pot. My post-flop skills are still in development, so I'd rather not get involved in this kind of situation and work on my post-flop skills from a later position when odds to win are tilted more towards me.

I think I've gotten into too many losing situations when completing from the blind in multiway pots in this kind of position (from overplaying top pairs)... and this is why I'd rather raise than complete if i choose to play a hand. I'd rather play too nitty from SB than too loose... just makes life easier for me. Just my 2c anyway.