$2 NLHE Full Ring: Hero has 2 pair, villain raises on the turn and shoves on river

$2 NLHE Full Ring: Hero has 2 pair, villain raises on the turn and shoves on river

Hey guys...

I recently figured out how to find my old hands in PT4 and now slowly reviewing some recent hands to see where/how I can fix leaks in my cash game. In this hand, I was sandwiched between two loose-passive fish, where both of them had a VPIP of over 65 and they consistently limped into just about every pot they could. I really wished I was sitting 2 seats to the left, but I guess this isn't a bad situation. I was card dead for most of the session and then ended up waking up and taking half of stack (while I was short-stacked -- I really regretted not keeping a full-stack at this table). Anyway, here's a recent one that I played...


pokerstars - $0.02 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (BB): 97 BB
UTG: 113 BB (VPIP: 65.85, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 41)
UTG+1: 100 BB (VPIP: 10.64, PFR: 4.26, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 47)
MP: 100 BB (VPIP: 12.77, PFR: 6.38, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 48)
MP+1: 128 BB (VPIP: 18.37, PFR: 14.97, 3Bet Preflop: 6.52, Hands: 149)
CO: 83 BB (VPIP: 7.32, PFR: 2.44, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 41)
BTN: 118.5 BB (VPIP: 23.81, PFR: 7.48, 3Bet Preflop: 1.82, Hands: 150)
SB: 92 BB (VPIP: 75.61, PFR: 7.32, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 41)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 3c 5c
UTG calls 1 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, SB calls 0.5 BB, Hero checks

Flop : (3 BB, 3 players) 9d 5h 3d
SB checks, Hero bets 3 BB, UTG calls 3 BB, fold

Turn : (9 BB, 2 players) 2h
Hero bets 6 BB, UTG raises to 12 BB, Hero calls 6 BB

River : (33 BB, 2 players) 2c
Hero checks, UTG bets 97 BB and is all-in, fold

UTG wins 32 BB

Yes, I ended up folding on the river when villain shoves all-in at around 3x the pot. But he seems to play like a loose-passive fish for the 41 hands that I had on him with an AF of 1, so it was quite surprising to me that he would do a mini-raise on the turn and then go all-in on the river. I ended up folding, thinking maybe he made a set or has two pair with a better card than mine. I generally play with the attitude that I would sooner shove all-in rather than call one unless I had a hand that was the nuts or near nuts on the board... so I might get bluffed out of mediocre hands, but something I'm generally willing to live with.

Would you have folded, or maybe bet on the river instead?

You played it absolutely fine the river counterfeits your two pair so you basically only beat a stone cold bluff with air on the river.

Even without the counterfeit on the river, I still like folding here. A4 and 64 turned a straight, and a 64% VPIP can certainly have all 32 combos of these in a limped pot. In general when the stack to pot ratio is very deep, we need something very nutted to stack off. There is even an old saying about this: "never go broke in a limped pot". Still like calling the turn. If river is a 3 or 5, we stack him.

Top up preflop.
On turn bet pot.
River good fold.

Dont look at stats then so small sample hands (he might be on good run). look how he played hand to showdown you will get more valuable information

Generally agree with the consensus here that you played it fine. It's certainly interesting to consider what we should do if the river doesn't pair, say is a J or something. Because the fact that the villain is raising turn (even though it's a min raise) and piling it in on the river as a generally passive player is indicative of a pretty strong hand.

I PROBABLY still wouldn't get away in that instance, just due to the fact this player appears to be limping his whole range, nobody raised here (so we don't know if he was going for a limp reraise), and it's entirely possible he will overvalue overpairs.

But in the actual scenario, where the board does pair, we don't beat those holdings now, and it's difficult to put many if any hands that we beat into the villain's range. They'd pretty much have to be stone cold bluffs for no reason (again, from a passive opponent), and it's so easy for this player type to over value something like a strong 9, or have a straight. So I like the line. NH, WP.

maxi_j said:

Dont look at stats then so small sample hands (he might be on good run). look how he played hand to showdown you will get more valuable information

Click to expand...

In general I agree with this, but VPIP and PFR tend to converge pretty quickly, and its absolutely impossible, that a solid player would be dealt like 26 playable hands out of 41, but not a single one of them was good enough to raise. Over 41 hands a solid player could maybe have numbers like 35/28, if he was running card hot, but 66/0 is absolutely a huge fish 100% of the time.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm embarrassed to say this now, but I didn't even really take note of the river card insomuch that it didn't really register that pairing off the board counterfeits my 2 pair. This is a small hole in my game that I need to take into account... because if villain had something like pocket TT, then pairing the board has implication on the strength of my hand. When I see a pairing of the board, my main thought is usually "could be a full house".

So my thought process was that if I hit a 3 or a 5, I could go all in. But even without the paired board, I would have probably called anything up to a pot-sized bet... which even then, probably would have been an expensive call (since it would be 50/50 about whether I win the hand).

Thanks for raising these points and the analysis. Very very helpful indeed.

nameless1537 said:

I'm embarrassed to say this now, but I didn't even really take note of the river card insomuch that it didn't really register that pairing off the board counterfeits my 2 pair.

Click to expand...

Yeah this is actually a fairly important concept, especially when you flop bottom two pair. In you have 76 on A76, this is a great situation for you, but any runout, that pair the board other than with a 7 or 6 will pretty much kill your hand. Technically this runout is not a counterfeit, because your two pair are still live, but it creates a ton of better two pair, so it really hurt your hand. If the Villain made some silly limp before the flop with aces, now he is completely owning you. Or even an overplayed top pair.

We play against passive fish who only place bets with monsters. I think he built straight from A4. I would fold here too