$200 NLHE Full Ring: 3 hands played in 2 hours -$200 welcome to Atlantic City

$200 NL HE Full Ring: 3 hands played in 2 hours -$200 welcome to Atlantic City

Folded my first 25 hands or so...after fold number 15 I was thinking I would raise with marginal hand in LP for a steal hopefully. No marginal hands...ok good Im staying out of trouble.

Now I have 3 hands that I would really appreciate if you guys can analyze for me. I had a 2 hour bus ride back to NY thinking about them and I am not sure if I would have done anything different. I am hoping to see a lot of comments saying you just got into tough situations.

Hand 1
KK (diamond and spade) dealt to me MP. Raise 5x to 10. LP calls (VSIP must be 75%) and EP calls (Barely observed him since I am on one side of dealer and he is on another). Ace and two non face cards (all clubs). EP checks I bet $20 (2/3 pot) and get calls from both. Spade comes up non face. EP checks, I bet $40 (under half pot, think I should have let it go at this point and checked). LP folds and EP calls. River is another club and EP bets $30 (the pot is about $170 mind you) but I am beaten by any club and any ace. Do pot odds justify a call? Either way I folded. -$70 right there.

Hand 2
Another 15-25 folds later, I am dealt AK MP. Raise 5x to 10 call in LP and 3bet by UTG Mr. VSIP 75% all in for another $25. At this point I finally realized why the squeeze play is so effective. Even if you do have a hand as I did AND I was playing someone with a VSIP of 75%, I still had LP caller to worry about. I made the call with AK as did LP. Both of us missed the whole board and checked it down. VSIP 75% shows a 67 suited with two sevens on the board. LP mucked. -$35

Hand 3
10-15 hands later, I am CO with JJ. A semi solid player raised 10x UTG to $20. Folded to me...I took my time which might have costed me. We were joking about how I only play Aces and Kings which might have been true at that point the way I was playing. I either fold my JJ or re-raise I did not consider calling. With that said my stack is at about $75 which would make me committed if I re-raise. It was all in or nothing with my stack size. This is the hand that I thought about over and over and over and over again. What do I do at this point? It wouldnt be so bad to 3bet him $35 if his raise was $10. That still leaves me with $40 and I would have folded to a 4bet.
But of course I went all in and he had Kings and the board did not help. -$75

I almost wish that there was some sort of bad beat so I can make myself feel better and say you had bad luck but I was just plain beat all 3 times yet I cannot say for sure about any instance that I did not play correctly. The fact that I wasn't beaten by luck and that I have not pointed out any mistakes makes me worried...maybe I know just enough about poker to keep playing and lose money. Help me out my friends.

Hand 1. No reason to bet postflop, imo. Your hand has become pretty marginal and you'll mostly get called by hands that beat you. You can check/call if you think villains are likely to bluff or just give up entirely

Hand 2. Probably better to reraise the squeeze instead of flatting and letting LP come along with you.

Hand 3. Can't really be blamed for stacking JJ 37bb deep. It's possible the 10x utg raise was enough of a read to get away, though. Hard to tell without being there.


Also, since you're a nit, you should consider increasing your preflop bet sizes. 5bb when there's a limper in the hand already is really small for live games. Get more money into the pot while you're ahead.

hand1: scary board, your kings become inconsequential with the ace out there and no club in your hand, but your opponents might have air and give up, so i like the bet. when both called, u should give it up already.

hand2: AK, suited or o/s? only hands that u should have to worry about are really aces n kings, and it's highly unlikely LP has either, with his flat call, considering his position. i would move in here to iso, and well, it still wont have run out good for u, with the 6 7 dude hitting.

hand3: i agree with belgo on this, exact same comment.

cash games arent like online, with their standard 3.5 bb raises. u gotta raise more preflop to chase out the donks/recreational players with their junk hands.

better luck next time.

postflopper said:

cash games arent like online, with their standard 3.5 bb raises. u gotta raise more preflop to chase out the donks/recreational players with their junk hands.

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you don't want to chase them out. You want them to charge them as much as possible while you're ahead. Opening to 10bb with KK like villain does in hand 3 is great when you get called.

you want your opponents to make mistakes. Calling a huge raise with a marginal hand is a mistake. Folding is correct. So you open up as big as the donks will call possible to maximize their mistake.

BelgoSuisse said:

Hand 1. No reason to bet postflop, imo. Your hand has become pretty marginal and you'll mostly get called by hands that beat you. You can check/call if you think villains are likely to bluff or just give up entirely

Hand 2. Probably better to reraise the squeeze instead of flatting and letting LP come along with you.

Hand 3. Can't really be blamed for stacking JJ 37bb deep. It's possible the 10x utg raise was enough of a read to get away, though. Hard to tell without being there.


Also, since you're a nit, you should consider increasing your preflop bet sizes. 5bb when there's a limper in the hand already is really small for live games. Get more money into the pot while you're ahead.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your feedback Belgo. That makes a lot of sense. I think I should have given up hand 1 after the failed cbet considering VSIP 75% was behind me and the one I had no read on was ahead of me so at least I had position on the player I was worried about.

I think a re raise would have been brilliant, did not consider that at all. If he called and I missed, how would I play that though?

Hand 3 was just a tough place to be in then.

postflopper said:

hand1: scary board, your kings become inconsequential with the ace out there and no club in your hand, but your opponents might have air and give up, so i like the bet. when both called, u should give it up already.

hand2: AK, suited or o/s? only hands that u should have to worry about are really aces n kings, and it's highly unlikely LP has either, with his flat call, considering his position. i would move in here to iso, and well, it still wont have run out good for u, with the 6 7 dude hitting.

hand3: i agree with belgo on this, exact same comment.

cash games arent like online, with their standard 3.5 bb raises. u gotta raise more preflop to chase out the donks/recreational players with their junk hands.

better luck next time.

Click to expand...

Hand 1: Agreed 100% cbet and fold. My question is should I have called the river bet of $30 into a pot that is now $200?

Hand 2: AK were unsuited. I do think now this should have been a reraise on my part but please explain why I wont have to worry about 22-TT? I could definitely see players flat calling LP with these hands.

Hand 3: Got a beast and ran into a monster. Is there any chance you consider a fold? And is calling an absolute no no or should I have at least considered that?

Thanks a lot for the feedback.

the problem of raising 3.5bbs in live is that u get TOO many callers with junk hands. i totally agree that u should exploit players who are in with marginal hands, but it's common knowledge that even aces dont play well against more than 2 players. which is why u should always raise more preflop to protect your hand, and hopefully pick up max of 2 customers. getting more than 2 is just going to give u a headache if one of them tries to bluff u on a scary board.

anyway for hand2: there's no way he'll be calling your reraise with 22-TT. well possibly TT if he think u are steaming and is ahead of your range at that time, but as u said, everyone knew u were tight. he'll fold to a reraise, i think 85% of the time.

hand3: nah, it's just a cooler, considering your stack at the time. if u had a bigger stack u coulda considered re-raising to see where u were at. calling is the worst thing u could do in that situation.