€200 NLHE Full Ring: folding top pair

BoyFlake

BoyFlake

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Live €1/€3 cash game I played today at my local casino.


Hero: BB (120bb)
Villain: BU (200bb)

Hero holds Q:diamond:2:diamond:

fold, fold, fold, fold, fold , fold, Villain raises 4bb, fold, Hero calls 3bb

Flop: 2 Players (8bb)

2:club:4:diamond:4:spade:

Hero checks, Villain bets 6bb, Hero calls

Turn: 2 players (20bb)

Q:heart:

Hero checks, Villain checks

River: 2 players (20bb)

5:spade:

Hero checks, Villain bets 30bb, Hero folds

Thoughts on this hand? I think my turn check and river check gave him a chance to bluff. He was a reg I had no reads on.
 
Figaroo2

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Welcome Boyflake.
Personally it's a fold preflop for me, looks like you're flush chasing and there are much better combos than this hand.
As played I just lead out on the turn for 3/4 pot. If he raises fold but I would expect him to still call with all his mid pairs at least once.
River I can't see worse calling again. I'd check the river and see what he does.
If he had a Q I'd expect him to bet for value on the turn.
So as played we have a decent bluff catcher and I'd call, if he wanted value I'd expect a smaller sizing. I'd also be wanting to see his cards and I'd expect to be good here plenty bearing in mind how wide he could be from the button.
 
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Beanfacekilla

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I assume this is a full table?

Fold preflop. Jeez. That's as far as the hand should go.
 
TimovieMan

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Fold preflop.

Call river. Your checking the turn AND the river makes him believe you don't have a Q, so I'm expecting him to be betting 66-JJ for value here.
 
Trabendo_daze

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I mean calling preflop really isn't that insane, especially if you peg villain as someone who will make mistakes. If the bet was smaller, I can see him betting worse for value, but I don't see him overbetting much worse for value. It's possible to have the best hand here, but I can easily see him having something nutted too, whether it be a FH or Flush. I doubt he's merging his range with an overbet here. Looks pretty polarized. Stare into his soul and make a decision.
 
Beanfacekilla

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I mean calling preflop really isn't that insane, especially if you peg villain as someone who will make mistakes. If the bet was smaller, I can see him betting worse for value, but I don't see him overbetting much worse for value. It's possible to have the best hand here, but I can easily see him having something nutted too, whether it be a FH or Flush. I doubt he's merging his range with an overbet here. Looks pretty polarized. Stare into his soul and make a decision.


We would be the ones making mistakes here. We are entering a pot, out of position, with a horrible piece of garbage hand, and then continuing postflop, putting ourself in the cage, not knowing if it's good, not good, etc. It is a 4x raise too... why oh why do we defend here?? Please enlighten me, on what planet is this a wise decision?

But forget about preflop, here we are, on the flop, we have Q-2s on 2-4-4r. About every other card besides a Q or 2 on the turn is bad for us... calling again... but whatever... This all stems from a poor decision preflop...


Like when we just call it off, we have to rely on showdown value. There is no fold equity. If turn comes J, K, A, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, these all make it even more difficult for us. This is 36 cards that will appear bad (certainly not "yaaay a 7 came off!") to us OOP if V continues to apply pressure.

Really, if we call preflop, then....

Why would we call the flop, and then fold the river here. We actually improved OTT, and V checks it back. Then some 5 comes on the river, and we fold? Why even call preflop, why call the flop, if we fold what seems to be a good board for our terrible hand? We are probably good here a bunch on the river, as played.


Also, there is no flush possible. He can have some janky A-3 for the wheel, and boats, or PP like 6-6 through JJ, or air. If he has KK or AA, he probably mashes the gas OTT as well. And if he has a boat, it is exactly 5-5 and nothing else IMO.




To anyone who reads this, my opinion is:

Stop calling raises with terrible hands from blinds. Only call with good hands.



Edit: It does even seem like villain broke out the "overbet hammer" (Jason Somerville) on the river too, to get it done. Seems bluffy.
 
Trabendo_daze

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Oh whoops I read the board wrong. Thought the 2 was a spade. My b.

@ BFK, If you're a RIU Warrior, then you can understand how defending Q2s is not the biggest mistake in the world. Would JS defend Q2s vs. a button open? Probably not. Would he defend it if the initial raiser was an insane fish? Probably. Would he defend K2s? Definitely. These statements are made from quite in depth watching of his RIU series.

Look we can criticize OP for defending Q2s, but I don't think we are like losing shittons of money here, and maybe we're even making money against a bad player. Yes we are OOP, but it's BB vs. BTN, ranges are wide here.

Check-calling flop is obligatory. There's no other decision to be made here.

Check-calling turn is pretty much the only decision again.

Check decide river. There are less value combos so this probably leans towards a call. I don't ever see villain having 66-JJ here. Like ever. He basically has A3, 22, QQ, 55, or 44, and all of those are like what 20 or so combos. I mean it could go either way OTR.

As for the preflop decision, it's certainly not optimal but I think if anything the comments on this forum lean towards standard nitty play which doesn't focus on exploiting certain opponents and doesn't ever advocate for opening up our game in certain spots.

My only point is that calling here is POSSIBLY part of a nuanced game. If we want to play standard 1/2 poker, it is a snap-fold of course. I'm just trying to get a little creative. I'll see where that gets me. I'll let you know in a couple months if it's working out for me.
 
Beanfacekilla

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Oh whoops I read the board wrong. Thought the 2 was a spade. My b.

@ BFK, If you're a RIU Warrior, then you can understand how defending Q2s is not the biggest mistake in the world. Would JS defend Q2s vs. a button open? Probably not. Would he defend it if the initial raiser was an insane fish? Probably. Would he defend K2s? Definitely. These statements are made from quite in depth watching of his RIU series.

Look we can criticize OP for defending Q2s, but I don't think we are like losing shittons of money here, and maybe we're even making money against a bad player. Yes we are OOP, but it's BB vs. BTN, ranges are wide here.

Check-calling flop is obligatory. There's no other decision to be made here.

Check-calling turn is pretty much the only decision again.

Check decide river. There are less value combos so this probably leans towards a call. I don't ever see villain having 66-JJ here. Like ever. He basically has A3, 22, QQ, 55, or 44, and all of those are like what 20 or so combos. I mean it could go either way OTR.

As for the preflop decision, it's certainly not optimal but I think if anything the comments on this forum lean towards standard nitty play which doesn't focus on exploiting certain opponents and doesn't ever advocate for opening up our game in certain spots.

My only point is that calling here is POSSIBLY part of a nuanced game. If we want to play standard 1/2 poker, it is a snap-fold of course. I'm just trying to get a little creative. I'll see where that gets me. I'll let you know in a couple months if it's working out for me.

That's fine. I get it (defending Q-2s).

However, JS rarely plays FR. That is a pretty drastic difference. And I also must state the obvious, we, nor the OP, nor are you JS. He can defend wider because he is an excellent postflop player (obv).

For the average grinder this isn't necessary at FR live poker. We can find much better ways to make $$$ from bad villains. Hmmmm, like play good cards, make hands, and value bet relentlessly. Play in position, not OOP.


And if we choose to defend blind with a spec hand, why Q-2s? Good grief, it's a terrible hand. We can easily get coolered in a bunch of ways I can't even imagine. And to say it's nitty to fold Q-2? That's a bit of a stretch.

We don't need to get creative and call raises from BB with Q-2s. Creative would be 3b, and taking control. Calling and playing this was is playing loose passive. We can only really win by showdown alone. We are not taking control at any point, just calling, calling again, etc. We could even C/R flop, bomb turn and probably end it there too.... just saying.

If the opponent is so bad, why not try to play vs him with position? Change seats? We are just doing things the hard way here.

We have blockers to QQ, 22, and obv. 44 is pretty unlikely. I feel like V has air most times, possibly 55 or A3, and PP in between JJ and 66 are indeed possible, because live players often slow down when an overcard to their pair comes off. I see them do it often.

However, I think the river is a call, but H folded. So why even bother defending, if we obviously can't navigate postflop.

Easiest thing for the OP to do, is avoid tough spots, like this one created by defending with Q-2s.
 
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weird overbet.. A3? I dont think this is an automatic call given bet size. I'd still call though most of the time
 
TimovieMan

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^^ I agree with BFK

As for the preflop decision, it's certainly not optimal but I think if anything the comments on this forum lean towards standard nitty play which doesn't focus on exploiting certain opponents and doesn't ever advocate for opening up our game in certain spots.
That's because we rarely get any info or reads on villains to respond to. We can't tell people to exploit certain opponents if we know nothing about the opponents.
And if we do, we still tell them to exploit them with position. :)



Btw, who is "JS"??? :confused:
 
Shaetano

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MinhANguyen

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Was this heads-up?? Or did you just leave out the other positions?

Hand was played pretty well imo. This is pretty much a snap-fold, and it's not even close... I seriously doubt we are anywhere near good 37.5% of the time here. Add rake in, and we probably need to be good 40%? of the time. Not sure how rake affects our calling frequency. Can anyone explain this?

Anyway, the Q is such a good card for him to barrel with his bluffs. When you call this board OOP, your overall range is pretty weak. You have a ton of A high, small PP, random gutshots, and exactly what you have right here. Even if he has T high or KJo, he should be barreling here. Most of the time, you're just folding. And often, he'll have 3-6 clean outs. The fact that he is a reg and made a clean 1.5x overbet pot OTR also makes me think he's not just clicking buttons (I might be wrong; maybe he thought 30bb was a nice #), and that he's actually thinking about the hand. I wouldn't be surprised if he's nutted here. 44/22/QQ/55/A4s/54s/K4s/Q4s/J4s/64s/43s make a lot of sense, and every once in a while KK/AA/A3.

3-bet or fold pre... This is such a bad hand to flat OOP without the initiative. Calling with this Q high with OOP against a reg who has position on us is a pretty big mistake. Folding is probably much better. Against people who don't like folding, especially live players, you should be 3-betting a linear range. Polarizing your 3-betting range is setting money on fire. I prefer linear ranges over polarized ranges for multiple reasons. People call 3-bets too wide, don't 4-bet enough, and don't play a 4-bet or fold game very often.
 
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Trabendo_daze

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Wasn't saying folding Q2s is nifty, was just saying that advice leans towards the nitty side and that's what makes people freak out when he called pre. I think it's a fold pre too, I just don't think it's like disgusting puke gross omg to call.
 
BoyFlake

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However, I think the river is a call, but H folded. So why even bother defending, if we obviously can't navigate postflop.

this is what I was looking for in this post, just some advice about playing the hand post-flop...

Easiest thing for the OP to do, is avoid tough spots, like this one created by defending with Q-2s.

Seems me defending Q2s was a bad idea, but I felt like HU vs his open range I stood a chance to win, my bad. However once I was in the hand I called his c-bet and caught what I thought was a good card on the turn. I felt I had some SDV here so I just checked and unfortunately for me that left an opening for villain to bluff (if he was truly bluffing I'm not sure).


Thanks for the feedback though, I'll try to stay away from marginal hands in the blinds from now on :D
 
Beanfacekilla

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JS - Jason Somerville.

"Run it up" on YouTube is very entertaining. JS has such a great personality, he's very funny, he explains his thought process, etc. I really like watching it. The dude is so good it's sick.
 
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