$5 NLHE 6-max: Super wet boards, KK vs AA and getting more value?

Hi, I have 3 hands I'd like for people to take a look at, I hope making a single thread for all 3 was better than making separate threads for each hand?

Anyways all the hands are 5NL Zoom on Stars, I've mainly been playing 2NL, but thought I'd start taking some shots at 5NL (went well today!).

So the first hand is about how to play when you hit a set on a very wet board with lots of callers. Firstly was I correct to call preflop rather than 3bet and hopefully get some of them to fold? My thinking here was that due to my positional disadvantage and the fact that most hands would dominate me unless I hit a set calling was the best option? Also, would anyone recommend playing postflop any differently, such as betting the flop and hoping nobody had hit a straight?



The second hand is with KK in which I was 4-bet preflop. Should I have shoved here or not considering the likelihood he has AA? I decided to shove due to it being 5NL and having seen many people 4-bet with hands such as AK,AQ,QQ which KK has a greater equity over.


The third and final hand is mainly about bet sizing when you're aiming to get value. Can anyone offer any insight as to how i'd have gotten any greater value from this hand? I decided not to shove on the river as I thought he'd likely fold and so I thought that having a higher chance of getting a call for less would be better than getting a lower chance of a call from shoving.



Thanks for any help you guys offer!

I can't find much to fault with any of these hands.

Hand 1, even the flop is already action-killing since the AK is a real possibility. It is kind of a dangerous flop because you really can't be 100% sure you're best. If the board pairs, then you will likely have the worst full house combination, and JJ, QQ, and QJ are all possibilities. I'm fine with not building a massive pot even though you have bottom set. A 4 to a straight with an A or K gives someone out there a straight as well giving redraws to AQ/AJ.

With that runout, nothing you can do. Next time you'll get an A105 flop and stack the guy with AQ.

Plus you were in the small blind, where it's hard to get value from.

Hand 3 is well-played, you know you have the best hand and proceed to get 3 streets of value with bet sizes that suck him into the next street and getting the payoff on the river.

I think hand 2 was alright as well - just because your chip stack dwarfed his. If he had AA, so be it, you only lose 20% of your stack and can shrug off the cooler. It's totally standard against the shortstacker.

The question is, would you have made this play against another deepstack, say the $16.00 guy? They're rarely overplaying QQ and JJ since they're fearing a cooler as well and would flat. A cold 4 bet from them would merit considering that he has AA.

1st of all I would recommend using another format for your hand histories this is kind of painful to read. I think PT4 provides a copy paste function for forums.

1st hand I'd like to squeeze here preflop and squeeze big like 0.90$, you have a good hand but your relative handstrength will be so much less postflop with all these people.
As played I would just donk the flop like A little under halfpot here and go broke on it.

2nd hand , no way i'm folding KK pre versus an unknown him having AA is just unlucky here I think.

3rd hand is played fine , very niched betsizing is not important at 5NL.

CactusCat said:

The question is, would you have made this play against another deepstack, say the $16.00 guy? They're rarely overplaying QQ and JJ since they're fearing a cooler as well and would flat. A cold 4 bet from them would merit considering that he has AA.

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I probably would have just folded to a 4bet from him to avoid the situation since it's more than likely he'd have AA.

quickieQ said:

1st of all I would recommend using another format for your hand histories this is kind of painful to read. I think PT4 provides a copy paste function for forums.

1st hand I'd like to squeeze here preflop and squeeze big like 0.90$, you have a good hand but your relative handstrength will be so much less postflop with all these people.
As played I would just donk the flop like A little under halfpot here and go broke on it.

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I have the trial for HEM2, but i'll look at finding a nice converter. I often don't 3-bet 10's preflop, especially not from the SB (unless I'm trying to counter the BTN's steal). I don't like 3-betting them since unless I hit a set on the flop it's a very easily dominated hand, especially with so many players still in it's very likely they nearly all have cards J+.

I was tempted to donk the flop, however with 2 suited cards and a straight draw I thought the likelihood my hand would hold up to showdown was very small.

1. Bet higher turn, you can also bet river as nobody valued K, I would have donkbet that spot

2. Setup, nexthand

3. fine for me

In the first hand I think we need to be raising here. When we are set mining we want to be mining against a villain with a super small range and a deep stack that they are willing to get in. Getting value from our set is made much easier by being in position. The fact that our hand is strong and that we are out of position should lead us to want to raise here, all the villains have super wide ranges and will most likely fold to a raise, we don't want to set mine against multiple opponents if we can help it. Winning the pot pre flop here is what I am looking to do with TT, and having my hand strength be the backup if that is to fail. Yes playing a large 3-bet pot OOP is not ideal but I think that the strength of our hand can compensate for that.

On the flop I think we have to bet. You say that you were worried that your hand would not hold up at the show down and thus you were disinclined to donk the flop. This is a wet board which means that a lot of our opponents ranges will have draws. This is good for us as we have a very strong hand, we need to bet as much as we think a draw will call without giving them the correct odds to call. I'm probably betting pot.

The turn isn't great but again I think we need to bet, for the same reasons as the flop. When one of the villains leads out for .10c I think we should raise, Villains range definitely includes random pairs that will just flat our raise, and if villain 3-bets we can be pretty happy in folding knowing we are beat.

The river is the nut worst card in the deck for us, I think check folding is fine, maybe we can try a blocking bet and fold to a raise but I'm not sure if that is good or not.


On hand 2, we don't fold KK pre for <100bb against an unknown at 5nl. AK is getting it in here all day.


On hand 3; when we are betting for value we need to think about how villains pre flop range hits the flop and then decide what portion of that range do we want to target with our value bets. If we think that villain makes a lot of middle pair hands then we need to size our bets to what we think the villain will call with middle pair. If villain has top pair most of the time then we can bet accordingly. Target a specific part of villains range and stick with it, if they fold then we can be safe in saying that villain didn't have the targeted part of their range this time.

As for the hand, I think raising or folding from UTG is ok with TJs. Ok so on the flop what part of villains range do we think hits this flop and what part of that do we want to target? Villains range is super wide so we have a large portion to target. I think villain will call a large bet with the majority of their range that wants to continue here as they don't make very many middle pairs. The part of villains range that continues is mostly flush draws and some pocket pairs mainly 88 - TT, so we bet as much as we think villain will call with those hands, .20c is good, I would only be going higher from there tho. next time try .30c and see what happens.

Turn is a brick so exactly the same again, and .55c is good. What I would start to think about before I bet is how likely it is that I can credibly get stacks in on the river, this should be something we should be thinking about on the flop, especially if we think that villain has some hands in their range which will stack off against us, but in this situation it is hard for villain to have a hand that wants to do this that we beat.

The river bet is good as well, I think villain probably had 88 -TT, maybe even 66 or 77, these hands probably don't call a shove so your bet is good. Remember if we get information that villain is bad then we should be shoving here a lot.