Nailing a Massive Leak.

Hi!

Okay guys I recently posted on here regarding the very high chance I am a fish!

you all responded fantastically and I can honestly say it's some of the best help I have had. I was able to apply the things people were saying and rather than just give me answers, I was forced to really analyse my own questions and find out for myself!

In doing so, I have been taking reels and reels of notes during play, slowed everything down a little and really drill into my strategy.

I'd like to just give you a quick example.

I'm in SB with 22 and the BTN pops it to 4x

I know the player to be relatively loose and he has a nice size stack (35ish BB's). He is very capable of making a play for the blinds.

So I reraise to 3x his raise to keep him honest and he calls.

Now I'd just like to pause here and say that this is a situation that I, as a beginner, am very uncomfortable with. He's got the position on me, he can be calling here with a wide range and opening with almost ATC so it does create a sense of urgency for me. I feel very in the dark.

The flop comes Q 9 8 with two hearts and it's on me.

Now, my thought process is that I need to fire another barrel here and show some aggression to keep control of the pot, and so I don't take the time to way up any other options and barely even consider my bet size when I fire out about an 80% C-bet.

Luckily, he gives up the pot and I win the hand.

I've played the hand back multiple times and after some time I began to wonder.

I never actually considered that I could be ahead when the flop comes!

I also figure that the way he played the hand, he could easily have held JTo in that situation and I'd have been screwed.

perhaps a thin value bet is the way to go from here? After all, the board can be just as scary for him (if not more so) and I would be risking less as if he is holding a low pair, it's higher than mine but he's likely to fold as i'm representing a lot of strength. Maybe he's calling here with Ax?

What else do you guys think he's calling with here?

I also think a value bet is good for sucking him in for a more valuable bluff on later streets?

Opinions and criticisms are very very welcome!

Nicebrew.

Perhaps getting away from 22 in the SB to a raise is better in the long run. you are possibly going into a multi-way pot with a really bad hand that can only improve with 2 outs. At best you are in a flip situation preflop vs almost any holdings.

tbdbitl said:

Perhaps getting away from 22 in the SB to a raise is better in the long run. you are possibly going into a multi-way pot with a really bad hand that can only improve with 2 outs. At best you are in a flip situation preflop vs almost any holdings.

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Completely agree with this. Almost exclusively, I'd be tempted to shy away from small pocket pairs in the SB. You're playing the worst position in poker, it requires only the top 5-10% of hands, IMHO.
Well played showing strength with your 3bet and betting the flop, but doing this with such a hand OOP, on that particular board will get you into trouble at least 70% of the time. At worst, you'll be called here more often than not.
Always remember who your opponent is, their range, your own range and what you think they perceive your range to be.

In my defence, it folded to him and he was a bit of a LAG. he'd been trying to steal almost every orbit.

If it's a cash game, he might have enough of a stack to justify set mining; I still prefer just folding preflop.. If it's a tournament, I think it's a clear fold.

It sounds like you made a good assessment of his range, given that he folded.