Three bet delimma

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lost2qandisa

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OK, today at the CC Brovada freeroll, I was getting great hole cards. The problem was nothing was hitting the board. SO, one hand I have AQ, I fire off a 3 X BB bet. The flop shows low cards. I put 60 in the pot to bet. I now fire off a 1/2 pot bed and it is called. Turn same, no straight showing, maybe flush draw. I fire off a 1/2 pot bet. Down to something like 900 chips now. The river is a nothing card as well. Thinking I am facing a call station, I check. He shoves and I fold. Later on almost the same situation and I had AJ, when I check the turn, player shoves and I fold. One of these players knocked me out when I had AK and 3 x BB preflop and he shoved with KQ. I was down to 615 chips, so I called and he flopped a Q.

My question is, what do you do when you have done a 2 bet and know you have nothing? Do you 3 bet and hope for the best. Do you shove? Do you call these players when they shove? I am betting at least one of them had nothing.

Early in tournaments, this has happened to me a few times. It mid to short stacks me and then I have to play catch up. What do you do?
 
Propane Goat

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On the first hand, being that you were out of position and missed the flop, it gets kind of hard to decide what to do on the turn when villain calls your c-bet. Villain may have had nothing, but he had position. When blinds are low on a full table, I would be careful with AJ and AQ in early position. These aren't very strong hands when you're out of position post-flop even though they look like it, especially if you have loose callers to your left. This is particularly true when villain has hit the flop and you haven't, and since stacks are deep in the beginning lots of players will call just to see a flop and go from there.

I wanted to clarify something, 3-bet is referring to these situations: if you raise pre-flop, then a villain who acts after you re-raises, that's a 3-bet (the blinds are considered the first bet.) Or if you are post-flop, you bet, villain raises, then you re-raise, that's also a 3-bet. If there is another raise beyond the 3-bet, that's a 4-bet.
 
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el_magiciann

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If you want to bluff your opponent which is not very smart in the early stage of tournament you should raise more than 1/2 of the pot, its not worthy though as i said early in tournament, another thing is that AJ, AQ are not that good in early position and if you dont catch some good flop you better not push too hard and take it easy.
 
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your question shows a lot of holes in your overall strat i think you need to focus on just thinking about what your ranges are a lot more then "it is or isnt showing a flush draw or st8 draw"

you realize your question basically is " what do i do with decent starting hands and they call?" and well that isnt really a question that can be answered because of so many factors construct in your mind a range for him calling and you betting and see what you think you can make his range do in terms of playing against that

@el_magican: in a vacuum bluffing and bet sizing don't matter a ton. Yes they help us either steal cheaper when we can do it smaller and/or deny odds to draw profitably sometimes but it is much more important to think of how often they fold and what hands you can apply pressure too and use the other factors in this overall gameplan
 
itsmebobd

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OK, today at the CC Brovada freeroll, I was getting great hole cards. The problem was nothing was hitting the board. SO, one hand I have AQ, I fire off a 3 X BB bet. The flop shows low cards. I put 60 in the pot to bet. I now fire off a 1/2 pot bed and it is called. Turn same, no straight showing, maybe flush draw. I fire off a 1/2 pot bet. Down to something like 900 chips now. The river is a nothing card as well. Thinking I am facing a call station, I check. He shoves and I fold. Later on almost the same situation and I had AJ, when I check the turn, player shoves and I fold. One of these players knocked me out when I had AK and 3 x BB preflop and he shoved with KQ. I was down to 615 chips, so I called and he flopped a Q.
My question is, what do you do when you have done a 2 bet and know you have nothing? Do you 3 bet and hope for the best. Do you shove? Do you call these players when they shove? I am betting at least one of them had nothing.
The answer to every question in poker is : It Depends. In a vaccum I would say dont call when they shove, but it depends on the player. Does this player not see past his own 2 cards, and slowplay his big hands and bet with light holdings? Does he only bet when he has it? He is calling you after all, so he is floating you on the flop and waiting for you to run out of bullets before he pulls the trigger. Perhaps Mixing up your play more by checking sometimes when you hit...

Early in tournaments, this has happened to me a few times. It mid to short stacks me and then I have to play catch up. What do you do?
I wait for position first off, if you're firing out of position, well thats exactly what makes position so important. Dont you want to be the one checking behind if you miss, or calling their 1/2 pot bets because you suspect they are betting with crap (light)? Also, try 2.25x or 2.5x preflop, it accomplishes the same thing as 3x but you win bigger pots and lose smaller ones because light hands call and get outflopped :)
I hope some of this helps a little. I'm no pro, but I have had some moderate success at MTT's at least.
 
Arjonius

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bodog can be hard to play on because you don't know who's who and can't use anything you know about people's tendencies. That said, you never mention a couple of things that can be pretty important. One is when you cbet the flop, what was your plan for the turn if you were called? What turn cards were you going to barrel, and why? Similarly, when you did barrel the turn, what was your plan for the river, and why?

It seems possible that you were only thinking one street at a time. If so, then understand that while thinking ahead may or may not have changed the result of this hand, it's something you'll want to do to improve your game.

The other is the opponent's range. What did you put him on when he called pre-? How did his range change when he called your flop bet? And when he called your turn bet?
 
Jackdaclown

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I like these kind of plays only because I like to bet the same. Beings online there are really no tells except a few that you can get a hold of. Don't get me wrong. I do switch up my betting sizes depending on my hands plus position and who I am playing because you can not extract chips from some as easy as it is others. But when you choose to bet the same and the types of hands you hit, can really confuse players in later tournament play because they have seen you make these plays and times you have it, times you don't have it and folded on river, and times you may have or may not of had it because everyone folded out and you muck. Poker..Gotta love it!! Unfortunately you were not on the winning end of these hands, but that last hand I think you should of shoved pre flop with AK cause as I read it (correct me if I am wrong) you bet 3x the BB pre-flop and villain shoved with KQ behind you and you called. If the site has a RNG, which as far as I know pokerstars is the only site with a shuffle then is stopped until hand is over, when people call and fold can change the outcome of the community cards and with you shoving in the beginning this outcome could have been different. But we will never know.
 
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eidikos

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c bet the flop and fold on turn if you have air and no draws
 
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