From what I've learned from basic strategy videos and tutorials so far this feels like a perfect situation for a check raise so I felt pretty good about myself throwing it out. Not as great though after he calls the raise and a card comes likely hits his range and I just get blown out of the pot. I think calling after his bet is still okay since I'm getting decent pot odds for my draws and can probably extract some extra value from him on the river as well if I hit my draw since he is likely sitting on an Ace (probably AsXs from the way the hand played out?).
Should I have played this hand differently or is this just the way these hands turn out sometimes? Should I have bet again on the turn? Doesn't feel like I have a lot of fold equity with the ace out there, maybe I should have put out a smaller bet around 1/3 pot as a blocker bet to save myself some chips?
Would love some general tips for these kinds of hands, thanks!
888Poker Snap,
Hold'em No Limit - $0.01/$0.02 - 6 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat
spr349 (UTG): $2.23 (112 bb)
vadimati933 (MP): $2.02 (101 bb)
BamBrick (CO): $3.35 (168 bb)
KROHN_MM (BU): $5.05 (253 bb)
JackOscar95 (SB): $2.81 (141 bb)
Coconuthead2 (BB): $2.95 (148 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($0.03) Hero (JackOscar95) is SB with 6
♣ 5
♣
3 players fold,
KROHN_MM (BU) raises to $0.06,
JackOscar95 (SB) calls $0.05,
1 fold
Flop: ($0.14) J
♣ 4
♠ 7
♠ (2 players)
JackOscar95 (SB) checks,
KROHN_MM (BU) bets $0.07,
JackOscar95 (SB) raises to $0.19, KROHN_MM (BU) calls $0.12
Turn: ($0.52) A
♦ (2 players)
JackOscar95 (SB) checks,
KROHN_MM (BU) bets $0.26,
JackOscar95 (SB) calls $0.26
River: ($1.04) 5
♠ (2 players)
JackOscar95 (SB) checks,
KROHN_MM (BU) bets $4.54 (all-in),
JackOscar95 (SB) folds
Total pot: $1.04 (Rake: $0.06)
KROHN_MM (BU) wins $0.98
Mate, first of all we need really consider position, always, 100% of times we need to be thinking about position and how do we play from these positions.
As a rule of thumb, the vast majority of regular cash players are not flatting in a high frequency from the SB. From 2 NLHE to 200 NLHE I know they use to play like this, higher limits I am not quite familiar or aware of it.
The problem of calling preflop from the SB is simple: we are out of position in relation to the BTN and we are giving odds to the BB to have position over us, so we need to think very carefully before giving excellent odds for the player on the BTN and the player on the BB.
The same goes for completing from the SB, we are almost never doing it, specially at the micros where players limp preflop too much.
Besides, when we flat from the SB our range sucks: we don't do that with the juicy stuff, for example AQ, AK, TT+ for example, we want to protect our value range from the SB and we are raising this hands almost 100% of times.
AT 2 NLHE if we do raise from the SB only with AQ+ and TT+, awesome it will work very fine.
We are going to look forward very specific scenarios where we can be flatting safely from the SB, and there are a lot of variants to this case. Versus who we are playing with, who is the player sitting in the Big Blind, as more passive the best for us, and of course the
pot odds, we are going to call when the price is very good and we don't feel safe enough to be 3-betting preflop, either because our opponents are going to call more than they should or because they are going to level up and 4-bet more than they should and we are going to be ashamed and muck our 22, 33, 77, JTs, etc.
The postflop
The Flop
We cannot raise this flop for the very same reason that we flat preflop, so we cannot try to represent a big deal here. Second, if you are
bluffing a back door flush with 6 high, you are bluffing anything you got in any situation and it is going to hurt a lot, specially at 2 NLHE where most players don't understand anything about nothing, and are going to level against you, with whatever unexpected.
Okay, we can justify that we also have a open ended straight, but we also have reverse implied odds with the flush draw of spades, and with the proper straight draw we are looking for, because BTN can have better Straights and Flushes than you, in this situation.
Also, we have reverse implied in the case we hit our flush of clubs, so I believe that a 3-bet
bluff preflop or a fold preflop would have worked just fine, and saved a lot of trouble.
PS: stop watching tutorials and videos from YouTube: there are too many theories and conceptions that you might get confused. Try to understand the value of position and to observe the sizing of the bets. Plus all of that you have to prepare your mind to understand the perspective of ranges and how do they react with position and sizing, very complicated.
To be sincere, many professionals advocate that we should not play GTO, specially at the micro stakes, and they are right, because most of players aren't thinking in levels, as the professionals.
But it doesn't mean that the lower stakes are composed by morons, never. Bad players are thinking, but they are thinking wrong, which allow us to extract value from them. Don't imagine you are facing brainless idiots, because no one wastes its precious time with a game with absolute no effort, even when we are playing games on our smartphone or video games we are competitive and we want to do the best.
The population underestimate the whole capacity and ability of players micro and mid stakes players, and there are very good ones, who use to play for years, 99% are breakeven, but it doesn't mean they aren't thinking: they do very right things sometimes, the problem is that they never hit enough to compensate their mistakes.
Summarizing, for us not to play GTO, we must have a very good understanding of GTO. If we do not understand GTO completely, we can never play Exploitative Gaming. Ever, forget about, it is impossible to understand why we should 4-bet for bluff, why we should check-raise for bluff, and when and how we do it, not everytime we get some trash equity we are raising for bluff, there is a very solid logic for this game and when applied properly it works like the most beautiful art, like Leonardo Da Vinci could never wonder.
Regards;
Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa
