$5 NLHE 6-max: how much value I miss?

[tt124f]

ALl player is playing deep stack.Pre-Flop: ($0.07) Hero is BTU with 8♥ 7♣
2 players fold, CO calls, hero calls, 1 fold, BB checks.

Flop: ($0.17) J♥ T♣ 9♠ (3 players)
BB checks, CO checks, hero bets $0.09, BB calls, CO folds.

Turn: ($0.35) 7♥ (2 players)
BB bets $0.35, hero calls.

River: ($1.05) A♥ (2 players)
BB checks, hero checks.

BB actually has Jh9d
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I just join the table so I have no reads on BB. I bet at that very coordinated board meaning my range is very strong, so his big lead must mean something strong too, in this case specifically an 8, or even Q8! Otherwise some poorly played draw, given the board I think some random flush and straight draw is possible. So shall I raise this turn?
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At river he checks which confuses me. If he does have an 8 I do not think he will stop betting. He could randomely slow play a flush which is not likely but possible. I do not expect sets and two pairs too often because otherwise his flop and turn actions doesn't make sense. For these reasons I check but I do not have good feeling. Any advice?
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[Sidetracked]

You flopped the ignorant end of a straight, the turn pretty much counterfeited your hand, and the river wasn't great either.

You still ended up with 2 good streets of value, so all in all, not a bad result.

 

[fundiver199]

You flopped the ignorant end of a straight, the turn pretty much counterfeited your hand, and the river wasn't great either. You still ended up with 2 good streets of value, so all in all, not a bad result.

I agree. Just as we should not get results oriented, when we lose, we should also not get results oriented, when we win, and Villain shows up with a hand, he should not have, and which might have called a river bet. He was obviously just some donkey, who did not know, what to do with his two pair, when the 1-liner came on the turn. But really he should have at least an 8 here most of the time, so we are totally happy to check behind and take a showdown expecting a lot of chopped pots.

 

[jaworek1405]

Hello, I think that in this situation we can wonder about bet on the river for value. I think that we can't think that opponent has straight from the flop with some Q8, because it is a little bad thinking in poker. Yes, sometimes, very rarely possible is that opponent will have better straight on the flop, but it is very rare situation. So I think that it is worth to risk on the river and play bet to 50% of the pot. If opponent will decided raise us on the river, then we will have hard fold, because we probably have worse hand. It seems that opponent was afraid the flush on the river. GL

 

[fletchdad]

I hate the call pre. Why?

Bet bigger on flop and raise the turn. He may call with a FD, and worse case you lost to his better straight or chop, but he has enough other cards in his range to make a turn raise +ev. If he reraises, well, oops, but I am not letting FD or OESD/gutshots get ther that cheap. River check behind fine, as he is probably only calling with better anyway or folding worse so no value loss there. IMHO.

 

[John A]

Fold or raise pre-flop.

Bet more on these kinds of board textures on the flop. I don't hate a turn raise, especially as part of your bluff range. And def bet the river. If your opponent checks at that point after that action, then you're looking at a decent mid strength hand or a hand that's folding. He's not checking w/ a flush and at some point he'd be CRing with KQ.

 

[fundiver199]

Fold or raise pre-flop.

I completely missed this in my first reply, but this hand should not be limped behind. Mostly I would just fold and look for better hands to isolate the limper. Even just a suited connector rather than an offsuit one.

Bet more on these kinds of board textures on the flop.

Can be on board with that especially in a limped pot, where the pot is very small to begin with.

I don't hate a turn raise, especially as part of your bluff range.

Here I definitely disagree. When Villain donk lead the turn for full pot, he is representing at least another 8, but he could also have KQ or Q8, and given that he got a freeplay, these hands are definitely in his range. We can clearly not raise for value, but our hand is to strong to either fold or turn into a bluff. Calling is the only play, that ever makes sense here.

And def bet the river. If your opponent checks at that point after that action, then you're looking at a decent mid strength hand or a hand that's folding. He's not checking w/ a flush and at some point he'd be CRing with KQ.

I agree, that the frequenzy of "traps" with a backdoor flush is probably low, but I can certainly see KQ, Q8 or 8X play like this being timid about the flush. And I still think, these hands are the majority of his range. So much like on the turn I dont see much point in betting, unless we are specifically trying to push him off a chopped pot. But at 5NL and against someone taking this line I am not even sure, it would work that often.

 

[John A]

Fun... you're allowed to disagree, but just this once.

My advice to new players at 5NL is to encourage aggressive value betting. It's better to be over aggressive w/ VB at this level, than under, and you especially don't want them thinking monsters are under the bed.

So to your analysis, the hand range is a bit off in my experience. First of all, if you're saying KQ is likely, then you're saying this player isn't very good, and if that's the case, then there's a lot of hands they will over value and pay off with.

Q8 would normally be more likely, except this line makes no sense. He again could be bad, but just check/call a small bet MW on that board texture, and then pot the turn when a 4 way straight hits... that's pretty bad even for a bad player. You don't want to under value your hand on the flop and then scare someone away with TP or 2 pair. Just doesn't make sense, but I'd still keep is in his range at a discount.

Really you're leaving out a ton of hands that would much more likely play this way and pay off, and over focusing on the monsters that OP loses against - QT, Jx, J7, T7, 97, Q7, KT, ThXh, 9hXh. Now any of the Tx and 9x are great turn bets. Anytime you can get your opponent to fold a better Jx or Tx, this is a major equity swing. Same with hands like Q7.

Then we add is some misplayed two pairs and possibly even 77, and there's enough worse value hands that will pay at this level versus monster hands that check the river. The main hands that would check the river would really only be backdoor flushes and some 8x. There's way more two pairs and splits though. Several of those one pair hands that missed their combo draw will fold of course.

I hope that helps explain things a little more.

 

[fundiver199]

Its all good, but I think, we will just need to agree to disagree on this one. I think, its massively weird, that he donk bet two pair on the turn, so I would never put those kind of hands in his range, when he check the river. And even if he can have them, we still dont know, if he would have called a river bet

 

[John A]

Its all good, but I think, we will just need to agree to disagree on this one. I think, its massively weird, that he donk bet two pair on the turn, so I would never put those kind of hands in his range, when he check the river. And even if he can have them, we still dont know, if he would have called a river bet

The biggest mistake I see poker players make is projecting how they see and understand the game onto other players. I literally see it all the time, and it's a big mistake. You need to become an objective observer as much as possible and look for patterns in play. And then always ask yourself, what was the kind of player personality looking to do? How were they thinking about this hand or situation? Now of course with really good regulars, there will be SOME similarities in thought because you guys are mostly drinking from the same knowledge pool, but this is not the case with casual or bad players which are abundant at micro stakes.

If I have a hand play out like this in real time, I can tell you that I instantly know this person is a bad player, so how I approach my betting completely changes based on that. I know he's bad because of the hand range I just told you. All of that is going through my head. Once he checks the river, it confirms my suspicion because he should be shoving or over betting that river w/ his turn range.

What do bad players do the most FunD? They over value hands, and pay off because they want to see what their opponent had. They aren't grinders, and the information is more valuable to them then to you or I. This is especially true in live games.

 

[fletchdad]

Fold or raise pre-flop.

Bet more on these kinds of board textures on the flop. I don't hate a turn raise, especially as part of your bluff range. And def bet the river. If your opponent checks at that point after that action, then you're looking at a decent mid strength hand or a hand that's folding. He's not checking w/ a flush and at some point he'd be CRing with KQ.

OK, bet OTR. I was thinking we won't get many worse hands to call, where am I leaking here?

 

[fundiver199]

The biggest mistake I see poker players make is projecting how they see and understand the game onto other players. I literally see it all the time, and it's a big mistake. You need to become an objective observer as much as possible and look for patterns in play. And then always ask yourself, what was the kind of player personality looking to do? How were they thinking about this hand or situation? Now of course with really good regulars, there will be SOME similarities in thought because you guys are mostly drinking from the same knowledge pool, but this is not the case with casual or bad players which are abundant at micro stakes.

If I have a hand play out like this in real time, I can tell you that I instantly know this person is a bad player, so how I approach my betting completely changes based on that. I know he's bad because of the hand range I just told you. All of that is going through my head. Once he checks the river, it confirms my suspicion because he should be shoving or over betting that river w/ his turn range.

What do bad players do the most FunD? They over value hands, and pay off because they want to see what their opponent had. They aren't grinders, and the information is more valuable to them then to you or I. This is especially true in live games.

I actually agree with all of this, but I would still range this guy differently based on his actions and the "bad player psycology", which you talk about. Bad players hate to fold, but they are usually also passive, and they love to slowplay and "trap".

So its totally reasonable for a bad player to not isolate with KQ preflop, when he is in the big blind. And when he then flop the nuts, he dont want to chase the little rabbit away, so he just check-call. Then however on the turn a flushdraw turns up, and he panick about that and donk lead for full pot hoping to get the flushdraw to fold.

On the river his nightmare comes true, because the flushdraw comes in, so he check. This all makes complete sense for a bad player, and this is why, I put all 16 combos of KQ and all 12 combos of Q8 in his range.

Him playing a flopped two pair this way is a little more strange even for a bad player. After all the turn card was really bad for him, since any 8 now had a straight. But maybe he did not even notice this and just saw the flushdraw. Or maybe he panicked and did not know, what to do with a hand, which was confusing to him.

This however is not something, I would expect as the default even for a bad player. So I will substantially reduce the flopped two pair. A turned two pair makes a little more sense, because maybe he simply does not understand his relative hand strength and got overly excited, when he "improved".

All in all I just think, valuebetting this river is a little to thin, but of course it also depends on, which sizing hero goes for. Anyways thanks for the discussion about, what is definitely an interesting hand

 

[John A]

I actually agree with all of this, but I would still range this guy differently based on his actions and the "bad player psycology", which you talk about. Bad players hate to fold, but they are usually also passive, and they love to slowplay and "trap".

So its totally reasonable for a bad player to not isolate with KQ preflop, when he is in the big blind. And when he then flop the nuts, he dont want to chase the little rabbit away, so he just check-call. Then however on the turn a flushdraw turns up, and he panick about that and donk lead for full pot hoping to get the flushdraw to fold.

On the river his nightmare comes true, because the flushdraw comes in, so he check. This all makes complete sense for a bad player, and this is why, I put all 16 combos of KQ and all 12 combos of Q8 in his range.

I'm just going to give you a little more about how I think through hand ranges. You can ignore or take it if you want. If you want some validation, just ask anyone who has taken a coaching lesson from me before or had me sweat them and ask them how good I am at putting people on ranges. I'm not claiming to be the best, just offering what I do know about the game and how I approach it.


Correct - PRE-FLOP this is entirely possible (commenting on bolded section above)... except you're missing how two points fit together. Bad player = they will not play hands ideally, and over value their hands.

There's a range of bad players. I usually try and rank them 1 - 10 and if I don't have more than one hand on someone, I try and put them at a mean of 5. 5 meaning they will miss value, not raise the correct hands, and over value their hands, but they won't be total morons.

A value of 1 for me would be someone who would massively **** up a hand. If someone had KQ and Q8 here and played it like this, I would rate them a 1. It's not just one action that gets them to a 1, but several actions.

A 4-6 to me would sometimes not raise pre-flop... if we didn't have other streets, KQ would be 100% in their range. But we do have more streets. When that person doesn't CR the flop or lead, that number drops for me, maybe to a 3. So I'd still have KQ in their range, but I'd remove some combos. Then when they pot lead the turn, I'd drop it to a 1-2. Why? Because it makes little sense to not CR the flop AND then try and scare off opponents who have top pair or 2 pair. It's about as backwards as you can get in poker theory. The same w/ Q8.

So you rarely say someone NEVER has X hand, but usually you discount their range (in this example I said I'd include Q8 but discount it). I would remove KQ however, maybe put 1 combo in.

Again, just my two cents on how to really range your opponents. It seems to work for me.

 

[John A]

OK, bet OTR. I was thinking we won't get many worse hands to call, where am I leaking here?

It depends on the stakes you're playing, but it's probably not a major leak. See my above post. I'm an aggressive value better against bad players based on 2 main things. 1) The lower you're ranking your opponent, the more aggressive you need to be in your value betting. 2) If they are check/calling the whole way.