PokerStars - $0.05 NL - Holdem - 6 players


CO: 112.6 BB
BTN: 220.2 BB
SB: 70 BB
BB: 98 BB
Hero (UTG): 99.2 BB
MP: 57.8 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J♥ Q♥

Hero raises to 4 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 3 BB

Flop: (8.4 BB, 2 players) 4♥ T♥ K♦
BB checks, Hero bets 4.8 BB, BB calls 4.8 BB

Turn: (18 BB, 2 players) 7♥
BB checks, Hero bets 13 BB, BB calls 13 BB

River: (44 BB, 2 players) 9♥
BB bets 42 BB, Hero calls 42 BB

Sorry it is new player, therefore I have not data for player. Give me advice, what I need to do in this situations, thanks)

Originally Posted by Mcclares

PokerStars - $0.05 NL - Holdem - 6 players


CO: 112.6 BB
BTN: 220.2 BB
SB: 70 BB
BB: 98 BB
Hero (UTG): 99.2 BB
MP: 57.8 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J♥ Q♥

Hero raises to 4 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 3 BB

Flop: (8.4 BB, 2 players) 4♥ T♥ K♦
BB checks, Hero bets 4.8 BB, BB calls 4.8 BB

Turn: (18 BB, 2 players) 7♥
BB checks, Hero bets 13 BB, BB calls 13 BB

River: (44 BB, 2 players) 9♥
BB bets 42 BB, Hero calls 42 BB

Sorry it is new player, therefore I have not data for player. Give me advice, what I need to do in this situations, thanks)

Hello there Mcclares, thank you very much for posting your hand.
Observation: I see you are not playing 100 BB strategy. Try to play always with 100 BB ES minimum so when it comes stacking situation we are getting odds for a pot of 200 BB minimum.

The Preflop Action

Given the table have only 6 players it is okay to be opening QJs from UTG. For the same reason I would not go for a 4x raise, because there are less players to act after us. Raise to 3x it is okay here. BB calls and we go to a heads-up flop:

The postflop

The Flop

A very good flop for our range that opens from UTG, we completely smash here and if BB pays too much we can go for 1/2 pot, 2/3 pot, if V is so fishy even 3/4 pot ready to go on many turns and rivers. BB calls your 1/2 pot.

The Turn

Very sweet because now we have the 3rd and 4th nut flush, but this could be a scary card for both UTG and BB. UTG because the Top Pairs and Two Pairs will reduce their c-betting frequency on the turn, the sets also will do the same, we don't want to make the pot grows when we don't have a flush(or a decent blocker), or simply a straight draw.
And when we have a flush and c-bet turn there is a great chance of Villain oop to fold all of its bluffs and draws and maybe continue with some Two Pair. Sets I guess are not folding very easy here at the micros.
If we go checking/betting versus regulars on a turn like this, even when we have a flush we are almost never wrong. If we do it against a fish it will call you with good hands mostly, perhaps straight draws, if it has, flush draws if it has, two pair and sets.

The River

Yeah, you now could be losing for Ace of Hearts and King of Hearts, which Villain/BB is trying to represent with a donk of 100% pot. Raising here is kindda way out of line (if we are not SPR commited), but given that maybe this player is a recreational it could be Hero Calling shove river with spaz two pair and sets, if it has some.
On the other side when we shove river it would be impossible for a recreational to be folding any flush with whatever a decent kicker. Only the pure air bluffs are folding on a river like this.
The fold here seems impossible. The only question that rests as if we should put all of the rest of our stack here because neither Villain nor Hero have much more than 1/3 stack after this bet river. If it has a better flush good for him, put a note on how did it play postflop and move on.
If you had checked the turn, the pot would not be so big, then an easy call. Now we are almost forced to go all-in, knowing that many players are not even bluffing straights when it completes a 4th hearts on the river.
One thing we know: BB doesn't have many mid flushes because there are 7h, 9h and Th on the flop. You are holding the Jh and Qh. Which flush complete here and it is donking? 8h, 5h or 6h? Even worst 3h and 2h are donking here? Which AhX and KhX BB is defending versus UTG?

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa

It's a very unfortunate situation, but once there are 4 hearts on the board, your 3rd nut flush isn't worth much when facing a pot sized bet.

Wince, and then fold.

Originally Posted by Aballinamion

Hello there Mcclares, thank you very much for posting your hand.
Observation: I see you are not playing 100 BB strategy. Try to play always with 100 BB ES minimum so when it comes stacking situation we are getting odds for a pot of 200 BB minimum.

The Preflop Action

Given the table have only 6 players it is okay to be opening QJs from UTG. For the same reason I would not go for a 4x raise, because there are less players to act after us. Raise to 3x it is okay here. BB calls and we go to a heads-up flop:

The postflop

The Flop

A very good flop for our range that opens from UTG, we completely smash here and if BB pays too much we can go for 1/2 pot, 2/3 pot, if V is so fishy even 3/4 pot ready to go on many turns and rivers. BB calls your 1/2 pot.

The Turn

Very sweet because now we have the 3rd and 4th nut flush, but this could be a scary card for both UTG and BB. UTG because the Top Pairs and Two Pairs will reduce their c-betting frequency on the turn, the sets also will do the same, we don't want to make the pot grows when we don't have a flush(or a decent blocker), or simply a straight draw.
And when we have a flush and c-bet turn there is a great chance of Villain oop to fold all of its bluffs and draws and maybe continue with some Two Pair. Sets I guess are not folding very easy here at the micros.
If we go checking/betting versus regulars on a turn like this, even when we have a flush we are almost never wrong. If we do it against a fish it will call you with good hands mostly, perhaps straight draws, if it has, flush draws if it has, two pair and sets.

The River

Yeah, you now could be losing for Ace of Hearts and King of Hearts, which Villain/BB is trying to represent with a donk of 100% pot. Raising here is kindda way out of line (if we are not SPR commited), but given that maybe this player is a recreational it could be Hero Calling shove river with spaz two pair and sets, if it has some.
On the other side when we shove river it would be impossible for a recreational to be folding any flush with whatever a decent kicker. Only the pure air bluffs are folding on a river like this.
The fold here seems impossible. The only question that rests as if we should put all of the rest of our stack here because neither Villain nor Hero have much more than 1/3 stack after this bet river. If it has a better flush good for him, put a note on how did it play postflop and move on.
If you had checked the turn, the pot would not be so big, then an easy call. Now we are almost forced to go all-in, knowing that many players are not even bluffing straights when it completes a 4th hearts on the river.
One thing we know: BB doesn't have many mid flushes because there are 7h, 9h and Th on the flop. You are holding the Jh and Qh. Which flush complete here and it is donking? 8h, 5h or 6h? Even worst 3h and 2h are donking here? Which AhX and KhX BB is defending versus UTG?

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa

I agreed with you that next time will do 3x in this situatuations. Take notice, what did you say) He had here Ah8c

There are only two cards in the deck that beat you. With that being said, with you betting on the flop and the call, it looks like they have a pair of kings at least with the K of hearts. They can also have a straight draw or set in this situation. In my opinion, we cannot fold this hand, especially in the stake setting of micro stakes. Our hand beats so much of our opponents hand combos.

Hello, I agree mostly with Aballinamion. Pre flop raise for 4x looks fine. On the flop with this combo draws I play like hero, mandatory continuaution bet at least 50% of the pot. On the turn you catch a flush, we probably have the best hand and I bet also at least 50% of the pot. I think that on the river the best decision is fold. We block strong flush with Jh and Qh, opponent bets for about 100% of the pot and show us that he has something strong. I highly doubt it that opponent bluffs us. I don't think so that he plays here that big bet with flush with Th or lower. If opponent plays lower bet on the river I probably would call, but in this situation I fold.

I think, preflop, flop and turn are completely fine except for the preflop raise size. There is no need to use these large open sizes in online poker. And if you are going to it, you need to take marginal hands like QJs UTG out of your range.

The interesting spot is of course the river, and its pretty obvious, that your hand is only a bluff catcher at this point. Its also obvious, that it is easy to have you beat, because Ah or Kh can be combined with any other card to create the winning hand. So Villain can very easily have value here, and then the question is, how many bluffs can he have?

And I think, its kind of tough to find a lot of bluffs. Maybe he does still call with QJ on the turn, but that is only 9 combos. And other than that we would be looking at him turning a made hand like top pair into a bluff. You are getting around 2:1 here, and I dont think, the average unknown 5NL player is bluffing here 33% of the time. Maybe he is bluffing 10% or 20% of the time, so I would fold in this spot. And then I would keep an eye on, how this Villain play to see, if he is possible out of line.

I think, if you just make it a default to always fold bluff catchers against unknowns, when you are facing significant river aggression, then you will make your life much easier in the micros, and you will not get exploited for it. It will also reduce variance and make it easier to stay away from tilt. Sure folding here sucks, but it feels much worse to call and be shown the completely obvious hand, that beat you.

No, easy fold. There really aren't many bluff unless your opponent is turning Kx into a bluff, which at 5nl likely isn't happening a lot lately.

Originally Posted by TheDude6622

Our hand beats so much of our opponents hand combos.

But likely not hand combos, that they play this way. Its easy to get caught up in thinking, that oh we have the third nuts, so we can not fold. But on a board like this there are really many hands, that are the nuts. There are 7 seen cards, which mean, that Ah can be combined with 44 different cards to make the nuts. And its not unlikely, that a lot of them would be played exactly this way, especially if Villain is a fish. We dont know, if Villain is a fish, but to me this whole hand scream fish calling preflop with a crappy ace, fish chasing a draw, fish getting there on the river, fish trying to get paid. Fish love to do this almost pot sized betting on the river, when they have a nutted hand.

I would have raise 3x preflop, although there are reasons to go higher in such low limits games.

River is probably a scenario in which you could fold, given the 4th Heart.

Players at this level should not be inventing too much and a PSB there should indicate a very strong hand, probably Kh which had a pair on the flop before improving.

Another question to bring the conversation is: what other hands would play like that?

I also think, his betsizing is a bit of a tell. He bet 42BB into a pot of 44BB, which must be an amount, he entered manually. And why would someone do that rather than hitting the "pot" button, when its essentially the same thing? Its almost like a store selling something for 49,95 to make it look cheaper

Hi,

The way the hand played suggests to me that he's doing this move with one of the two cards that beat you and more likely with the Ace lol. (maybe he had some kind of draw like AJ, AQ or the Ah with a 10). Of course he can do it with the King too, but I think this is more rare, most times he has the Ace here. In any case we lose, so..
Since he's unknown it's an easy fold for me.

I think it was easier if you posted the photo of that hand, if it was played by you ...

Oh I Just saw your reply with his hand.
Yeah most times that donk pot size bet is the Ace there.

You received a donk bet from a passive player. It is obvious that he has a strong hand, and given that on the 4flush draw board, it is likely that you are also playing against the flush. But you only have the third most powerful flush, so in this situation, I would fold