1/2: Small cbets are getting me in trouble

Post flop seems reasonable. If you think this guy never has 3X and will make nitty folds, 3betting flop or XRAI on turn make sense too. You have a ton of equity here, hard to screw it up.

Pre-flop sizing on the other hand is a clear mistake. The title of this thread should be “small 3bets OOP with marginal hands are getting me in trouble.”

Yeah, I don't see the point in the small flop sizing. Since you both know he doesn't have a 3, you have a big range / nuts advantage on the flop. QQ+ has almost everything crushed, and you can even have a 3. There is a trend to small 3-bets from solvers or whatever, but not sure it works well at live low stakes when people will call whatever.

As played, you could 3! the flop and shove the turn. However, he isn't bluffing much raising into the preflop 3-bettor, and you don't make your money getting 1/2 players to fold good hands.

You post results. It is going to be hard to get him to fold top pair button versus blind. You were close in equity on the flop, but lost. Yeah, if you had taken an aggressive line you might have been able to get him to fold what he had.

Grunch:

PRE - this guy is a nit and he's opening 6BB on the BTN. And, you 3B him from SB with A9s? Why?

I'm all for playing raise-or-fold from the SB, but unless the BB likes to squeeze, this is one situation where I'd be doing some flat calling. We could also just fold, and not worry about it.

The guy is on our direct right. We'll have position on him 90% of the time. We don't need to 3B him light from OOP.

FLOP - I wouldn't range bet from OOP. In a 3BP and HU as the PFR, I'd be doing a lot of checking. Other than flopping the NFD with one over, we don't have much going on, and we're drawing almost dead vs JJ, which seems like it would be in his range here.

Nits don't like folding post flop when they play so tight pre-flop. This c-bet isn't getting through very often. I'd mostly just check flop and look to make a delayed c-bet on the turn, especially if we pick up equity.

Also, $30 into $80 isn't that small a c-bet in a 3BP. It's over 1/3 pot.

As played, I wouldn't fold to his small raise, but I wouldn't like this situation at all.

TURN - check is good. Check fold is probably the best play when he bets half pot. He raised pre, called a 3B, raised flop, and bet enough to make the river an easy jam. He's probably not bluffing. And it's hard for us to know if our draw is any good.

It's not the c-bet size that got you in trouble here.

Both Doc and OP suggested check-folding the turn. That would be a mistake IMO. You can't fold the nut flush draw and a pair to a half pot bet, even against a nit who is supposedly never bluffing. It is a pot odds call even against QQ. Need 25% equity and A9dd has 29.55% equity OTT. Presumably have some implied odds on a diamond too, provided you plan to donk.

Yeah, folding turn would be horrible.

I would cbet larger with a good draw, but it would be hard to get villain to fold top pair button versus blind.

It is possible to 3! the flop and shove a blank turn, representing an overpair, but you would be in trouble if villain had trips.

Hm... I was thinking about folding to flop raise, 33/JJ. You said guy was uber nit, only 33/JJ makes sense on such flop.

The reveal made no sense imho.

I think the hand looks mostly fine honestly. Pre is questionable, probably just fold a lot vs 6x but maybe 6x opens are the ''norm'' in this game. Call fine too.

Post-flop seems entirely standard. I wouldn't turn my hand into a bluff either, I don't think the range that raises our bets here will be doing much folding. Sure he's face up but not convinced that face up range folds vs a crai on turn.

I'm probably not 3betting tight players with A9s, from OOP, when they open.

Hyper nits don't raise JT on J33 two tone, esp. in 3bet pots.

Small bet here is probably supposed to be 20, you can also start with a check.

Honestly think flop is closer to a fold after the raise, esp. given the read. You probably have no implied odds on the A or the flush, as both are obvious fold cards for him ... unless you hit and it's not good. Yes, you technically have close to the odds to call for just the turn (assuming everything is live), but then you often put more money in on the turn to see the river. Would only call if I'm planning to bluff at least K turns and probably Q too (which kind of means we have to know exactly what his hand is).

He's probably supposed to bet much bigger on the turn, but this size is at least close to losing anyway.

If you really think that sizing up flop+turn wins, then x/shoving turn almost has to win more.

But bluffing tight players off TP+ doesn't seem like a great plan to start off with.

I don't think you can fold to the small flop raise. You were about 45% against his actual hand. You know he doesn't have a 3.

You speak of folding bottom 2 in a limped multiway pot is nitty... it isn't. He xr got called then got jammed on, bottom 2p is virtually never good with that action.

Then V shows up in a 3! pot with JTs and x/r appropriately, bets for value on the turn and gets max value from the nfd. Perhaps the problem is that the V you're calling a nit is actually a competent poker player capable of reading the situation.

As for the small bet, the point is to get V to continue wide. You bet big and your just getting the under pairs to fold. Jx, overpairs and 3x (V absolutely has A3 and reasonably could have K3s) aren't folding to a big bet. So if you bet big, you're against a strong range.

Maybe it's just me but the flop call is terrible imo. Raise or fold.
V shouldn't be raising here in theory and his 3x is limited. He has Jx almost always, sometimes JJ, QQ, A3, K3. Maybe Kx fd. When we call and then check, we give Jx+ an easy value bet. Which is his entire value range. We have to pay it off, and it's very hard to get value if we hit. In other words, we are hoping to get lucky and Jx isn't paying us anyway (we know v has a disciplined fold button).

If we 3! flop, we preserve AA/KK/QQ/JJ in our range. Even AJ has a very hard time continuing (and we know V is capable of a disciplined fold). I forgot stack sizes, but we can either 3!/open jam turn or just jam flop depending on stacks. What happens?

We are snapped off by A3, K3, QQ. Jx, it's a really hard call, especially at $1/$2. I'd have to have some read to call down with AJ if V 3! pre then 3! flop. In a $1/$2 casino, my default would be fold. And if V is calling with Jx, we have reasonable equity. We don't need much fold equity to make a jam EV+, especially if V ever calls with a hand like KQdd.

AP, H just fished for a draw that would struggle to get paid.

Folding the flop for an additional $40 is really bad IMO. Getting direct odds to call against his value range. Hero bet small and got min-raised practically. Villain should never have a boat or quads here.

Why do you think there are no implied odds on a flush completing card? If the turn is a low diamond (2d - Td) and the river is a blank, you don't think you can get any additional money from top pair? It's a 3bet pot!

Yeh, if you put any reasonable range in for V you end up with 30-40% equity on the flop ... more likely 35-40% (esp. given reveal). Which is great given we are calling 40 into 180. BUT that's assuming you make it to the river, and you are OOP vs. a completely uncapped range. So unless you have some weird image where you 100% get paid off, I think it's much closer than it appears (what I tried to say the first time).

I will also say that IMO people capable of bet/folding bottom two on Q73 can 100% have JJ and 33 here.

On the other hand, he did only bet half pot on the turn.

Diamonds are the only draw. Are you calling TT/99/88 here? KQ/T9? I think it's not that hard for V to almost perfectly see what your range looks like when you bet/call flop, so you massively under realize your equity in practise.

I guess it's unfair to say you never get more money, but OOP I doubt you get enough and then there are enough turns like this where your draw is half the value it was on the flop but folding feels worse.

As Yami said, raise or fold flop unless you have reads and some kind of plan.

Can you show me a "reasonable range" that A9dd has only 30% against? Seems hyperbolic.

Have you really seen someone raise quads on the flop in position in a 3bet pot on a board like J33? Top boat maybe, but still seems incredibly unlikely as this is a classic trap spot. Also how does him bet/folding 73 on Q735 in a limped pot make any difference at all in that?

Yeah there are some turns we might have to call a second street on, including a 9. But there are also turns we get a free river on, like a K or Q. And I am really comfortable folding the turn on a blank if he sizes up.

I think we clearly can get another small street of value in on many flush-completing runouts. Not a ton of money, but enough that it is significant. But we also don't need to because the price on the flop is so good.

Why is my range face up if I call the flop raise? Why do you think that a random nitfish is going to be able to play perfectly after I do that? That is a wild assumption to me. FWIW I would absolutely bet/call some TT and 99 on the flop, as well as AK with a diamond and KQs and T9s with the BDFD. I would also just call overpairs sometimes, as well as JX.

You started a thread about small cbets 7 months ago. So what did you learn from that?

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/170/l...

Probably played fine postflop. You said he was a nit and he opened 6x on the button. I would fold preflop. He can have all hands that dominate yours, but it is unlikely you are way ahead. 3! and call are both OK I guess.

I know solvers are into checking or cbetting small. However, live you often have an overpair or TPTK or something like that. You want to get value and protection with big hands and want to get some folds with bluffs and semibluffs. I really don't like less than half pot with a range and nuts advantage and semibluffing with the nut flush draw.

you said he's a NIT , so vs a nit A9 is ahead of nothing , easy fold pre

having shown J10 , I wouldn't call him a nit

A9s != A9 and JTs != JT. Would have to be an uber nit to open fold JTs on the button. Folding A9s here is probably best.

In my experience the flop raise (or donk) is almost always top pair throughout the low stakes population. If you interpret it that way, you will be right most of the time.

Fold to the flop raise - don’t chase a diamond draw with a pair on board. You simply trapped yourself, improving when the nine hit the turn.
Fold to aggression is how we exploit nits (and most other low stakes players).

$12 was a standard (rather small) open at this game, he usually opened $16-19 with premiums.

You shouldn't have put the results in the title.

I think you played it ok, but it seems like raising either the flop or turn could be much better. Hard to hang on with a jack, even with the FD out there when you have all the overpairs. Doubtful he has 3x - he should only have A3s. Boats and quads probably not raising that often. We also have the massive equity advantage, which is why his raise on this board doesn't make much sense to me. In his shoes, there could be some flop raises in a GTO sim, but I would be shocked if it were more than 5%.

Regarding flop sizing - nobody says that you "have" to bet small and wide in every spot. You could go bigger for exploit reasons, bearing in mind that you probably can't range bet the flop anymore and that you'll be up against a stronger range on the turn. That said, I think going small is really good here because your nitty opponents are likely over-folding to a smallish flop c-bet.

i cant think of a non condescending way to say this. if you sign up for a strategy forum and post here regularly and are advocating to fold the flop or turn in this hand you should find a new hobby.

am confused how the history hand makes villain a hyper nit

the thread mostly just seems like results oriented slop while making sure to insult your opponent to make u feel better about yourself. the counter to what he's doing is obvious

his hand raises a sliver at this sizing, and will go up dramatically if you are range betting/ not 3bing the flop enough. probably his strategy is max exploiting (accidentally) what you're doing. but feel free to call him a nit and lmao at his raise and conclude the hand shows how bad your opponents play

here is his flop strat if i lock oop to cbet range and only 3b the flop with overpairs

nits dont raise flops with TPMK and barrel turn when called.