Anywhere you go, I'll follow you down

Flop in a call, because he should really only have 55/Q9/KQ that are ahead of us. Q9 may fold preflop and KQ may raise. QQ/99/AQ should raise preflop, but not always with passives.

On the river, when he bets less than allin, it somewhat discounts straights, so you have odds to call.

That the river is close shows how bad the turn is. You need to get hands that are behind to fold or go allin.

I understand doc but its very game specific. Yea I could make it 50 pre and take down the pot. I guess if they're calling QJo then I should raise more for value, but this is really a nitpick thing. I have reasons for using different sizes like in some threads where you suggest raising bigger..the very reason I raised small(ish) to begin with was to induce a 3-bet or look weak. I just don't want to write an essay every time about why I did what I did.

In this hand for example one or two of the limpers are the kinds of guys that limp AJo AQo and then just call a raise..if I start to go big I just end up value owning myself and the question of what am I looking to do with my bet becomes an issue.

Typing this with the best intentions towards seeing your results improve...

I would understand and accept that your smaller raise sizing is "game specific" if it wasn't something you seem to do the vast majority of the time, and / or if you offered some rationale to go along with it. I can't recall you ever offering up any explanation for using a small raise size pre.

Given the lengthy descriptions / detailed reads on your opponents and the multiple hand histories you often provide, the lack of rationale provided for your small raise sizes would seem more likely to be the result of in-game laziness than a post-game desire to keep your threads from becoming untidy.

That you refuse to acknowledge your small pre-flop raise sizes may be a leak, and ought to be addressed, would seem to suggest you disagree (which would align with your post above), or an underlying stubbornness / resistance to change.

Without revisiting every thread in which I've implored you to raise bigger, I'd be willing to bet that in at least some of, if not most of those threads, there was an indication that your opponents were loose-passive or it was generally a splashy game with loose action, which should be an obvious clue to raise bigger.

The point of raising bigger is NOT simply to take it down pre. Though taking it down pre-flop generally means taking it down pre-rake, which tends to be a boost to our win-rate, and is hardly a bad thing.

The larger and more important reasons for raising bigger is that you're building a bigger pot, and signaling more strength, and you'll generally be less likely to contest a pot multi-way. Generally, having a lower SPR, a stronger perceived range, and fewer opponents to out-play makes a hand easier to navigate post-flop.

As a side-benefit, winning fewer yet bigger pots post-flop means you'll be paying proportionally less in rake. Would you rather win 10 pots of $50 each, and pay $5 rake ten times, or win 1 pot of $500, and pay $5 rake one time? The answer ought to be obvious. The implications even more so.

If your reasoning for raising smaller was to induce a 3B, okay. But did it work? And if it did induce the 3B, did you then 4B? My memory may not be perfect, but if I saw one of your hands play out that way, I'd think it would stand out to me. I'd probably be the first to congratulate you on a successful execution of an unorthodox tactic, and I'd remember it later. I can't say I recall any such hand.

No one playing low stakes makes a habit of raising small to induce light 3B's. If it's done, it would be an unusual exploit tailored to a very specific set of circumstances. There just isn't enough 3B'ing in low stakes games to make the tactic +EV long term.

Even if that was your rationale, I strongly suspect many here would view it as FPS. And to the extent that the small opens did NOT induce all that many 3B's, that assessment would be at least reasonable, if not entirely accurate.

Case in point, if you're now telling us that one or more limpers in this pot have been limping with some hands that could otherwise justifiably open for a raise, then I'd question your reasoning for raising QJs at all, for any size.

Why would you open QJs for a raise over limps from one or more opponents who you know would limp AQ/AJ? Especially if you know they limp with those hands intending to call a raise, rather than fold to a raise? You weren't hoping to induce them to 3B here, were you? Why would you want to induce a 3B from a stronger range pre-flop?

If you know they're going to limp-call with AQ/AJ, why not over-limp with QJ, or just fold QJ, and raise with a tighter range? (Which would make it even more viable for you to open for a larger size.)

Do you really not see the breakdown in logic there? And, if you do, is it worth asking if they MIGHT start over-folding some of those hands, either pre or post, if you were to start using bigger raise sizes pre, and used more thoughtful bet sizes post?

Again, referring back to this exact pot - do you think V would have limped in and over-called a bigger raise with QJo? If he would have, do you think he would have donked flop? Do you think he would have called if you jammed turn?

If the answers to any of those questions is "No", even SOME of the time, consider the boost to your win-rate. What does it look like, if opponents fold the same hand you're holding to your raise pre, or fold the same hand you have to your turn jam, and aren't still in the hand on the river, and thus can't barrel again, putting you in a $hlt spot?

What does it look like if they call a bigger raise pre, donk for a bigger size on the flop, and then fold on the turn, or even better, fold on the river, or better yet, call the river, with a worse hand? How much money does that add to your bankroll, if that happens just once or twice a session?

What you are looking to do with your bet size is and for quite some time has been an issue in many of your threads.

At least once in recent memory (which likely means at least twice in the past year), I've pointed out your betting patterns to you. You routinely open for a small size pre, which induces loose action in splashy games, at the cost of making it more difficult to range your opponents post. And then you tend to use bet sizes post-flop which would seem likely to do the opposite of what one would think you'd be trying to accomplish.

Like, you're sizing way up in spots where you should be sizing down, and vice-versa. I'm quite certain you rarely if ever provide any reasoning for your post-flop bet sizing, but when you do, it often would seem to run counter to the reads or hand histories you provided. You're blasting off into calling stations or strong ranges, and giving up after dragging opponents to the river with weak ranges.

You don't need to listen to me. I'm an a$$hole. Listen to illiterat, or GreatWhiteFish, or whomever you deem to be worth listening to. I know I'm not the only one who's called out your bet sizing as being problematic.

I want to see you improve and win. It saddens me to think you may be too stubborn to even try doing something different, despite someone who's been insanely patient telling you to try it more than a dozen times in as many months.

Just try raising bigger pre in your next session. While you're at it, ask what your opponents' ranges are, and what your specific hand's incentives are before taking any actions post, and try to match your bet sizing to those ranges and incentives.

Good luck, Banana. I hope you crush.

Banana always seems to use small preflop raise sizes. It seems to me dependent on the table and the player's style. I don't see it should be a big issue.

I agree that larger raises are generally better in loose passive live games. I would generally recommend going as big as the game allows, up to just below the point that people actually tighten up significantly and only continue with premiums. I've played in plenty of 2/5 games where a $50 open is "standard" and will get called by two or three players every time (and 1/3/6 is effectively the same type of game).

If you're opening this big, you generally want to be doing it with a tightish range. It might be more fun to splash around with lots of speculative hands while opening to smaller sizes, but opening big with a tight aggressive range tends to be the most profitable strategy in these types of games. If you increase your standard open sizing to the point that you can't profitably play a lot of the small pairs and JTs type of hands, that doesn't mean you can't still profitably limp behind with them in the CO and BTN.

It's an issue in splashy low stakes games, to the extent Banana ends up paying more in rake, and ends up in a lot of post-flop situations where his opponents are going to have wider ranges that can rep more hands on more boards, and he'll struggle to find the highest EV lines.

It's also just runs counter to the most common / basic population reads at low stakes. We know low stakes opponents call too much. Raising for small sizes just hurts our win rate.

Every time I see someone consistently opening for small sizes, I pay attention to their in-game results. Very often, they end up winning small pots and losing big pots. If they're TAG, they can incrementally build their stacks and mostly stay out of difficult spots. But they're susceptible to getting coolered by hands their opponents "shouldn't" have.

Banana isn't TAG, clearly. He seems to vacillate between LAG and whale or maniac. When opponents see him spewing / punting, they're going to start calling him even wider, making it even harder for him to range them and realize his equity post-flop.

Why else would the local 25/50 regs want to play him HU at 1/3? Clearly they see his leaks, and believe those leaks represent a ton of potential EV. If they think it's profitable enough to play him HU at 1/3 rather than play a 25/50 ring game, I'd think even a low stakes rec-fish would notice his leaks enough to make the most obvious adjustments against him.

I will try to remember to razor bigger pre thanks doc

The thing is the bigger you go the tighter your range should generally be. If you just go bigger with a loose range it could actually hurt your results. For example if you open big with a loose range people can exploit you with 3-bets.

You've got to ask yourself whether your real goal is to maximize your profit, or whether you just want to splash around. For anyone that really wants to make money in low stakes games, the rake makes the decision for you and you have to focus on betting big with a strong range.

Edit: To clarify what I mean before someone says no one is going to exploit you with 3-bets in low stakes... What I meant is that if you're opening to something like 10 BB, the typical low stakes tendency to 3-bet with something like QQ+ and AK actually starts to become closer to the correct response. You open big to exploit their tendency to call too wide with weak hands, but if you do it with too wide of a range you run the risk of getting exploited yourself.

Consider that when we raise with a hand like QJs, we're BLUFFING.

If we don't improve in some way, or get our opponents to fold, we'll usually lose at showdown. How confident are you that you can make an opponent fold by the river, when you raise small pre, and you don't really know what their range is post?

Taking it down uncontested pre is a win. We can't go broke making a profit.

You do you. Personally, I don't mind winning pots pre-flop / pre-rake, and going for max value post when I actually have a hand, or max fold equity when I don't.