2 Thin 2 Bet 2 Pair?

I like the 3bet pre.

I’m checking this whiffed flop. You have calling stations in the hand.

Bingo now you’re probably ahead. I’d bet 150.

I’m making a small bet on the river and folding to a shove.

Thanks for the feedback! Just for clarification, it was a raise over two limpers pre-flop. I was using a slightly larger sizing (7x) because I have two very loose players behind me.

I think that I check flop a lot with this hand, but decided to mix in a stab here. I don't even know that I had a good justification for doing so (besides the obvious reasons, that I can fold out AX and turn equity a few different ways) so that probably isn't great.

It's just a regular raise pre, but agree with rest of commentary especially bet fold river. I think c-bet 4 ways when we have basically nothing is not a good idea.

Agree iso pre is good. Agree flop cbet not so good (the herd has much more 6x than hero does... probably more Jx too. If it were J33 or J22, then cbet seems good).

River, yeah bet small to get crying call out of KJ or QhJh JhTh. Throw up a little and fold if x/r.

We are basically readless against the main V. So we really don't know much about his range other than the likelihood that it is capped preflop.

Flop: I don't like the c-bet mw because getting raised would be bad and we are never folding anyone's Jx here with this sizing.

Turn: V should probably donk or raise his 6x here with the FD coming on the turn, even with the paired board. It's hard to see how he turned more equity unless he has exactly KJ, some of which we block. He could have exactly AhTh I suppose.

On the other hand, what bets do we have here? Our JJ and KK want to let the V catch up. Our SDV hands want to x and get to river. So our line is a bit strange and we obviously don't have a three-street hand.

So I prefer to x turn.

River: this is a really bad card for V because we have all the boats basically. Even if he has 6x or AhTh, he has to be very careful as these are bluff-catchers for him given the runout.

I think we have to try for thin value, targeting his weaker Kx type hands. Yes, he could have slow-played a 6x that is ahead of us, but can he really raise those hands? Jamming is a mistake I think because we would be overplaying.

I probably bet 1/2 psb. Folding to his xr jam getting 2-1 would be hard to do and this is the danger of targeting thin value. The coward strategy of x behind and showing down isn't totally absurd. But the fact that he called our turn bet makes me think we can go for thin value.

Appreciate all of this feedback.

I check back with flopped top pair a lot (maybe even too much) but for some reason, I am not as good at finding the checkback with turned top pair. In my head, I saw the K and thought that I would be continuing turn with a lot of bluffs (to the extent that I have them given the mw flop scenario) so should be value-betting a bunch as well. In reality, I think it's kinda hard to get value on the turn (as you said) and checking back makes the hand much easier to play.

I agree that a river jam feels like an overplay and that it would be disgusting (but necessary) to fold to a river xjam.

It's good to have a check back range that includes some TPWK, it protects (disguises) the overall range.

My understanding of range construction is to always start with your value hands, then fill in with bluffs and ck backs. On turn, I think we clearly have a value hand and should be betting -- if you think you have a LOT of bluffs as well then size up, if you think you have few bluffs then size down. Similarly, if you have value and you think villain will continue with a LOT of worse hands then size up, if you think villain doesn't continue with a lot of worse hands then size down -- check if you think board favors villain.

Pre. seems fine ... 2-5 playing like a 1-2 game, gg.

Flop is whatever, don't hate it but I doubt we get folds much and not much info. on V's range either, unless he raises and doesn't bluff.

Turn I don't like the size. I don't mind check or going bigger, like 165-185.

If I was bluffing AQhh or something I'd probably go 200+, so just a bit less than that.

River is weird, you have like zero bluffs here, unless you are "good" enough to bluff QT/JT/Ah9h or drunk bluffing with 99 or something. Would be tempted to check back, any bet is basically targetting KJ/QJ and we aren't sure if he's bad enough to "value" shove those over a small bet ... so if you don't check then it should be like 250, IMO.

Table is playing like a 1-2 game, and JJ is def. in range for a bunch of 1-2 players here.

If we had reads that he'd hero/spew call AJ/QT/KT then maybe bet 125 is good? If he never raises QJ too.

Maybe bet when we have Qh? Even that feels borderline FPS.

This wording can be confusing here, although I've heard higher pros. use the same wording in many spots there's a lot of implied knowledge about size of range, polarity, and number of bluffs vs. value.

We bet KQo on the flop for a small size, but it would be a bad hand to bet for a big size ... because our non-pair/non-A-high hand is not really a bluff or value. Dito say 77 on the flop.

On the turn nobody should objectively have a lot of bluffs because you don't have a lot of value. Eg. QQ should be checking now. So KQ is basically the bottom of your one pair betting range, meaning you have roughly 30 one pair combos. to choose from. Would guess AAh,AhK should be thinking about checking the most ... so that's ~24 one pair combos. AhQx/QT and big flush draws can fairly easily make up enough bluffs. Also A/K turn cards are going to hit our range more often, and V might be aware of that in some way so you are giving a similar amount of information at smaller sizes.

If the flop J is the Jh matters a bit, but in general I think everyone should be more polar on the turn and betting bigger.

After betting flop I like betting bigger on the turn and checking back river.

It's hard to get value on the river from Jx or worse except for exactly QJ and KJ so I think the downside of reopening the action and value owning ourselves outweighs any small bit of value we might be able to squeeze out.

For a few reasons, mostly burnout chasing leap at MS and running terrible, I've drastically reduced my poker hours since the end of March. And been splitting where I play, and what games etc. ... so not really.

Genius runbad on my part if the 2-5 game became great 😉.

On the upside my winrate since March is like 6x what it was last year, so I probably shouldn't complain too much.

Makes sense. I don't play really long sessions and have trouble making it up on most weekdays (not a ton of double or triple status poker for me) so I don't think that Leap is doable for me, unless I go crazy hustling slots at 5x status or something. It's definitely valuable, though.

Congrats on the winrate. I am also having a good year, but a big percentage of it is from three $2K+ pots that I won off of the aforementioned whales. Hoping they stick around and I can continue making the nuts versus them.

I like this line a lot. Unfortunately, it's not what I went with

I didn't understand the hand history then --- was the river a third heart?

No. The river was an offsuit queen. Villain gave a speech, called a 60% pot bet with slow-played trips, and beat a worse hand that was betting for thin value. I would argue that meets the definition of a nitroll, but I am open to hearing differently.

Oh, he had a 6. My bad, I couldn't figure out how you were beat. LOL.

Grunch:

PRE - Seems fine to me. Guessing someone will say it's too loose.

FLOP - So multi-way, I would usually only bet my strong hands and best draws, and otherwise just check. C-betting into this many opponents seems too LAG, maybe. Not sure about sizing, either. Maybe a tad too big, but maybe fine because whales. Assuming you're planning to fold if you get x/r'd?

TURN - Seems like we can bet. Not sure what size makes the most sense. Your 40%-ish sizing seems good to me, if the goal is to cap V.

RIVER - Yeah, I think we can bet again. Thinking about what size Jx might call, maybe $250-ish. If you want to target KJ, I think you could jam. Doubt he's going to fold KJ here. He might fold QJ to a jam.

Low stakes players don't like folding pairs when the board pairs on the river and the draws brick. But I think this spot is different, if we think he has Jx, and his hand gets downgraded from TP on the flop to 3rd pair by the river, and AT/T9 come in.

Also trying to think about his JX combos. I'd think AJ might open pre, so he's more likely to have QJ or worse JX that could be pretty elastic when we go bet-bet-bet.

Just skimmed the rest of the thread and read the reveal.

Agree with others that the flop bet is questionable. The urge to c-bet as the PFR when we whiff but our opponents are calling too wide pre is understandable. But we need to rein it in when they're also stationy post.

There's value in the information we get by checking back and seeing what happens on the turn. If it checks to us again, we can make a delayed c-bet with more confidence. If the turn action in front of us is too much, we can just fold and get away from it with minimal loss.

Once you bet the flop and get called, I think your smallish turn bet sizing is good, especially when the BDFD appears. I'd think that would have to increase the frequency of V fast-playing a hand better than ours. The smallish barrel allows us to bet-fold when he x/r's, and serves to cap him when he just check-calls.

The challenge is that we don't know anything about V, and as the PFR, we could have KK or JJ here, especially when we c-bet into four opponents on the flop, so V might be playing trips like a bluff-catcher, as insane as that seems.

As played on flop and turn, I'd reason the same as you on the river, we likely have the best hand, and it's just a question of what we want to target for value. I think your sizing is in the right ballpark to target Jx or the occasional AK/AQ that didn't raise pre.

The counter-argument would seem to be that we CAN'T bet for value here, because it's too thin after we c-bet flop and barrel turn. I think it's okay to bet thin *IF* we're willing to accept that V is occasionally going to show us trips (or quads), or an insanely lucky gut-shot that got there on the river.

I think the fact that he happened to have trips is less important than considering your overall line. Other than the flop c-bet, I think your line seems reasonable. I wouldn't beat yourself up about it.

As for the nitroll, I wouldn't think of it as one. I'd be more likely to get angry at myself for over-playing thin value than angry at him for being cautious in this configuration.

I would however make a mental note on him, that he won't necessarily fast-play thick value in spots like this.

Final note - I missed it before, but if our read is that the game is playing loose-splashy, I might use a larger raise size pre. In light of the reveal, it makes sense that V could show up with some combos of 76s/65s getting a good price to call, closing the action pre, and on the flop when action folds back around to him.