30-60 Live Hand...2-2 Good?

[vector2]

Pretty good 30/60 game. Good mix of passive fish and LAGs. Two good players are in the blinds and my image is good so I raise from the CO with 2-2 hoping not to see a flop. Super LAG calls from the cutoff. [censored]. Button and blinds fold.

Flop:
8-3-9 Rainbow

I bet, donk raises, I three-bet, donk caps.

Turn:
8

I bet, donk calls.

River:
J

I bet, donk raises........

[mmcd]

Don't open raise 22 in the CO-1 if you have players behind you that are capable of cold-calling.

This hand is very marginal (as in unplayable) to begin with and having a "Super LAG" behind you makes this a crystal clear fold.

Having a small pocket pair out of position with the lead against a LAG opponent is seriously one of the worst situations you can get yourself into.

[vector2]

When I say Super LAG, I was really referring to his aggressiveness once he was in the hand. There was probably a 90% chance of the blinds folding and about a 50-60% chance of the LAG folding to me. But once LAG was in a hand he usually wouldn't give it up. As far as this hand goes, it really doesn't matter if I would've had anything from 77 down post-flop. So, assuming you made the raise, how would you have played it after the flop?

[mmcd]

I'd do like Tommy Angelo and check-call. If he's capable of repeatedly firing with nothing, then let him. I think your hand will be good here enough of the time to warrant seeing a showdown, but you don't want to play a big pot.

As for the river here, I have no clue what I'd do because I'd never be in this situation. Why on earth would you bet into him here, he is not folding any pair and he;s probably not calling with no pair. Check and call.

[Nate tha' Great]

[ QUOTE ]
When I say Super LAG, I was really referring to his aggressiveness once he was in the hand. There was probably a 90% chance of the blinds folding and about a 50-60% chance of the LAG folding to me. But once LAG was in a hand he usually wouldn't give it up. So, assuming you made the raise, how would you have played it after the flop?

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh, bet-fold?

The 98 combo on the board is really bad for you against a loose player's typical cold calling hands. If you're ahead, he probably has at least 4 straight outs, to go along with 6 pairing outs.

You're either a small favorite or a huge underdog, you're out of position, the pot is fairly small, and there's nothing on this board that is going to scare your opponent into incorrectly folding some sort of semibluffing hand. Fold to his raise on the flop.

[mmcd]

Super LAGs will raise a raggedy flop like this every time. Whether they have a pair, no pair, a draw, or 2 cards that are completely unrelated to the flop.

Better to check-fold rather than bet with the intention of folding to a raise. That would just be a waste of 30 bucks.

[vector2]

So the concurrence is to check-fold on this flop with a pair against a LAG? What would you be doing in this situation with AK or AQ?

[mmcd]

Read my earlier post, I said check-call him down.

[Nate tha' Great]

[ QUOTE ]
Super LAGs will raise a raggedy flop like this every time. Whether they have a pair, no pair, a draw, or 2 cards that are completely unrelated to the flop.

Better to check-fold rather than bet with the intention of folding to a raise. That would just be a waste of 30 bucks.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know that I agree about the check-fold, but all of this gets back to the point about this being a pretty awful raising hand with a Button that will cold call 30-40% of the time sitting to your immediate left. You are so vulnerable to semi-bluffs with this sort of hand, since they will always have at least 6 outs against your hand while you will only have two if behind, that it's almost impossible to choose a line that won't cost you quite a bit of money after the flop.

That aside, I know it seems strange, but do you think there's any merit to check-*calling* the flop against a player who will like never fold here for just one bet? Paricularly in a live game where you might be able to pick up some sense as to his true hand strength? You could then pick any of check-fold, check-call, check-raise, bet-fold the turn depending on the card that came off.

[vector2]

My read on the guy at the moment was that the flop didn't hit him, but he thought I had overcards and felt he could move me off the hand just by being a bully. He had seen me release a fair number of hands on the turn when I thought I was beat, and this might've inspired him to put a play on me. I think I would end up losing a lot of bets in the future if I felt my reads were good but still played the hand passively to be safe. If the flop had come a couple paint and some intermediate rag, I probably would've just bet and folded to a flop raise. On this flop, it just didn't "feel" right to release my hand to a raise.

[mmcd]

In this situation, (if his opponent is type of player I'm picturing) I would check-call the flop, check-call the the turn and check-call the river. I would lead at any A or K on the turn though. His hand strength here isn't any different than AK if he's ahead. The difference is AK likely has 6 outs rather than 2 if he's behind so he can afford push with it a little more. Against a guy like this 22 is on the positive side of a coinflip, and if hero keeps checking, this type of guy will keep betting with or without a pair. It's a shitty situation to get in in the first place, but once you see the flop, you will be unable to get any information, but you still have your slight edge, and theres almost 3bb already in the pot.

[mmcd]

Vector,

It's not a matter of making a good read and backing it up here, because unless this guy is giving away a lot with his body language there's no real way to accurately guage where these guys are at because they don't think like you or me. If he has A-high here he doesn't know whether whether he's value-betting, bluffing, or semi-bluffing. All he knows is that when it's his turn to act, he's gonna put money in the pot.

Despite the fact that this guys a Super-LAG, I still think the regular mode of analysis somewhat applies here: The more money that goes into this pot, the bigger a dog 22 is to win the hand.

[vector2]

You make a very good point. Check-calling will probably lead to the best compromise between minimizing losses and maxmizing wins. The guy had A-Jo for the rivered top pair.