NL50 QQ .. did I hit the turn or not?

[poincaraux]

When the turn came, I figured the only hand that could reasonably be ahead of me at this point was KK. Yes? No?

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ Hero (6 max, 6 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

Hero ($104.25)
UTG ($128.64)
MP ($43.12)
CO ($0)
Button ($105.53)
SB ($47.50)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q/images/graemlins/spade.gif, Q/images/graemlins/club.gif. SB posts a blind of $0.25.
UTG calls $0.50, <font color="#CC3333">MP raises to $1</font>, Button calls $1, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to $3.5</font>, UTG calls $3.50, MP folds, Button calls $3.

Flop: ($13.25) 2/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, J/images/graemlins/club.gif, K/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="#0000FF">(4 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets $10</font>, UTG calls $10, Button calls $10.

Turn: ($43.25) Q/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(4 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero pushes</font>

Sounds like someone ran into A10o.
You played it fine, however since all three of you are deep I'd bet like 35 and the push river but it ends up being the same thing, you might just get more value. You have to play your set like its good though. NH

[ajmargarine]

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When the turn came, I figured the only hand that could reasonably be ahead of me at this point was KK. Yes? No?


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So, why on earth did u push then? Value bet it. Value bet. Stickie note on my comp says VB, VB, VB. You're missing alot of value here most of the time. Because all you end up with are folds.

Raise more preflop from the SB. I'm not even CB'ing that flop more times than not into two callers, but the turn worked out for you....then you had to go and mess it up by pushing.

[poincaraux]

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When the turn came, I figured the only hand that could reasonably be ahead of me at this point was KK. Yes? No?


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So, why on earth did u push then?

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1) Lots of money in the pot .. I wouldn't be too unhappy if I took it down now. I'm new, and I'm a little afraid of big pots.
2) I thought hands like AK,AQ,AJ might call.
3) I'm not very good.
4) There's $43 in the pot and I have $90 in my stack. If I pot it and get a call, there's $129 in the pot and I have $47 in my stack on the river. No bet of mine means much on the river at this point, right? Or are you saying that that's the point: I'm pretty committed with my set now anyway. Or are you saying I should bet something like $25, leaving a pot of $93 and a stack of $65, which is a little more meaningful? I believe you that I should probably value-bet here, but I don't really know how yet.

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Value bet it. Value bet. Stickie note on my comp says VB, VB, VB. You're missing alot of value here most of the time. Because all you end up with are folds.

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I suppose the other way to interpret that is that if I want to push with QQ there, I should also bluff sometimes to make up for it. I don't really see myself bluffing there often enough to make up for it .. what do you think?

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Raise more preflop from the SB.

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Something like $5 sound better? I tend to raise smaller here when I'm out of position, but you're probably right again.

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I'm not even CB'ing that flop more times than not into two callers,

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Me either, for what it's worth.
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but the turn worked out for you....then you had to go and mess it up by pushing.

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Ok, so you get to the river with poker left to play, unlike me. How scared are you of an A or a T? If no A or T comes, stick the rest of your stack in?

On the turn--I'd bet around 30 then with that amount in the stack end up pushing most rivers. You might pick up some extra money by betting less then getting a call on the river anyway. (as a result getting an extra call by another player potentially) You don't want to scare anyone off with this hand yet you can't give up too cheap a card.

[ajmargarine]

[ QUOTE ]
1) Lots of money in the pot .. I wouldn't be too unhappy if I took it down now. I'm new, and I'm a little afraid of big pots.
2) I thought hands like AK,AQ,AJ might call.
3) I'm not very good.
4) There's $43 in the pot and I have $90 in my stack. If I pot it and get a call, there's $129 in the pot and I have $47 in my stack on the river. No bet of mine means much on the river at this point, right? Or are you saying that that's the point: I'm pretty committed with my set now anyway. Or are you saying I should bet something like $25, leaving a pot of $93 and a stack of $65, which is a little more meaningful? I believe you that I should probably value-bet here, but I don't really know how yet.

[/ QUOTE ]

When you make a bet like this, you're likely to get called by one hand, the nut straight. Or, I suppose, the bottom end, and they both are WA of you.

If you VB, you may get called by the hands you mention, along with KJ, JT, KT, KQ, etc. But, they really can't call you if you push there, unless they are total donks. A VB of $35 there would be real nice. Prices out draws: If they call you with a weaker hand, you win, whether they hit the hand or not.

Find a style or system of value betting that you are comfortable with. Usually near pot on the flop and something around 2/3-3/4 pot on the turn. So for example, you flop TPTK HU with a pot of $8.50, bet $7 on the flop. Guy calls you pot is now about $22.50, bet something like $16 on the turn. You just have to find what you are comfortable with. And then make your contination bets the same size as your value bets. (Some people go 2/3 pot on flop, 1/2 on turn, which is fine as well)

Value betting properly is probably the key to how much success you will have at NLHE. If you can play ABC/TAG poker, you can win. How much of a winner you are is determined largely by how well you value bet. Hand reading also key, but that goes part and parcel with value betting. Don't be afraid of people chasing and hitting draws. Anytime someone chases with bad odds and hits a draw, it's good for you long term. Loose passives chasing (either draws or with a lesser made hand when they misread you) are where you make the bulk of your $$$ at NL100 and below.

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I suppose the other way to interpret that is that if I want to push with QQ there, I should also bluff sometimes to make up for it. I don't really see myself bluffing there often enough to make up for it .. what do you think?

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Get the basic ABC stuff down first before you start thinking about metagame issues. Bluff rarely until you are firm and confident in your game. One barrel, every once in awhile, no one's interested in the pot kind of bluffs are what I am talking about for a couple BB's here and there. Don't be throwing your whole stack in the middle as a bluff.

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Raise more preflop from the SB.

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Something like $5 sound better? I tend to raise smaller here when I'm out of position, but you're probably right again.

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You want to raise more when you are OOP preflop. Smaller just prices in limpers and they will have position on you throughout the hand. $5 is better for sure.

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Ok, so you get to the river with poker left to play, unlike me. How scared are you of an A or a T? If no A or T comes, stick the rest of your stack in?

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I'm more concerned about a 9, then a T. If no 9,T,A hit, I'd stick the rest in the middle. If one of those cards hit, I might c/c.

[J Chap]

FWIW, what do you do if you bet 35 on the turn, get one call, and the river pukes up a ten? Check fold or bet fold? And how much bet at that point?

[Maulik]

The hands taht will call you are AT &amp; any set... Why not bet $30-40 on the turn and see waht the river brings?

Make it $5-7 to go. Against that many limpers I'm happy taking all their limped money and if one of them wants to come along for a missed set, let'em.

[djoyce003]

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I suppose the other way to interpret that is that if I want to push with QQ there, I should also bluff sometimes to make up for it. I don't really see myself bluffing there often enough to make up for it .. what do you think?



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Easy now. You really don't want to be doing this on a bluff. Doing it as a semi-bluff is ok, because then you have outs to improve if you get called, but doing a naked bluff for your stack is stupid because you are likely to get called by a wide range of villain hands....don't bluff for your stack at these limits, but it is ok to semi-bluff. That gets you called by lots more hands with your sets thinking you are drawing.

As to this hand...you really just let lots of people with marginal hands off the hook. You are quite likely to be called only by hands that beat you here, which means you are risking 90 or whatever it is to win 30....that's a bad bet....bet the pot. Betting the pot gets you called by a much larger range of hands and could even get you raised by two pair or something...you are likely folding 2 pair hands out with this push unless they are superdonkeys, which they might well be.

[pokernose]

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I'm new, and I'm a little afraid of big pots.

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That is something you need to get over really fast. NL is all about playing big pots. Most of your profit will come from winning those.

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I tend to raise smaller here when I'm out of position, but you're probably right again.

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That is exactly opposite of the correct strategy for OOP play. You are giving your opponents a bigger edge on every round you play OOP. You want to take this pot down as quickly as possible. I would re-raise to about $5, but $7 would not be a horrible play.

I would bet the turn. If you are behind a straight, you have 10 outs. You will make good money from someone with 2 pair, unless the king hits on the river. A loose player with 1 pair may call here as well. I personally would not be completely afraid of committing all my chips here if I think I can get two people to come with me.

[poincaraux]

Holy cow, these are some phenomenal replies! Thanks, folks. I'll pour over these and respond after I've had some time to really think things over. Ya'll are awesome.

-poincaraux

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When the turn came, I figured the only hand that could reasonably be ahead of me at this point was KK. Yes? No?


[/ QUOTE ]

So, why on earth did u push then? Value bet it. Value bet. Stickie note on my comp says VB, VB, VB. You're missing alot of value here most of the time. Because all you end up with are folds.

Raise more preflop from the SB. I'm not even CB'ing that flop more times than not into two callers, but the turn worked out for you....then you had to go and mess it up by pushing.

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Do we really want to value bet this hand? With three connected broadways out there, there are a lot of possibilities for other people to catch a straight.

I generally am very aggressive with something like this.

My typical line is to check-raise, since with a big board most people will show some aggression.

Good/bad?

Bet enough to ruin any draws but NOT enough to scare away TPTK or similar. No flushy, so AT or KK (T9? nah) will re-raise less than a full push. Call any AI.

[poincaraux]

First, thanks for the great responses. Ya'll are awesome. It took me a while to get the time to read through everything, so I'll just recap and respond. Then, I'll print this out for my records. It seems like this stuff is just obvious to the better players here, but it obviously wasn't so obvious to me.

I'll tackle things in order here.

Preflop:

Hero ($104.25)
UTG ($128.64)
MP ($43.12)
CO ($0)
Button ($105.53)
SB ($47.50)

Hero is BB with Q/images/graemlins/spade.gif, Q/images/graemlins/club.gif. SB posts a blind of $0.25.
UTG calls $0.50, <font color="#CC3333">MP raises to $1</font>, Button calls $1, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to $3.5</font>, UTG calls $3.50, MP folds, Button calls $3.

I raised when it got to me, but less than a pot-sized raise. I figured it was a reasonable sized raise, and I don't want to raise too much out of position. My general thinking is that I can raise more in position because I'll have the advantage throughout the rest of the hand. ajmargarine says I've got it completely backwards. Does this sound like a reasonable rephrasing of what he wrote: I should raise more with OOP hands and raise with more in-position hands. When I'm OOP, people behind me will want to play a larger range of hands. I want to raise enough that they're making a significant mistake if their range is too wide. This has the added benefit of making it easier for me to read them throughout the rest of the hand. pokernose made this point as well, and pointed out that the pot's big enough that I wouldn't mind taking it down PF.

Flop: ($13.25) 2/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, J/images/graemlins/club.gif, K/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="#0000FF">(4 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets $10</font>, UTG calls $10, Button calls $10.

ajmargarine mentions that he's checking more often than CBing with this flop and two callers. So am I. Flop seems fine.

Turn: ($43.25) Q/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(4 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero pushes</font>

This is where my play gets worse and the comments get better. I didn't mindlessly push; I had my reasons .. it just turns out that they were bad reasons. I spelled them out earlier. The right answer boils down to this: If I push, the only hands that call me for sure are hands that are way ahead of me (AT, 22, KK). I have a solid hand here. I'm going to bet. Given the stack sizes, my money's probably going in the middle against those hands no matter what (see sidenote). So, instead of being a dummy, I'd like to maximize my chances of getting other people's money when I'm ahead. Those hands include AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ, KT, JT, etc. I don't want to price the draws in, though, so I need to bet such that 1) they might call 2) they'll be wrong to call.

That means that I need to value bet, something that I'm still learning about. The size of a VB should be very similar to the size of a CB, otherwise it will be too obvious and easy to exploit. I'm comfortable with a CBing 2/3 of the pot on the flop, so that's a good size for a VB there as well. I get too many callers/raisers when I bet 1/2 of the pot, and I'm not good enough post-flop to deal with that yet. I was CBing the turn about the same on the turn (1/2 to 3/4), but it really wasn't working out for me, so I toned it down. I'll try it a bit again, and I'll make sure that I'm not doing anything transparent, like betting 1/2 of the pot when I hit and 3/4 of the pot when I miss.

With that said, it looks like a VB for me here should be ~3/4 of the pot. That has at least one fantastic advantage with these stack sizes: there is no draw that actually has the odds to call this bet, despite the fact that many draws were *way* ahead on the flop. They don't even have the correct implied odds. Very nice. If you told me I had to VB here, I'd pick something between $30 and $40. ajmargarine agreed with $35 as a good number. So, as long as I make myself VB, I'll probably size it correctly.

What do I do if I VB and get raised here? Raising hands here certainly include KK and AT .. do they also include 2 pair, TPTK, etc. often enough that I can fold to a push getting something like 2.4:1? I think so, and I'm so far ahead of those hands that I probably call. FWIW, if the bad guy pushes with KK,AK,AT,T9 every time, I'm only behind 1.6:1.

wheatrich also points out that if I VB the turn, I can VB the river as well, thus getting even more money from 2-pair, etc. hands.

z28dreams gives an alternate line: check-raise. I'm not sure I like this. I think I'll be more likely to get the money from worse hands with VBs, but check-raise is probably better than my push.

OK, so that's a pretty convincing argument for VBing. Is there ever an argument for pushing here? Only if there's a chance that I'll get called by worse hands, I think. And, in order to for that to happen, I'd probably have to be bluff-pushing here sometimes. ajmargarine correctly pointed out that, because of my level of play and the level of play of the tables, this isn't one of the places where I should be bluffing. As he said,

[ QUOTE ]
Get the basic ABC stuff down first before you start thinking about metagame issues. Bluff rarely until you are firm and confident in your game. One barrel, every once in awhile, no one's interested in the pot kind of bluffs are what I am talking about for a couple BB's here and there. Don't be throwing your whole stack in the middle as a bluff.


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Bluffing too much isn't one of my big leaks. But, as long as I'm writing this up as a mini-clinic for myself, it's a good idea to remind myself when (not) to bluff. djoyce003 wrote a bit more about this. Bluffing here is dumb, and bluffing for my whole stack at this level is unnecessary and probably almost always dumb as well. Semi-bluffing, on the other hand, is still a good idea. He didn't spell it out, but I think the point is that I don't have enough outs here for it to be a good semi-bluff.

Other thoughts

For a player at my skill level, the extra explainations in those other posts really helped a lot. That said, Maulik summed it up very nicely and very briefly when he said

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The hands taht will call you are AT &amp; any set... Why not bet $30-40 on the turn and see waht the river brings?

Make it $5-7 to go. Against that many limpers I'm happy taking all their limped money and if one of them wants to come along for a missed set, let'em.


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djoyce003 also summed things up well and suggested betting the pot, rather than pushing. I think the reasoning here is basically the same as the VB reasoning above.


sidenote I don't know if I want to get away from this hand, but J Chap mentions that I might fold if I bet $35 on the turn and the river gives a 10. At that point, there would be $113 in the pot and $81 in my stack. ajmargarine is more concerned about a 9 than a T, but says he'd check/call the river then. I don't think I have enough to bet/fold those rivers unless I have some ridiculous read. Check/fold seems a bit plausible, but if I've played it so that the other folks' ranges are really as big as I think they are, I probably need to check/call. Yes?

sidenote This quote from ajmargarine also bears repeating:

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Don't be afraid of people chasing and hitting draws. Anytime someone chases with bad odds and hits a draw, it's good for you long term. Loose passives chasing (either draws or with a lesser made hand when they misread you) are where you make the bulk of your $$$ at NL100 and below.


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This is a leak in my game. I've been frustrated and confused recently when I have a TPTK-type hand that goes like this: I raise PF and get 1-2 callers. I hit, but there are two suited cards on the flop. Turn is a blank, bet, call. River makes the flush draw. I VB the river and get called by the flush (that's just fine. Most of the money went in when I was ahead. This is what I want!) or min-raised by the flush (I call here, but I really shouldn't .. what do I really think he has, anyway? Even if he's bluffing, he only gets to bluff the flush card there, and he didn't have the odds to call and bluff that. Again, the money went in when I wanted it to.).

So, I know I spent most of this post repeating things that other people said, but it really helped solidify things in my mind. Any more thoughts? Thanks.

-poincaraux

PS: results I got called by 22 and AT and sucked out on the river for a $300+ pot.

[ajmargarine]

Very, very nice summary. Maybe whoever is doing the next digest will consider putting this thread in it, because your summary is very solid.

Great suggestions, great summary.

This post should definitely make its way into a digest.