[The Bear]

Okay, to comment on hand #1. I think open-limping the CO with AJs is bad. You have position and a quality hand. Why wouldn't you want to play a raised pot, especially against the super-weakies at 2/4? So much money can be made in that game by constantly playing 2-3 handed raised pots in position. Your opponents will play soooooo badly in those spots and you'll rarely make a mistake. Trust me. Raise this one up. As well as any other hand that you'll be playing in that spot, which should be a shitload.


For your LAG hand, I don't like it. First, I'm not open-limping with 99 in that game. Maybe UTG if something weird was going on, but generally not. Look at what happened in this spot by limping. Your opponent took control of the pot and put you on the defensive, out of position, with a hand that's going to miss very often. If this player is even semi-competent and can have a wide range, you're left in a brutal spot unless you flop big.

If I played it like you to this point, I'm just giving up on the flop unless my opponent is predictable enough that I'll be able to read his hand with excellent accuracy based on his turn action. But since you called the flop, we'll look at the turn.

To start, your range of hands for him is way too narrow and probably misweighted. If I were in his spot and I bet the flop/turn in that combo, my range would be at least KK, 88, 44, 66, 86s, 64s, 57s, AKc, any two connected or two-gapped clubs, AA and AK. But AA, AK, and random clubs would often be checked on the turn. I imagine that a TAG in that game would be pretty likely to check it through with AA/AK also, since he wouldn't want to play a big pot with AA or AK. If he bets, he's indicating that he DOES want to play a big pot, so he's less likely to fold.

For this to work requires that either villain decided to follow through on the turn with nothing or that he followed through with a made hand, which he will now fold, in position, to a line that doesn't look convincingly like a big hand (is this seriously how you would play a set? Would you call on that flop with a gutter? Doubt it and doubt it.) And the risk-reward is such that it needs to win often for it to be correct. And if called, you have very few outs to improve.

Overall, this seems like a pretty silly move to me. I'm not quite certain about its effectiveness against this player, but this [censored] will get you broke against good players.