How's your SSNLHE?: 22

[ajmargarine]

Well, haven't done one of these in awhile. I took a short hiatus from poker while on a vacation, and when I came back I started playing more MTT's, with SSNL cash games going on in the background. I've been running very well in the MTT's, but suffering death by a thousand cuts in the cash games. I was running well in cash games when I was doing these so maybe doing one will help me to turn the corner. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I've heard from a pollmaker on another forum that the last update fixed the problem we had with questions coming up in a random order. I will number the questions just in case, so do them in order 1-6. As always, comments and discussion are welcome. I think this hand is a common situation, and I would like to hear ideas as to how to play it better. Play along in the hand, take the quiz as you go.

.50/$1 NLHE 6-max Hero has $100 and Villian covers.

Reads on villian who is the BB in this hand: Villian has Hero slightly perplexed. You noted 4 hands he played when he first sat down and started licking your chops. He PFR'd UTG with K7s and Q9o. He limped UTG with J3s. And he called a standard PFR from CO with 95s. These hands took place in the first 15 minutes he was at the table. However, in the last half hour he seems to be playing pretty solid ABC poker. Nothing crazy pre or post flop. You note he continuation bets always. Here's how the hand starts:

Preflop: Hero is SB with 2 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. Hero posts a blind of $0.50.
4 folds, Action is on Hero....

[ajmargarine]

ANSWER RATINGS:










Thanks for playing along. Comments welcome. Answers are rated on a scale of 0-10, 0 being donkorific, 5 being average, 10 being 42it-ous. (ratings in parenthesis).

Question # 1 --

(3) complete - Inferior IMO
(8) raise <=$4 - A good plan for the hand would be to raise pre-flop, and continue with a bet on most flops and hopefully take it down right there. If you hit a set, so much the better.
(7) raise >$4 - I suppose you can make a case for $5, probably not much more though.

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Question # 2 --

(0) Fold - easily within 5/10 guide for pp's so don't fold.
(10) Call - call, flop a set, win a nice pot.
(1) Raise - Pissing contests OOP are -EV.

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Question # 3 --

(4) lead - I like this least. If he calls, where are we? and what do we do on the turn?
(7) c/r - snaps off continuation bets. If he calls, we have to be done with the hand.
(6) c/c - lets him know we've got something. If it's a continuation bet, it usually shuts him down and a lead on the turn will pick up the pot. Unless the turn card hits him, in which case we lose a bit more than we should.
(6) c/f - no set, no bet.

Do we even want to contest this pot? Dry flop that almost surely missed villian, unless he holds a pp. Kind of the crux of this quiz. Contest this pot, or not?

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Question # 4 --

(3) Check
(6) <$7
(7) $7-$11
(6) $>11

I like a bet here. The 5 is a good card for us. It's a value bet against overcards like KQ or AJ. And, it could fold out some hands that beat us like 44, 77, 3x or maybe even 9x if he believes we have a 5. A moderate sized bet is best, IMO.

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Question # 5 --

(10) Check - He's got something and we are beat. Putting anything more in the pot at this point is chip spewing.
(0) < 2/3 pot bet - Easy call for villian.
(2) > 2/3 pot bet - Hard for him to call a push, but EV of that should be negative longterm.

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Question # 6 --

(0) 8% - Nope.
(10) 12% - This is correct. You flop a set just under 12% of the time.
(0) 15% - Consider getting these basic percentages down pat.
(0) 19% - If you are around to see the entire 5 card board, you end up with a set 19% of the time.

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Hand results: Hero checked the river. Villian checked behind. Villian held TT and won the pot. Thanks for playing along. Comments welcome.

[The_Bends]

Same answers as you, for the same reasons with the exception of the first action.

22 OOP I'm not at all interested in building any sort of pot without a set. It has no other value whatsoever. For bet/cb to be correct then I think you have to accept that you'd do this with any two cards. Viable strategy from the button but not the SB IMO.

[Stork]

This isn't the type of hand I like to build a pot with OOP against a solid player who may have some loose tendancies, which is why I prefer just completing p/f, and just c/cing the flop and leading a safe turn.

[orange]

I think the flop is most intresting here. Definitely read dependent. How often will villan c-bet with missed overs? What hand ranges do you put villan on?

I think I like the c/c lead turn play the most. Then again, I rarely c/r ever, so maybe I'm missing something.

I assume we are c/f-ing the river, correct?

[RiverFenix]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the flop is most intresting here. Definitely read dependent. How often will villan c-bet with missed overs? What hand ranges do you put villan on?

[/ QUOTE ]

He said villian always cont. bets so hes betting here 100% of the time. I will lead in this spot on occasion a bet from villian is garaunteed, i want to see if he likes his hand enough to raise my bet.

[PokerFink]

I think folding to the preflop raise is correct.

I'm not the biggest advocate of the 5/10 rule to begin with, but I think it has zero bearing in this case. It's an implied odds rule, and you're in a hand against a PFR who can have anything, and you're OOP. There is no guarentee you're going to win more than 5 bucks if you flop a set. The implied odds just aren't there.

Furthermore, you're OOP with a garbage hand in a raised pot. Which leads to all kinds of awful, tricky, negative implied odds situations like this one.

Why even bother?

[PokerFink]

I also like leading the flop or check/raising. Check/calling is passive, and passive is bad.

[The_Bends]

I'll add on a more general level I think this sort of fancy play without a strong read is generally -EV at NL100. Check raises wih air and other FPS bluffs should be generally applied defensively. For example if someone has called your preflop raise OOP three times and each time has led into you on the flop causing you to fold then raising the fourth time is a strong move even with air. You need to reassert control over the table.

However in this hand the play is only there to take the money in this pot with no other considerations. I think that sort of play comes more from a desire to be clever than it does from longterm EV. Look at our read on the opponent. He could be loose and poor, or strong and making an image play early on, or he could be average. Nothing clear cut enough for us to be able to play him for a chump. These moves are vital at higher levels but generally a weak idea at SSNL.

[DoomSlice]

I think I like to check-raise preflop with the intention of taking it down right there and not investing anything more into it. The trouble about playing against these guys is that they can really have anything, so NO overcard is a "safe" overcard.

I don't want to see 3 streets of play, so I am desperately hoping to take it down immediately, folding to a 4-bet.