First Micro Post and a Hand

[MagicFlea]

Hey everyone. I plan on being around here a lot so I thought I'd give a good intro post. I'm a college student (a math major who's just starting to get heavy into statistics) and I started checking out online poker in january after crushing our weekly game, although I'd never played before this year. I played micro NL online and didnt do anything special money wise, until spring break. I was wandering around B&N and SSH caught my eye for some reason. I guess it was my luck that it was this book that caught my eye and not one of the 200 other poker books, but I read it, ate it up, took it home, and made 400 dollars this week.

Then I came here since it was mentioned in the book

enough about me... a hand. I think I've been a little too aggressive (16.8/8.8 and 3.4 flop AF only 1K hands though), and this might be a good example. I can't get hand converter to work yet (please check out my post in the beginners forum) so this is my attempt at getting the right format

Pokerroom 1/2 Hold'em (10 handed)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with Ad, Qh.
5 folds, Hero raises, 3 folds, BB calls

Flop: (4.50 SB) 4d,5h,2c (2 players)
BB bets, Hero raises, BB calls

-I assume he has a pair but I raised for two reasons: I see the gutshot and two overs. I think by themselves this doesn't give me enough pot equity for HU so its probably wrong. However I want a free card to see if I hit one on the river, and I want to make sure he's serious... I raised preflop so he might be scared of a PP.

Turn (4.25 BB) 4s
BB checks, Hero checks

...

I've been frequently taking stabs on the flop and turn with marginal draws on ragged flops (1 over + backdoor, 2 overs, etc) against 1 or 2 people, and it seems to be paying off. What do you think? How do I manipulate PT to see if this is working?

Thanks

[MagicFlea]

I'm gonna bump this once since I spent a lot of time on it [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
hope that doesn't offend anyone

[istewart]

Hi, welcome to the forums.

The preflop play is good. As for the flop, I think he very well could have something, and the pot is really small. I would probably just fold this one on the flop.

[Catt]

Welcome to the forums. Check out the stickied FAQ thread at the top of the forum if you haven't already done so.

Heads-up play is very different from multiway. I think there is a significant chance that you are ahead both on the flop and the turn. I think you need to fire again on the turn -- you have a strong hand; the flop is a rainbow; does BB call a raise with a 2,4, or 5 in his hand (maybe but I'm not convinced by the flop bet); seems like a 4 is unlikely, but you'll hear about it on the turn if he has it. There's a good chance he folds to the turn bet (for all he knows, you have a big pocket pair). If raised on the turn, I'd probably let it go (without a read on BB). If called I'd check behind on the river UI, and might call if bet into, depending on the river card.

I wouldn't worry too much about your stats after 1K hands -- think more about your thought process and the thought process of others expressed in the forums. In this hand, a read on BB would be way more valuable than the read on your own tendencies.

Again, welcome to the forums.

[jaxUp]

2 standard lines here (for HU) once you raise the flop:

check behind on the turn, call a river bet (he'll bluff at it all day)

bet the turn, check behind on the river.

Against bad (will stay with anything) aggressive (will bluff at the flop) opponents you can probably bet this river too. Worse hands will call often enough. (very opponent dependent)