Help! Closing down leaks. (longish)

[lozen]

The turn Check raise is the one for me also. By far the big leak. I am keeping a seperate log on Chk raises on turn. When I call and than call down you will be seeing trips a majority of the time. This is 2 B/B everytime. Its my biggesty weakness. Its amazing you know youweakness but coreecting it is tough. Also when i do chk raise on the turn with a flush,trips, straight its amazing how many guys call down with top pair only.

[jedi]

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The turn Check raise is the one for me also. By far the big leak. I am keeping a seperate log on Chk raises on turn. When I call and than call down you will be seeing trips a majority of the time. This is 2 B/B everytime. Its my biggesty weakness. Its amazing you know youweakness but coreecting it is tough. Also when i do chk raise on the turn with a flush,trips, straight its amazing how many guys call down with top pair only.

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My problem is the times that someone will be doing this with 2 pair where I have odds to continue by not only spiking my set, but also the board pairing the other card. I feel that I'm giving away too much if I'm going to routinely fold here. Of course, this is where player reads come in. If they'll only do the turn check-raise with a set, then I can fold safely. If they'll do it with 2 pair, then I can call right?

Taking notes on this should help.

Jedi,

I think your thinking your way into a Doomsday scenario... I did this about 4 months ago and ran horrible while I was in this funk.

You're not always going to be up against a set.

Last night I was down 18 big beats becase I though I was making good lay towns... turns out I was being somewhat of a pussssyy and using the doomsday scenario to make "big Laydowns"... usually with over-pairs.

I decided the dynamic of the limit game I was playing was just that... I dynamic... i adjusted... jammed it... and won 22 big bets.

I'm no super star... but I think I get in the same "rut" that you are in right now.

[Lash]

When facing a turn check raise heads up holding a medium strength to above average strength hand such as TPTK or an overpair…

VS. Unknown – tend to call with intention of paying off unimproved
VS. Loose – tend to call (consider you may be drawing) with intention of paying off
VS. Aggressive – tend to call with intention of paying off / sometimes play back / sometimes lay back and let them overplay and/or bluff
VS. Passive – Strongly consider folding, unless you have odds to draw to a hand that will beat what your opponent is representing… in that case call, but beware of the tempting river pay off
VS. Tight – same as vs. passive

You will have to modify the above preferred actions if the pot is extremely large or extremely small … you would also obviously modify the above based on how protected the pot is (scenarios when you are not heads up).

When in doubt… payoff, that’s just the way it is w/ TPTK and overpairs.

On Poker Tracker or in live games where I've played against my opponents... its all about reads/stats.

If I get raised by a calling station / weak-tight player... I insta fold a big hand.

Against anyone else I either three bet or call with in intentions of raising a non-scary river.

[tewall]

There's no way calling down a good hand, like the ones you mentioned, against turn-raises can be a leak. Folding can be a huge mistake in this situation, but calling cannot be. You don't have to be ahead much at all for calling to be correct. Say you only need to be ahead 10% of the time to make calling correct, and you actually win 15% of the time. This means folding is a profitable play, but in actual playing experience you will be losing about 6 times for every time you win. So it will seem like "every" time you play AA and get check-raise you get beat and you should fold. But that's not true; calling is the right play, even though it seems like you're getting beat.

On the AK follow play, only if the conditions were ideal would following through be advisable IMO. Ideal would be at most one or two opponents, and the opponents are not calling stations and not aggressive. This probably isn't much of a leak either if you just continue on the flop. If you keep pushing it then it could be.

Something I noticed you didn't mention in your question is pot-odds. This is a vital matter, and the fact that you didn't mention it is troublesome. Not just for AK hands, but for all hands it's necessary to know the pot odds, as the correct play varies greatly depending on whether the pot is big or small and how many players are in the pot.

[jedi]

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Something I noticed you didn't mention in your question is pot-odds. This is a vital matter, and the fact that you didn't mention it is troublesome. Not just for AK hands, but for all hands it's necessary to know the pot odds, as the correct play varies greatly depending on whether the pot is big or small and how many players are in the pot.

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Yeah, pot odds are quite important here. Of course, I was generalizing, but usually the pot starts getting big since I pumped it up pre-flop. One worry was the turn call down where an opponent with just overcards calls me pre-flop and my flop bet on a rag board, then hits the overcard (which I don't share). Obviously that's good when I have AA, but I get frustrated about it when I have AK. The note I should make is that this opponent will value call me down without the nuts, but I should probably slow down or induce the river bluff if I don't pair up.

Then back to the turn check-raise. If the pot is small, I don't have any problems giving it up, but since the pot has been bloated I think I'm tied to the pot. I frequently call it down, don't like it, am usually shown 2 pair or better, and am happily surprised on occasion when donk has been overplaying 2nd pair or something else. It's the times that I'm surprised that make me want to call down because of the size of the pot.


Update (small sample size). I was in a 3-way pot this evening with QQ, where I raised pre-flop. Flop was AT6, turn was an 8 and I got check-raised and there was an overcaller. Though the pot was 10BB when it came back to me to call 1BB cold, I folded here (mainly because I figured someone overcalling was also a problem.

Not that it matters, check-raiser showed TT, overcaller showed A2s

[Lash]

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The note I should make is that this opponent will value call me down without the nuts, but I should probably slow down or induce the river bluff if I don't pair up.

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LOL... at the terminology value call without the nuts. Now you are talking my language.

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Update (small sample size). I was in a 3-way pot this evening with QQ, where I raised pre-flop. Flop was AT6, turn was an 8 and I got check-raised and there was an overcaller. Though the pot was 10BB when it came back to me to call 1BB cold, I folded here (mainly because I figured someone overcalling was also a problem.

Not that it matters, check-raiser showed TT, overcaller showed A2s

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So what's the problem here? You played it right and saved yourself a lot of money. You were the first raiser so you can put him on a high ace or a pair to call you depending on his style of play. Of course he can call with less. Flop kills you with the ace and with the ten. You put out a bet to see where your opponents stood and they told you. You had the worst hand. It happens.

I read a response a while ago that I thought made a good point. People tend to remember their beats more than their wins. That river that sucked out will drive you nuts while your driving home but the times when you sucked out will just be a pleasant memory.

I've been through the same streak that you are going through and my advice is just to examine yourself to see if you are falling into any discernible patterns. I found that I was not calling enough on all-in showdowns when I held a decent hand even if the pot odds weren't quite at the right level. In my $100NL game this was deadly. I was getting an image as someone who could be pushed off the pot. I made an effort to make that final call and was pleasantly surprised to see that I was winning the showdowns quite a bit more than I expected to. Plus I started getting back my rep as a good player. Of course this meant less all-in showdowns but I was then able to make plays earlier in the hand and win there.

[jedi]

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So what's the problem here? You played it right and saved yourself a lot of money. You were the first raiser so you can put him on a high ace or a pair to call you depending on his style of play. Of course he can call with less. Flop kills you with the ace and with the ten. You put out a bet to see where your opponents stood and they told you. You had the worst hand. It happens.

I read a response a while ago that I thought made a good point. People tend to remember their beats more than their wins. That river that sucked out will drive you nuts while your driving home but the times when you sucked out will just be a pleasant memory.

I've been through the same streak that you are going through and my advice is just to examine yourself to see if you are falling into any discernible patterns. I found that I was not calling enough on all-in showdowns when I held a decent hand even if the pot odds weren't quite at the right level. In my $100NL game this was deadly. I was getting an image as someone who could be pushed off the pot. I made an effort to make that final call and was pleasantly surprised to see that I was winning the showdowns quite a bit more than I expected to. Plus I started getting back my rep as a good player. Of course this meant less all-in showdowns but I was then able to make plays earlier in the hand and win there.

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No problem on this one, but had the other player not been in the hand, I might have called down (though thinking back at it, I'd be quite surprised if the raiser couldn't beat AK. Different story than if I have TPTK or overpair... but I digress). I just worry about making the wrong decisions, the wrong reads, but I have to accept that this is a gambling game, and the times I call down and win big pots makes up for the times I call down and lose 2 bets.

No limit seems like a different monster entirely, which is why I don't like playing it unless it's a tournament situation. I'd be more likely to lay down these hands in the face of large bets. It's tough to call big bets with just 1 pair, but I guess that's what separates the men from the boys.