I have Kd Jd
i usually check to the raiser.
Could you post some details of the hand? That would help those of us on mobile phones that can’t access the playback through the link.
Also, some additional commentary from you would be nice. Aside from the bet sizing, what made this hand notable? What do your range look like? How about your villains’
blinds are 20/40
5 limp ahead on me in the SB with Kd Jd
i raise to 3 BB
UTG, B+1, and Button call
flop (600) Js Jh 6s
SB bets 2 BB (80)
UTG calls, B+1 folds, Button raises to 4BB (1,600)
SB calls, UTG calls
Turn (1,080) Js Jh 6s Ks am i correct that i don’t have the nut, as V could have AJ?
SB bets 1/2 pot (540)
UTG calls, Button raises 540 (1,080)
SB and UTG calls
River (4,320) Js Jh 6s Ks 7c
SB raises 1/2 pot
UTG calls 1,400 flips 9s 3s
Button calls 1,950 flips Jc 7h
I’ve really worked on tightening up my SB range. However, i still seldom raise. I like using the blinds to get combos out there that don’t jive with my table image. I don’t think most people know what my table position is so maybe curb some of the table folds i get, when i open strong. If i do get a playable hand, i chose that time to mix it up with some slow play, However, the button is raising. Should i give him control, and risk missing a street i could use to build the pot?
what is B+1?
is this meant to be 160?
you do not have the nuts… nuts are 1 combo of KK. You beat AJ so you have the second nuts. It is the effective nuts though unless you have reason to believe V is ever limp calling with KK on the button.
This HH is all out of whack, you’re referring to positions wrong and it’s very hard to follow the action or even know what the action actually is. You are in the BB not the SB, 9s3s is in UTG+1 not UTG.
Either flat pre flop with KdJd in the BB to close the action or if you’re going to open it needs to be much larger… like minimum 240 but prefer 340.
On the flop go bigger… at least 1/4 pot or 150 but prefer 1/3 or 200. When UTG+1 calls and BTN raises 3!. You have a strong hand that is vulnerable multiway and needs some protection (not much, but a little) but you can get called by any J some 88-TT and flush draws so value is the name of the game and the main reason to 3!
Turn is meh… spr is low enough to get it in on all rivers, but it’s better to get it in on the turn as river spades can kill action from all the Jx’s and baby flushes.
In the end I think your sizing was way off throughout the entire hand but you got lucky to smash the flop and turn vs two hands that kind of got coolered. Against their exact hands you were getting it all no matter what.
Cheers @waidus, I appreciate your frequent post and they show you’re really wanting to improve and you’re getting there.
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A side note to @WannabeCoder reply is that even for those of us that can watch the replay they unfortunately come with results which can and does skew analysis. HH’s allow us to give you a better idea of what we see given the same info you have or lack there of. Having results makes the analysis you get much more likely to be biased based on results and not as accurate.
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Let’s take this street by street.
Preflop, any of your three options (folding/flatting/raising) are reasonable. If you raise, you should use a much larger size. You’re facing a bunch of people who have already called, and you’re raising just 80 chips into a pot that’s already over 300. If they called 40 without having anything invested, another 80 is a no-brainer. You’ll also be out of position for the rest of the hand, so you want to be pushing other players out of the pot as much as possible. As well as KJs can play multi-way, it’s much tougher when you’re both multi-way and out of position.
Once the flop comes, I like the decision to c-bet, but your sizing needs to be larger. Just 80 chips into a pot of 600 isn’t accomplishing anything. Again, you’re out of position, so you should be going larger, and bearing in mind the likely draws your opponents may have (e.g. spade flush), you’ll want to go between 1/3 and 1/2 pot.
Facing the flop min-raise, I can see both flatting for deception, or 3-betting in the vicinity of 800. You’re showing a lot of strength, and could easily be up against a flush draw or weaker jack (QJ, JT, maybe J9 that’s getting frisky) that you could get to fold if you hold a flush draw yourself. Build that pot! Yes, you might be behind 66, but there are only three combos of that out there; J6s is even less likely, with just two combos not blocked by the board.
Turn is yahtzee for you. Your boat beats someone who floated a flush draw on the flop and saw it come in, and it’s fairly unlikely that you’re up against a better boat since KK should have raised preflop. Given your decision to call the raise on the flop, I would have recommended checking to the aggressor on this street and check-raising. As played, once you again get back-raised, it’s time to ship the chips. I assume your plan is to just ship it on any river anyway; might as well get the chips in on this street and hope you’re up against AJ, J6, 66, or a straight/royal flush draw that are drawing all but dead.
Finally, I recommend commenting where you are in relation to the bubble when posting tournament hands. If it’s within the first few blind levels, ICM won’t play a role, but near the bubble or at a final table with large pay jumps, it could significantly change how tight/wide your ranges should be.
Agreed with respect to “B+1,” but @waidus was actually correct in saying that he played this from the small blind and that the 93s player was UTG+1. @StellaLover joined the table after the hand began and did not post a blind, making the screenshot very confusing.
Other than that, spot on analysis @dayman.
Once the button takes control of the pot by raising, you have two choices. Either take control back by 3-betting, which will give you the option to continue on the next street, or give up control by calling and opting to check on the following street. Treat that as a general rule of thumb, which should be broken only in rare instances (board-changing turns and rivers, for example dropping a fourth card to a flush, or the fourth connected card to a straight).
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I agree with all of the paragraph except this… folding KJ suited vs these limp droolers is not really reasonable imho.
missed this, thanks for clarifying.
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button -1 my bad
i was thinking an AJ with an A river would crush me. I totally missed KK. 
Is there any spot for a down bet? I’ve been playing with that a little.
not really sure what that means, but TBH, outside an unraised BB, i probably wouldn’t have opened either of their hands
KJs isn’t all that great a hand, but no one seemed very excited 'bout what they had. I knew i needed to thin the field, so, i agree, 3BB was too light, for a raise. 5BB should have folded the table, but you never know. That would have been all right. KJ can get you into trouble.
My main problem with trips is getting value, which is what was behind the 2BB raise. I used to check, hoping someone would get 2 pr. I never min raise, anymore, except when blind size becomes an issue. Doesn’t do anything.
Another reason for the 2BB raise was from an experiment i’ve been running. I come out strong preflop, bet 2BB on the flop and turn, then go for maximum value on the river. No hand could be opened unless it had multiple ways to improve. No top pair could have a crappy kicker. not many hands get played, but ones that did, i tried to follow that pattern, hit or miss, be it a made hand, draw, or bluff (if i ever bluffed). It was just an experiment, but on certain tables, it really worked well. not so much on others.
I’ve been playing with x/r when i have the nut. It’s a drag when they check around and you lose a betting street, but i can see how it could be a powerful tool. This hand happened very early in the tournament. I never did get a much bigger stack, but with tight play, and smart maneuvering, did make it to a fourth place finish, and a much needed boost to my roll.
I’m sure others will have commented on this hand between the time I write this and the time it finally gets posted. Hopefully something will still be helpful by then.
Your bet sizing is goofy across all streets.
Preflop - a 3BB squeeze does nothing but bloat a pot that you will have to play OOP. You want to thin the field so a raise to 8BB+ would be good here.
Flop - a 2BB bet into that pot is the same as a check. There is a flush draw so I’d like to see something a bit larger than that.
Turn - when the flush draw fills but you made the effective nuts, I’d like to see a check and let one of the other players initiate action. Fine to call whatever they bet or raise. The only thing you don’t want is another spade coming off on the river, which would kill the action vs anything but the nut flush. Get the money in. Yes, you have the nuts here as AJ is only 3 of a kind with top kicker and you have a full house.
River - nothing left to say here. The money is going in and you are tripling up.
Nice result - make some adjustments to you bet sizing so you can profit across more of your range. You wont be making monster hands very frequently and you don’t want to have to make a hand to take down pots.
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Sadly, some of these knuckle draggers also limp QQ, as I just recently found out after trying to isolate the open limper. OK, I can see some people thinking its tricky to limp AA and backraise but QQ as 1st to act from the CO? WTF man? If I ever get like that, just pull the plug and send me on to my next destination.
You have to get used to the fact that most games here are barely on the fringes of what could be called “poker”. Take a look at hand 537716948 as a great example. There are no such things as capped ranges in these games. Tournaments are worse than ring games for play like this. Its like everyone is in a race to see who can most under-represent their hands preflop and then overplay them postflop.
Once the flop comes, I recommend shifting your focus on bet sizes. Stop thinking in terms of big blinds; start thinking in terms of % of pot and stack-to-pot ratios (SPR). I can’t think of a situation in which a bet below 20% of the pot should do anything but bloat the pot, which won’t allow you to do any bluffing. You always want to be able to mix some draws and bluffs into your range when you bet, even when you’re doing so for value with a particular hand.
A lot of people on RP limp all hands from 72o to AA. Can’t really assume they can’t have KK because they limped.
No, but with a K on the board and one in your hand there is only one combo of KK remaining so the odds are much higher against.
Can’t worry about cards not on the board, if he has AJ there are only 3 A’s in the deck that can beat you.
Yes there are, and I’m not saying you can’t down bet this spot but 13% down bets really do not accomplish anything but inducing an occasional bluff which is much less likely to happen in a multi-way pot.
@waidus this is the nugget right. When you think about how your entire range plays out you’ll start recognize where your opponents are making mistakes and be able to start exploiting them for it. You can’t win relying just on making hands. Well on Replay you can, but if you ever want to play irl on line or live you’ll need to win pots when you both miss.
This is true but QQ is still hard to come by and these guys are losing chips limping monsters like JTo from utg soooo. Plus even when they do limp most of them limp call so we have bigger pot to bust them in when they overplay there big pair post flop while we’re cracking their heads.
@waidus - we played a few tonight and it was fun, as usual. 1 thing I noticed that you could work on is your OOP play. In a few spots you painted yourself into a corner and had to check either turn or river because the board turned ugly. IMO, you should work on protecting your checking range more on the flop so this doesn’t happen to you as frequently. Start by playing a much tighter range OOP and checking a good amount of flops, especially with hands that can take a probe bet by the IP player.
From the SB (when 1st to act), work on limping some better hands rather than only raising them. If you are raising all your premium hands, when you limp in, your opponent can abuse you for it. This is the same as protecting your checking range above. You need some strength there to keep the other players honest. Also, because you are OOP, you would rather play smaller pots when possible.
All in all, I think you are making a lot of progress on n your game. Your aggressiveness is great. Plug a few major leaks and you’ll be killing it here in no time.
Better idea: stop limping hands preflop, particularly from the small blind. You probably aren’t good enough to get max value from weaker hands out of position, so why commit the extra 0.5BB?
With antes in play (tournament play with generally short stacks), you need to risk 0.5BB to win a pot of ~3BB. That’s not a lot of equity (16.7%) that you need to realize to be a profitable play. In many instances, limping in hands that you simply cannot raise with is the highest EV play available (even though it may not be a great option).
Having a limping range from the SB is an effective strategy in tournaments, from low stakes to the highest stake games played. Lots of reasons for it but the open or fold only line limits you significantly. When stacks are short and antes are in play, you don’t want to fold away your equity too frequently. You also may not be in a stack depth that you should be folding or shoving yet. Having a well balanced limping range from the SB, protected by enough strong hands, is a far better option than having a raise/limp/fold range that is totally unbalanced.
Yes, having a balanced range is better than having unbalanced range. No arguments there.
Yes, you only need to risk half a blind extra in order to play for the pot. However, the big blind could raise you preflop, and you’ll probably have to fold at that point. When you limp, you don’t give your opponents the chance to fold off their equity. There’s a chance you’re actually over-committing your own equity, despite the apparently low amount of equity needed, if you’re playing multi-way. And again, you’ll be out of position postflop, making it harder to realize your equity or gain value when you do make a hand.
It’s a play I’d recommend working back into your game only after nailing down the fundamentals. Most of the players on this site and readers on this forum don’t have the skills to be able to limp the small blind well, and will likely end up making mistakes that cost them more than half a big blind per hand on average.
This is why you have a balanced limping range, that will include some limp/3-bet hands. It only applies to when it has been folded to you in the SB, not in multiway pots. It sounded odd to me at first too but if you go to youtube and search for SB limping range in tournaments, you will see the strategy being taught by Upswing Poker, Jonathan Little, Splitsuit, Matt Affleck and others. I played around with PokerSnowie as well and it has a very robust limping range as 1st to act in tournament settings.