NL2,JJ zoom

Hey,

Calling preflop is fine. On the turn, raising is spewy, your hand has showdown value and makes no sense to turn into a bluff. If you raise JJ, what do you call the turn with?

Originally posted by EmanuelC16
Hey,

Calling preflop is fine. On the turn, raising is spewy, your hand has showdown value and makes no sense to turn into a bluff. If you raise JJ, what do you call the turn with?

Actually i would call all my flushes and straights, hahaa Yes, thats spewy allright. So forgive me, it´s monday..

I read "So the turn is great" and I'm like wtf? ♦ What was your reasoning for raising turn? To try to bluff him of a good hand or? If that is so I would strongly recommend you don't do that on these micros. That was one of my biggest leaks and I still have to constantly remind myself to stop trying to blufff people of their top range. They just don't fold in general. Unless you are playing against a nit.

You say you would call all flushes and straights. But why? There are a ton of worse hands that can and will call your raise. TP and overpairs ain't folding especially if they have a flush draw to go along. And a lot of A-high and even some K-high FD's will call. Vs unknown opponents I would try to get value fast, people rarely fold here. When they fold they usually have something like 88 without the FD. And since he bet twice he probably has some piece of the board.

Originally posted by smice12

Originally posted by EmanuelC16
Hey,

Calling preflop is fine. On the turn, raising is spewy, your hand has showdown value and makes no sense to turn into a bluff. If you raise JJ, what do you call the turn with?

Actually i would call all my flushes and straights, hahaa Yes, thats spewy allright. So forgive me, it´s monday..

Lol, np, no need to say sorry! ♦

The point of that is that if you only raise non-flushes, what makes you think your opponent will believe if? It is an assumption you make which is not always wrong but you have nothing that tells you he wil believe you often enough.

Furthermore, what can you bluff him off if you think you represent a flush? A set? He calls once since he has some outs in general plus you can still run into flushes..

I´m still learning here

That line maybe would work against looseagg player or against co/btn range. Actually, specially in nl2zoom, lot of regs are folding tptk, toppair after craise or raise flop/turn. And i thought this would be a great spot to rep sets, flushes and straighst. And these guys here dont think so far, in spot like this.. "oo that guy must have something really good, because he is raising my overpairs/tpktp/overcards on this boardtexture, ok this is zoom and i´ll find better value maybe next time"..

Yes, i have some sd-value, but really not that much. So i thought it would be better to take that pot with bluff and against more action just fold. Villains range on the flop: 77+,AQs+,KQs,AKo
Villains range on the turn: allmost the same, im calling, so i look like a draw, pocketpair or sometimes slowplayed set.

Theres 61 kombos in villains range. If I raise, he will fold everything else but sets, AA, and nutfd = 15kombos. My Fequity is ~ 74%

Maybe i´m really wrong, and i really appreciate that u guys can straighten up my thought process

Your SD value should be fine here, you have an overpair and against combos of overcards, TP you should have about 70% equity. Basically you are saying that he will call only when you're way behind, so why are we inflating the pot in that situation then?

Taking down pots is good but he showed quite some strength by CBing two streets on rather coordinated board. Besides your raise was smallish I really doubt he is calling just with the hands you specified.

Hmm..

If villain has that range which i gave him:

I´ll win 70% of time by raising= +0,61$
I´ll loose 30% of time by raisefolding (giving up the jacks)= -0,58$

If I´ll call turn and river= 0,24$+0,60$, I`ll loose 0,84$ most of the time. (I dont know how to calculate odds that sometimes i have the best hand and sometimes i`ll get 3rd jack on the river). Sometimes i win 2,05$. Assuming that villain will bet 0,60$ on the river.

Shit, this is sometimes so confusing. Need to learn more..

99-JJ and AK are the most interesting hands to play (read shittiest)

I'm no math guy so I got quite confused after reading your post ♦ With that said, is he really CBing with his whole range on the turn? Also, even if your raise is slightly +EV it doesn't mean we should take that route. Unless we can avoid making mistakes on the river, do we fold to a 1/4 river bet on blanks etc?

Maybe my calculations are wrong, and I cant get the real range for the villain.

First my raise on the turn seemed to be good plan, after that it seemed to be spew plan and now, after all this thinking, it´s not so bad plan. ??? Why, because i´m not getting that why using my foldequity is wrong? Maybe it´s that "mirror thinking" which is making this so confusing for me.

Im the villain and my range is 77+,AQs+,KQs,AKo. I openraised from utg and allmost unknown enemy is flatting me from Co. I would cbet in this flop with all my range. Co calls again and the turn is not so good for my pockets or overcards. My nutfd made it, but Im not sure are my sets okay.. I still bet, and villain raises.. shit. I cant really continue with any of my pairs or over card combos. If I would have still nutfd and something whit it, still no. I would call
my sets and reraise/shove nutflushes.

I dont wanna argue, I just want to learn and improve my thought process

We're not arguing at all. It's just a debate, which is quite welcome. I think you're looking too much into fold equity, our equity is rather decent vs his range, so we don't want to make him fold worse hands. We should consider fold equity when our own equity is not that good and we need the villain to fold a certain amount of time, for the situation to be +EV. You don't have to look for fold equity in every spot.

The thing in this hand is, that you won't make him fold better hands with your raise, especially since it's pretty small. So you are inflating the pot for situations where you are behind, and he will only fold hands against which our equity is pretty good.

Hi Smice12,

I think that it's not such important for you to think about combos/fold equity and stuff in spots like this, yet. You should just form some sort of a basic plan how you are going to act in a spot like this. And I would love to help you with planning.

First, Pre-flop:

When you make a decision, you should have some basic understanding of your hand strength. You decided to call with the position versus UTG opener, which is fine, if you know why calling > 3-betting > folding.

Then you have to form a plan for post-flop - what are you going to do on different boards and versus aggression?

Calling flop is fine as you are definitely having the best hand most of the time here versus regular. It also keeps villain's range as wide as possible.

However, raising turn is an absurd plan - your hand has plenty of SD value and there's not that many hands worse than yours that could actually call your raise. Raise would turn your hand on a spade into a bluff - against what?

Villain might have here:

- Overpairs
- Sets
- Straights
- Made flushes
- Air

When you raise on micros, they are not likely folding overpairs. Only worse overpair here is TT. Others beat you. They will never give up sets. So no need to bluff. Straights are calling at least once, maybe twice, so you would have to fire any river to even hope him to fold something. And they will definitely not fold their flushes. Air combos will go to the deck, but how does it benefit us? He would most likely shut down on river with his air as people don't just generally bluff here 3 streets on micros.

So, a basic plan her should be to call pre-flop, call flop and call most turns. On such turn you can call as villain's supposedably tight UTG range shouldn't consist that many flushes. On river you will fold, because people won't fire 3 barrel bluffs on micros that often, especially on NL2.

Always try to plan one street further and try to realize the real strength of your hand versus villains' range. Don't try to make them fold a hand that they can't fold.

A simple way to look at it is if we have good/great equity we're looking for value. If we have maybe 30% equity we look for spots where with added FE we can profitably take down pots. If our equity is bad and also board is bad for bluffing such as this one then we can obv just give up the pot.

The tricky part are situations inbetween where our equity is around 50%. Then you can look for spots where you can make the villain fold. First of all he has to be willing to fold a lot, so obviously don't do it against calling stations. Secondly the board has to perceive like it can hit your range. But we don't want to enforce FE all the time because then we're just gonna inflate the pot with questionable equity and get in a lot of trouble.

For argument sake lets say on the turn instead of jacks you have As6h in your hand and we're against the range of hands you said. Then we have around 54% equity. But on the turn this could be a great spot to put pressure on our opponent. If he is willing to fold hands, lets say doesn't go to SD more than 25%, so there is a big chance he is folding hands like 77,88, AT here and even when he has us beat we still have many outs to improve on river. + He is far less likely to have flushes here since we have the A of spades. But if you get called you should probably continue aggression on most rivers, unless you have an info that opponent is tricky and will slowplay hands. If not, you're better off just calling the turn and evaluate river situations. Otherwise just play solid game and don't try to level yourself too much.

Originally posted by Inv1ctus83
Otherwise just play solid game and don't try to level yourself too much.

That´s my main problem. I´m not leveling so much, my brains just aren't switched to poker You know when u start doing something new, something where u really need to think and learn how to be good. It takes time to adapt and get ur mind into it. So, im trying to learn how should i look different situations at poker. Sure, i know the very basics, but i cant see (not yet) behind the curtains, how things really works. And that is frustrating for me, because i have always consider me to be a fast learner..

Thank You and thank Cpallo, for explaining me how it works I´ll copy this to my files, and i think i´ll come back to this conversation when my mind is confused

Originally posted by CPallo
Always try to plan one street further and try to realize the real strength of your hand versus villains' range. Don't try to make them fold a hand that they can't fold.

Thats something i really need to work and practice. Planning and seeing how strong my hand is vs villains range.. Any tips how to practice planning?

Originally posted by smice12

Originally posted by CPallo
Always try to plan one street further and try to realize the real strength of your hand versus villains' range. Don't try to make them fold a hand that they can't fold.

Thats something i really need to work and practice. Planning and seeing how strong my hand is vs villains range.. Any tips how to practice planning?

Just take some hands and see a flop on your HEM.

Think of this hand for instance.

What will you do on turn if it is a space?
What will you do, if it is another nine?
What if it is something that connects the board even further?
What if it is Q,K,A?

Think of those questions. You can even put his supposed UTG range to equilab and see how your hand strength changes in different situations.

Really nice discussion! Thank You smice12 for iniciating that. Also gratitude to CPallo and Inv1ctus83 for exhaustive answers!