two pair heads up vs maniac

I don't like to raise J8s, is a dominated hand if you hit a J or 8 and odds for flush aren't good enough. I would play this hand to just steal and fold pos flop. Your mini raise invited the villain to play because you gave him good odds 3:1 - I would raise 5x and never cbet.

Yep I agree with Arnalsan. You should of raised more pre flop if heads up trying to steal there and then. Your opponent had so many chips he could afford to call your min raise pre flop. Then after the flop you played very bad. You hit top pair so you need to protect your hand by betting bigger. A min bet is just asking to be called by someone with that level of chips and style of play. You do not mention who won the hand?

Arnalsan, isn't 5x way too much? And why no cbet if I hit top pair vs fish who is gonna call a lot of worse hands (like he did, with 3rd pair)?

darrenrw, that was actually my idea to give him a rope to call with a lot worse hands. By checking this fish showed weakness so it's clear that I have the best hand here and only exception could be if he slowplaying set and maybe some two pairs. If he would have top pair I am sure he would be the one who bets big. And the results is in spoiler - maniac showed better two pair which he hit on turn.

However, agree that maybe I should bet bigger preflop as he will very rarely fold to minraise.

I won't play this hand, but, if would I'll open 5x in steal [for other sng situations]. You had a marginal hand in flop and would pay it cheap as possible.

Originally posted by villijmeen99
Arnalsan, isn't 5x way too much? And why no cbet if I hit top pair vs fish who is gonna call a lot of worse hands (like he did, with 3rd pair)?

darrenrw, that was actually my idea to give him a rope to call with a lot worse hands. By checking this fish showed weakness so it's clear that I have the best hand here and only exception could be if he slowplaying set and maybe some two pairs. If he would have top pair I am sure he would be the one who bets big. And the results is in spoiler - maniac showed better two pair which he hit on turn.

However, agree that maybe I should bet bigger preflop as he will very rarely fold to minraise.

Originally posted by Arnalsan
I won't play this hand, but, if would I'll open 5x in steal [for other sng situations]. You had a marginal hand in flop and would pay it cheap as possible.

Originally posted by villijmeen99
Arnalsan, isn't 5x way too much? And why no cbet if I hit top pair vs fish who is gonna call a lot of worse hands (like he did, with 3rd pair)?

darrenrw, that was actually my idea to give him a rope to call with a lot worse hands. By checking this fish showed weakness so it's clear that I have the best hand here and only exception could be if he slowplaying set and maybe some two pairs. If he would have top pair I am sure he would be the one who bets big. And the results is in spoiler - maniac showed better two pair which he hit on turn.

However, agree that maybe I should bet bigger preflop as he will very rarely fold to minraise.

I don't agree that it is marginal hand. It is heads up and I have a top pair.

Also i think u are too tight if don't play this hand. I would open here with 75-80% vs a tight player, vs loose or maniac it should be a little a tighter open range, but J8s is in 23.5% best hands (just checked in power equilab). It is definetely a hand I would 99% raise from button and 1% time limp.

villijmeen99,

I understood you were in a beginning of sng 15/30 Blinds 4 Ante. Isn't it? In this situation, even do HU, it doesn't matter: Your $EV is totally negative and fold is the best option.

I would play it the same except as you mentioned bet the turn bigger and you could bet bigger on the flop. HU toppair is a good hand. As played is would also shove. He also could be doing this with Qx or Jx, especially after your small bet on the turn

i don't agree with Arnalsan by folding or raising 5xBB preflop because you are HU and don't want to be overrun by a agressief player. If you are folden J8s HU then that imo is going to happen. Preflop raising 5xBB and being 3bet you are going to loss 5% of your stack very easily and 2x or 3xBB may give the same result HU. Based on the history you want to play flops (preferably cheaply) against this guy so he can hang himself postflop if you hit.

Originally posted by Arnalsan
I won't play this hand, but, if would I'll open 5x in steal [for other sng situations]. You had a marginal hand in flop and would pay it cheap as possible.

Are you trolling? If not ....

@ villijmeen99
Never ever open raise 5x Preflop Unless you have a very strong hand and you play vs. a mega calling station.
I would open raise with a size of 2.5x @ your current stack depth.

J8s and also J8o are both good hands for open raising preflop.

Here is a GTO solution for 25bb effective stacks. (I dont have the time at the moment to solve for your current stack size.)
[Of course you should not play blind accordingly to GTO vs. fish. But you can take it as a guideline deviate from there.]

GTO cbets on flop mostly with a size of 2/3 pot. I think vs. a maniac you can cbet even with a bigger size because these guys usally dont like to fold.

Turn:

I would also cbet the turn because you can call vs. a 3x reraise. You have 9 outs for the FD, 3 Jacks for two-pair and 2x8 (just 2x8 because on of the 8 would give u a flush) for trips.

River (In this solution we are already all-in on river because we started with just 25bb...)

In your game I would just call villains river bet.

btw. in a 100bb HU cash game Doug Polk suggests to use this range as a default range. (Of course you should adjust your range to your opponent. If villains 3bets you for example with a very high frequenzy. Then you should not open raise to loose.

Wow thanks for good analysis, CptJokerFish!

And yeah, Arnalsan, I am not a poker expert and especially not the HU as it could be my one of the biggest weakness. Despite the fact that so far in these type of tournaments my 1st to 2nd place ratio is 3:2 But yeah the sample size is not big, soon it's will be only 1k tournaments.
However, if you think that J8s is a hand to fold HU u should check some materials about HU game. You are way too tight if you fold J8s no matter how big or small are the blinds.

Hey mates, I'd never said I'm an expert or even do, someone who played well. I express my opinion just to contribute and learning throughout the discussion.
Thanks a lot and I'll study HU

Originally posted by Arnalsan
Hey mates, I'd never said I'm an expert or even do, someone who played well. I express my opinion just to contribute and learning throughout the discussion.
Thanks a lot and I'll study HU

Its ok mate, I guess we are all here to learn :f_drink::f_thumbsup:

I do not claim to be an expert at heads up, but seems to me you let him have a turn card way too cheaply, I think a bigger bet there was in order as well as pre flop, hoping for a quick steal as I said earlier. Well finished 4th in a freeroll tourney of 3000 on 888 for a cash of $15, and had a free €5 euro ticket to use on coral so entered a deep stack turbo tournament about 150 players with upto 2 re buys. I never do re buys personally. Anyway finished 4th in that for a cash of €66.

Those winnings were yesterday. I am sure Cptjokerfish analysis is sound and good, but in my opinion do not get bogged down with too much mathematical analysis, especially if you are a beginner. The best thing as a beginner is experience of playing as many hands as possible. You will quickly learn from where you went wrong and lost hands in a game. Then gradually try to understand pot odds, whether a bet is worth making or not. I found a table in a book that I found useful that explained basic percentages of hitting a winning card e.g. if you have 14 outs that would give you the nuts with 2 cards to come you have a 51.2% of hitting your card and 30.4% with one card to come. You have an open end straight draw with 8 outs, so you have a 31.5% chance of hitting this with 2 cards to come and 17.4% with one card to come. There are many more examples but I have listed 2 useful examples

Yes I agree with the bet on turn. It definetely should be bigger.

And idk if I really count a beginner. I have been playing poker almost 2 years seriously (with big pauses during school time), I have made a significant profit as I am still living with my parents - over 2k and only 19yr old. So of course I know what is pot odds, outs and other basic math stuff in poker. And so on no problems with harder math analysis by some better players.

That is great, keep it up, you doing well so don't need advice from me. Good luck with your studies and poker

Originally posted by Arnalsan
I don't like to raise J8s, is a dominated hand if you hit a J or 8 and odds for flush aren't good enough. I would play this hand to just steal and fold pos flop. Your mini raise invited the villain to play because you gave him good odds 3:1 - I would raise 5x and never cbet.

WTF?

I aint an expert in HU but thats all I play and J8s is perfectly fine to OR there. I min raise if he 3bets a lot or 2.5-3x raise for value if he is just calling everything pre.
Flop is a standard 1/2 pot cb for value on a low dry board like this I bet bigger against a station again for value not protection @darrenrw and Im willing to stack off with TPGK against a maniac.
Turn I dont slow down there as I like to play my draws aggressively and with a FD on the board i usally bet slightly over 1/2 of the pot (160/248 in this spot) against a maniac.
His River donk for me is as polarized as it gets. With that line xc xc donk river he is either super strong or super weak there but looking at the size of that river donk I say we are beaten nearly always and he is betting for value. You said he was pushing all his drwas before so he obviously has some made hand there.
Would i fold? After seing what you have seen, probably not. But I wouldnt raise that either, just hero call (kicking myself later).

My question is: how did he play that 66 v AA ? You said he hit set on the flop but how did he play that? it should give you some information about his value betting /play with strong hands even if that was only once off.

Zagi11 is wrong,it is heads up

Originally posted by darrenrw
Zagi11 is wrong,it is heads up

explain please?

Originally posted by zagi11
My question is: how did he play that 66 v AA ? You said he hit set on the flop but how did he play that? it should give you some information about his value betting /play with strong hands even if that was only once off.

Thanks for opinion!

He made it all in preflop, so he was lucky to hit that set.