1st hand review. Could I have done this better?

I might bet slightly more OTF for protection against the draws.

Ditto OTT, because he can have a pair with FD.

I’m not sure we should bet the river. As played, with both straights and flushes possible OTR, we are surely burning money by calling that raise.

I would recommend always playing with a full stack of 100BB, by the way.

Preflop
3 bet or fold here. Call with good hands (suited connectors, high PP KQ low Ax suited type hands) , 3 bet with AA KK AK AQ and those mediocre (Ax Kx) hands (if you want to play).

About this river
Anyways... he's never bluffing there, reason is that if he has AK or AQ type of hands (hands that you beat) he will be scared for the straight or flush so will go for a cheap showdown

Sound logic! Thank you both.

Originally posted by pdfbq
Anyways... he's never bluffing there, reason is that if he has AK or AQ type of hands (hands that you beat) he will be scared for the straight or flush so will go for a cheap showdown

It's my biggest leak that I always think people with high vpip's are bluffing. I can't imagine they have it. Lesson learned (hopefully)

Originally posted by lfcmichael
I would recommend always playing with a full stack of 100BB, by the way.

No merit in trying to appear weak? Well, I probably am so I'll take your advise. I have my buy-in standard on 80% for no specific reason, I'll change it.

Hero (BB): 71 BB

This is the first thing I would change. The strategy you will learn here is meant to be used with 100bb stacks. Bigger stacks gives you more room to pull some moves. Also when you hit a good hand and stack off you will win more

I always think people with high vpip's are bluffing.

This is the second thing I would change. You have only 70 hands on villain so you should be very careful when looking at the stats.. 50/35 after 70 hands can easily be 30/25 after 200 hands. And 3bet stats are totally inaccurate. It is a common mistake for beginners to look too much at the stats over small sample. You need 100-200 hands for VPIP, 500+ hands for 3bet stats and flop cbet stats and if you want to see turn and river stats you need thousands of hands.

Then about the hand. Calling pre vs 2.5x open is ok imo. Vs 3x open I would also fold or 3bet as suggested above. OTF you are donking which I don't like that much. I would probably go for a check raise. OTR when you face a raise you should fold. These are super often super strong. Flush and straight is possible so your 2 pair hand is way too weak to call.

Originally posted by la55i
OTF you are donking which I don't like that much. I would probably go for a check raise. OTR when you face a raise you should fold.

Out of interest, why do you prefer the check-raise in this spot?

Ok, I will play with 100BB from now on. I've seen some people never go under, meaning that their stack is automatically replenished after a loss to 100BB again. Would you advice this? With jivaro I could still see how much I had lost already but with PT4 not. Seens a bit dangerous if you try to play agressively.

Originally posted by la55i
OTF you are donking which I don't like that much. I would probably go for a check raise. OTR when you face a raise you should fold. These are super often super strong. Flush and straight is possible so your 2 pair hand is way too weak to call.

Thank you for your advise. Does this mean that we need to be very careful at all times in this kind of situation? I assumed villain to be far from tight and opening pretty wide from the button. I felt more at ease showing strength by donking with this flop than waiting for the c-bet which is sure to come and allowing an even cheaper draw.
My thoughts were that I still had very good equity on the river and that there was a good chance that villain was bluffing. I would think that folding here would open the door to me only being able to defend the BB with the best of hands. I thought 2 pair was pretty strong.
I totally respect your advise and want to learn from it but I'm confused as to how passive I should become.

Originally posted by lfcmichael

Originally posted by la55i
OTF you are donking which I don't like that much. I would probably go for a check raise. OTR when you face a raise you should fold.

Out of interest, why do you prefer the check-raise in this spot?

Because I think donking is often a weird line, difficult to balance and we might have some trouble on later streets. We also isolate ourselves against stronger range. There are some spots where leading is good but they are rare. If we check here he is probably going to bet quite often (big part of his betting range is bluffs) and when we raise he can call with some draws and some strong AX hands so we get more value. If we donk he folds all of the hands he would have bet as a bluff and then we have to play against stronger range. So I see no point in donking.

Originally posted by petshark
My thoughts were that I still had very good equity on the river and that there was a good chance that villain was bluffing. I would think that folding here would open the door to me only being able to defend the BB with the best of hands. I thought 2 pair was pretty strong.
I totally respect your advise and want to learn from it but I'm confused as to how passive I should become.

You are totally right. If you only defend with the almost nuts you can be exploited. Villain can raise you every time and print money. But the fact is that when someone raises on the river it is almost never a bluff. I have done some population analysis and generally these river raises are total air less than 10% of the time. Now flush is possible and villain raises so I would throw a guess that it is at least 80% of the time a flush and then maybe 10% of the time some other strong hands like straights or sets and you can't even beat those.
I have filtered my database for situations where I call a river raise with 2pair or better and I'm losing something like 1800bb/100 which is huge. So they simply do not raise as a bluff

Nice! Real-life stats don't lie. Next time I'll fold for sure.

Thank you la55i

Preflop is definately a call vs 2.5bb open. If the initial raise is bigger, we should fold.

Normally BTN has a wide range and donking is not that bad. 2P hand on drawy board is worth the donk here.
OTR when there are possible flushes and straights and villain raises - we should fold.

Thanks for your input!