Full Ring 101 Questions - N00Bs ask here

[peterpjames]

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Kind of a broad noob question but....

Since I started playing micro NL a little over a month ago, I find that a lot off my losses so far are occuring on the river. At the 5NL & 10NL limits, is it safe to assume that TPTK is never going to be good when faced with a pot sized or greater all-in bet or raise on the river when the villain in an unknown and has called bets on every street?

Does the answer change if I checked the turn for pot control?

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At these levels when people put in a big raise, one pair hands (and most of the time two pair hands) are just no good.

One of the biggest things in boosting my winrate the past few months has been playing TPTK and vulnerable overpair hands a lot more cautiously. Well, maybe cautious isn't the word for it, because you want to remain aggressive, but you need to be careful to. Think about it this way, if you are showing aggression on every street and a guy still comes back over the top of you, at this level they aren't bluffing. Fold your JJ on a 97732 board and move on to the next hand.

The key to playing in position is that it allows you to control the pot, and make it big or keep it small. Keep pots small that you don't want to spiral out of control. Good players may lose a lot of small pots, but they lose very few medium sized pots because they won't pay off people as often because they are controlling the hands, and this makes it easy for them to tell when others have something good.