A hand from my first NL session

[piggity]

5/10 live, 6-7 handed. I have about $1k, villain has me covered. Villain is new to the table, but by the way he looks and handles himself he seems like a TAG regular.

I open for $40 from MP with QQ, villain cold calls on the button. Heads up, $95 in the pot.

Flop is J7x rainbow. I bet $80, villain calls. $255 in the pot.

Turn is T, putting two clubs on board. I bet $200, villain raises to $600.

Should I be done with the hand, or keep going since the turn brought a lot of draws?

I'm pretty sure I got preflop right, but not sure about the rest. Any thoughts appreciated.

[Alobar]

Is the Jack on board a club?

I prolly fold without a read on him, your best hope is he has a hand like QJcc, 87cc (depending on the board) and even then he's got a ton of outs. But JT, 98, 77, or whatever the other set are seem much more likely.

[James.]

why did you bet the turn if you planned on folding to a c/r?

at that point you put in almost 1/3 of your preflop stack. wanting to fold at this point sucks.

i would raise more pf. make it about $60. that makes your decision-making easier postflop.

you raise to 60, get a call, pot is 135ish. bet 100 or so on the flop, get called, pot is 335 and there's no turning back with only 840 behind you. for example, if you bet 225 on the turn making the pot 560(you have 615 left), and get checkraised it's much easier to call all-in at that price. it also makes it easier to get called when you shove on the river.

have a plan. that's the biggest thing i've learned since i've started playing NL. be ready in advance for the tough decisions and while you may feel uncomfortable you are comitted, nonetheless.

[piggity]

[ QUOTE ]
Is the Jack on board a club?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, Jc and Tc. I don't have the Qc.

[piggity]

[ QUOTE ]

i would raise more pf. make it about $60. that makes your decision-making easier postflop.

[/ QUOTE ]

Am I not supposed to raise the same amount every time preflop? Is 4x BB not a standard amount?

Sorry if I'm asking retarded questions, figured I could get away with them for a bit here.

Thanks.

[Mandor_TFL]

Your supposed to size your raise to whatever will get the amount of action you want. If you just sat down that will be hard to say. Since you opened with a strong but vulnerable hand you want to get 1 or 2 callers in there. I woulda opened for 50, unless the table has been calling for more than 50, then I would try 60 or 70. With QQ opening you want as large a pot as possible and as few people as possible while still getting 1 or 2 people. With a raise to 40 it is too likely you will get too many callers unless the table plays real tight.



As far as SPR goes in this hand which is why a poster said to raise to 60, it does not make this hand any easier to play. Your flop came down Jack high no draws. You want to get a lotta money in since your usually good. Turn brought a deadly Ten. JT is such a huge part of the villains range that it makes the hand terribly difficult. I doubt villain is gonna raise the turn with nothing, unless he is really good and knows your capable of laying down AJ, QQ, KK, AA here. Bet Fold seems to be the best option. I think villain has you crushed well over 50% of the time, and has a strong draw sometimes too. If it is a good player a bluff is possible here, as the board does not look like it hit you much.

[James.]

[ QUOTE ]
Am I not supposed to raise the same amount every time preflop? Is 4x BB not a standard amount?

[/ QUOTE ]

no, not really. at least i don't. i raise according to stack sizes. i try to get the preflop pot as big as possible with hands that are going to usually flop top pair or an overpair. it makes comitting postflop easier.

basically, raise the most that they'll call.

yes, 4x the BB is sort of a standard. but "standards" tend to oversimplify situations when other actions might work out even better.

alot of my advice comes from my limit background, then jumping into NL for about a year with zero experience, and then reading PNL. actually, i've probably infringed on some of the copyrights of PNL with the crap i've been spouting off in this forum. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

seriously though, being successful at NL is dependent on planning ahead to maximize value and mitigate risk. raising more pf helps accomplish this, IMO.

[Alobar]

[ QUOTE ]

seriously though, being successful at NL is dependent on planning ahead to maximize value and mitigate risk. raising more pf helps accomplish this, IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]

james,

I understand how raising more PF helps you play this specific hand on the turn when you get checkraised, and im all for the plan ahead principle, but to me it just seems like that advice in PNL doesnt fit in with how the games I plan in play. I mean sure I get it would be nice if I raised 6x PF and then got in this situation, but if I raise 6x PF I never get in this situation because everyone folds, they usually fold when I raise 4x, because thats what NL mostly is, everyone folding.

So if I raise 4x because its the most they'll call, and then I end up in this spot I made a mistake. But if he doesnt c/r the turn (Which most of the time he doesnt) then Im playing the hand just fine. It's like driving across the city to a friends house only to find out that the route you normally take is under construction and then having the passenger say "you made a mistake, you should have taken loop 101 instead of 51 north" well yeah duh, this time, but most of the time this is the best way.

It's like in the hand above, putting in 1/3 of stack and then having to fold because the turn blows, definiely does suck, but isnt that better than having to stack off simply because you made it to where now you have to call? Isnt that kind of like sayings its good to bloat the pot on the flop in limit with a draw or a hand you know is behind just so now you have to call the turn and then prolly see a showdown?

I dunno, obviously im pretty frustrated, but I just don't understand where some of the stuff in PNL helps, because it just seems like more than anything the examples illustrate a concept thats very helpful to think about and understand, but doesnt actually incorporate well into the real world.

but then I suck, so maybe my inability to incorporate is why, heh.

[ QUOTE ]
seriously though, being successful at NL is dependent on planning ahead to maximize value and mitigate risk. raising more pf helps accomplish this, IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]

so what does one do when they wont call if you raise more PF?

[Surf]

[ QUOTE ]

so what does one do when they wont call if you raise more PF?

[/ QUOTE ]

You keep the pot really small pf (standard 3x raise-ish) but raise with a wide range of hands. Play 1pr/overpair hands for pot control / bluff inducing(think bet flop, ck turn, call river; or ck flop, call turn call river or bet turn bet river) and to cover your weak drawing hands and "give up hands" to help you get cheap cards. This is all assuming you want to be really un-exploitable.

IMO being un-exploitable in most online nl games (up through say 1/2 or 2/4) is really not as important as maximizing value. Know your opponent - there's nothing wrong with getting to the turn and folding to a c/r after putting 1/3 of your stack in, assuming the villain only c/r's better hands and will call worse ones. There are so many 50/5s who will happily c-c all 3 streets with TP or worse and will only come to life if they make 2pr or better that it is a crime to give them free/cheap cards when they will pay you off so consistently.

Of course, if you try to valuetown every tag this way you will get into trouble since most are tightish OOP and wont call multiple barrels unless they have you beat - or they will c/r you when they think they are beat but can get you to fold. In this case playing a more balanced game has its benefits.

Surf

[WordWhiz]

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with a 3-4x BB opening raise w QQ. It's standard, and it's what I'd do 99% of the time in the games I play. Occasionally you get into a tough situation like this. But way more often, your opponent will fold on either the flop or turn, or call you down the whole way with something you can beat, or c/r you only when it's clear you're toast. You happened to hit a very drawy board against a tough opponent. It happens. Move on to the next hand. And make sure you're also raising to 4BB and c-betting with 98s, so when this board hits, you can 3-bet all in and stack the guy.