25NL: A9, Betting river for Value with two pair

Villain is fairly unknown, but running 17/11/1.2 over 60 or so hands, a bit station-esque. Once flop checked around I felt ok with taking a small stab at the pot, and the river here is a spot I have a bit of trouble with. On the river I was putting him on a medium PP, missed overs and possibly (though small) some kind of Kx but would be more surprised to see that than some kind of Ax hand.


PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($27.15)
MP ($3.40)
CO ($34.35)
Hero (Button) ($25)
SB ($34.35)
BB ($43.75)

Preflop: Hero is Button with A, 9
3 folds, Hero bets $0.85, SB calls $0.75, BB calls $0.60

Flop: ($2.55) 9, K, 4 (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($2.55) 2 (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $1.75, SB calls $1.75, 1 fold

River: ($6.05) K (2 players)
SB checks, Hero...?




This hand I played against him about 10 minutes later.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (5 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($26.45)
SB ($35.80)
Hero (BB) ($28.95)
UTG ($30.40)
MP ($42.15)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 2, 2
UTG bets $1, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.75

Flop: ($2.10) K, 9, 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $1.50, UTG calls $1.50

Turn: ($5.10) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $3.75, UTG calls $3.75

River: ($12.60) 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $7.80, UTG calls $7.80

Total pot: $28.20 | Rake: $1.35

check behind in hand 1, you're good sometimes and there's not much you're getting value from
you should only bet if he calls with hands like 55-88 and 4x since otherwise you're only getting value from 9x ONLY which is Q9, J9, T9, 98 and 87s
don't be surprised if he shows up with TT in that spot, and also he can have AK, KQ, KJ, KT, K9s, 44, 22

so as a value bet it's really thin and I would hate to get bluffed off the best hand if he c/r that river with air even 5% of the time we're really unhappy to vbet thin

hand 2: and your question is?

hand 2: should I be betting a bit larger? didnt' really hve a question about it, just since it was against same villain I thought I'd post it.

I'd never lead the K92r flop

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

I'd never lead the K92r flop

could you explain this? that was going to be my exact advice. i think the 5 of 47 possibilities of getting a hand that you can play with confidence on the turn makes up for the fact that you have a less than 40% chance of betting them both off. is it because if you get an ace or a nine then you're probably not in good shape anyway?

anyway as you played the hand, checking the river is definitely the right play. there aren't too many hands that are calling you here that don't have you beat and there are a lot of hands that might call for a c/r (though if he's a calling station he might not be so likely to make that play). either way, better safe than sorry

1st hand - I'm checking behind. If you bet you're only going to get called by better.

2nd hand - looks ok by me. You could have tried to trap him, but I think you still got +ev out of your deuces.

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

I'd never lead the K92r flop

What is a better line? Check/raise? I usually don't donk into the opener, but in this case and due to his previously observed passivity I took a different line.

Edit: My thought was that he'd take my betting into him as weak sauce and he'd raise me or keep calling, which he did.

How do I get the money in against him?

Originally Posted by surviva316

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

I'd never lead the K92r flop

could you explain this? that was going to be my exact advice. i think the 5 of 47 possibilities of getting a hand that you can play with confidence on the turn makes up for the fact that you have a less than 40% chance of betting them both off......

Wrong flop homey. :P

Originally Posted by speedcake

Originally Posted by surviva316

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

I'd never lead the K92r flop

could you explain this? that was going to be my exact advice. i think the 5 of 47 possibilities of getting a hand that you can play with confidence on the turn makes up for the fact that you have a less than 40% chance of betting them both off......

Wrong flop homey. :P

lol my b. those flops were really similar.
yeah my first instinct is to criticize the donk bet too but you support your move well, thus proving that in poker it's more about the "why" you act as you did then it is exactly "how" you acted. i'm sure bigspenda could still find away to shoot your line of reasoning down but at least you had a plan and it worked out for you so i say kudos goin' against the standard play

The reason you shouldn't lead out on a K92r flop is that it's so uncoordinated, that usually your opponent usually isn't going to have anything and will be forced to fold most of the time. It's a good board to slowplay since you don't mind giving free cards away on a board like this. Hopefully the villain catches something on the turn (say like a Q), and you can then extract 2 streets of value.

c/r on an uncoordinated board also screams strength, so it's probably not the best play.

You could try c/c flop, bet turn, bet river

or

c/c flop, c/r turn, bet river <- this looks ridiculously strong though so unless you feel that your opponent can't lay down the hand, this might not be the best option

Good thing about the latter line is that you can usually massage the pot so that you'd stack.

Yea, bet river in hand 1, why not? #2 seems good to me with your reads and stuff. Your question isn´t "how do I get the money in?" but "what´s the max I can extract off his range?" and it seems you did well

I bet river in hand 1. The vast majority of his range here looks a lot like worse 9s or lower pps.

People pay you off withccrap at the micros and I get 2 streets out of A4 here a scary amount of the time. I don't think he ever has a set or a K here when he hasn't lead any street here. And c/r bluffing at the micros doesn't happen anywhere near 5% of the time in this spot imo.

If he was this passive over a larger sample I might check it back, because we'd be sure that Ks and 1010, JJ could be in his range.

Well see this will help u alot and generally true if people are calling out of the BB or Small blind Generally if there not a Loose player U put them on big broadway hands or pockets usually calling out of blinds means pretty big hands

ALSO there putting u on a big variety of hands since u Raised out of the button checking is more more +ev and then calling a river bet if nobody bets river than yes value bet river

P.S. I did check behind on hand 1. I didn't think I'd get much more value out of worse hands and I was good with the pot as it was given my hand strength.

villain showed my a pair of 88s. ship it.

hand 1 is not the easiest value bet of all time but it's certainly up there. It's a really easy bet/fold, and if you're having trouble identifying spots like this as bets or checks then I don't know what to say, but you have like the top of his c/c range on the river, so it seems like an easy bet.

Hand 2 I'm c/c'ing flop and checking turn, and taking it from there. Also, no one else has said it, but hand 2 is a fold for me PF, we're OOP against someone who could be opening relatively wider b/c we're 5-handed. On this board texture he'll be cbetting a wider range than he floats with and if he has a TT-QQ type hand we're likely to only get 1-2 streets of value regardless, therefore I'm more worried about extracting from his TP+ hands and his air and checking accomplishes this more than leading the flop.

thanks, Spenda. Certainly things to think about.

Hand 1: My instinct was to bet/fold river and I clearly muffed it. Maybe saying I'm having trouble with those spots isn't entirely correct. But in this hand, yup I'm a dummy.

hand 2: Raiser is UTG and we are a bit deep. I can't call there with my PP even if out of position? Never?


edit: missed the short handed part. Do you think at 25NL that villains's UTG range changes all that much 5 handed vs 6?