An idea for two lines - how profitable could it be?

Hi guys, not posted in a while. As some of you know i'm kind of at the end of my 10nl teather. Gonna play till the end of the month then have a month off which coincides with other obligations anywho.

But still thinking about how the HELL i can improve my game, or even IF i can. Came up with a couple of scenarios that i might be effing up.

so...

line one:

I raise IP with 2 suits and hit 2 more on the flop. I bet, villain calls and by the turn i've still hit air. Normally i start to shut down here and only continue with odds. So... maybe i should two barrel here? because a) villain could have called with nothing but overcard or weakish draw and be prepared to fold to two streets and b) if they just call i can hit the flush on the river and have been stoking the pot ready for it.

I know it's in a vaccum but... is there some math on this in terms of how often it needs to work etc.?

line two is more of a generic two-barrel question. I think this kind of play is, in general, a weak spot for me. I will almost always bet when checked to and often they call leaving me stumped on the turn so i check and either they bet and i fold or i just try to get off the hand. This is costing me, so lets say i have overcards like AK IP and the board is like 2J5r. Villain checks, i bet, he calls. Turn is 7 and makes a second spade.

Is this a good time to two barrel? basically when the flop seems fairly dry ish. I still have two overs and i'm good against AT or AQ etc.

Been playing 'my hand' too much of late. I find that if i start to bet with nothing, for some reason they call with bot pair and if i bet with something, they fold. I must be telegraphing without realising it.

This is really easy to figure out.

First, take it out of a vacuum and get some ranges going.

Then, determine their calling ranges of your bets and the potential profitability of your bluffs + the equity your FD has to see if it's +EV.

Even if it's not a semibluff, you can figure out how often you think their folding a portion of their flop range to a second barrel and see if your bluff is profitable that way.

Ranges, ranges, ranges....

Originally Posted by wonderland

I will almost always bet when checked to and often they call leaving me stumped on the turn

this seems to be the root of your whole problem. you shouldn't be cbetting 100% or anywhere very close to that. there are two types of opponents that you want to be careful cbetting against at 10NL: calling stations who never fold so the play never works and players who are able to exploit you (either TAgg regs who are capable of floating someone who cbets monkey or a LAggtard who goes all hulk on you if you cbet them like twice in a row and start c/r'ing constantly). so i think that you answered your own question when you said "i know it's in a vacuum but..." because the whole problem is that i think you're thinking too much in a vacuum.

ANYWAYS, in hand 1, i almost always cbet, and usually take the free card if the turn is checked to me (kinda like 50% of the reason we bet the flop in the first place so we could see TWO cards for the price of one). the turn brings a scare card then you can bet it if ranges allow for it (it's not always best two 2-barrel an ace against an A-rag fish for obv. reasons, but against most opponents a blank K or A is a good time to take down the pot without having to get fortunate on the river).

in hand 2, the answer is simply no unless i'm missing something. if the opponent is calling down all sorts of garbage like BP and A-rags and stuff that you can scare off with a turn bet then you shouldn't've made the cbet in the first place. just bet against this type of opponent when you actually have a hand and they will never catch onto your game and start folding their A-rags and BP's when you have AJ in this case 'cause they're stations and that's how we win money off stations. if you're cbetting against a station, they call, the turn comes up completely blank and you fire a second barrel then you're dedicating a lot of money to trying to bluff a station and a certain brunson quote comes to mind. a better line against a station is checking behind on the flop and betting just about any turn card because they're too caught up in what color their cards are to realize you're not repping anything when you do that (sometimes the delayed cbet play doesn't work either so you again but you don't adjust by simply firiing more and more barrels at someone who isn't folding)

Just try it and see what happens

well, the other thing is, does calling scream weakness enough times to push them off?

how often do people really JUST float with a good hand?

to get back to my point, i have been concerned that i'm just never 2-barreling with air IP. When i say air i typically mean AK/AQ on a medium/low board. I'm interested in the turn. I get stuck on the turn an awful lot.

what is usually behind the 'flop call'. It is all about ranges but i just find that's tricky because you define a general range and then what? top pair type hands, draws... i do tend to think that if i see two suits and i'm drawing to a straight or hoping to hit a set that i should get off the hand because them drawing to the flush can give my hand some reverse implied odds, so in terms of ranges that's one thing i think of.

I'm just fuzzy on ranges. I can pretty much guess a tightish range when i'm raised because at 10nl people play their cards face up.