Was villain stealing or have QQ or something?

Was this a good play? I felt like he was trying to steal and I wanted to play my ducks.

No-Limit Hold'em, $0.20 BB (6 handed) -

CO ($3.50)
Button ($20)
SB ($18.70)
BB ($22.70)
Hero (UTG) ($26.05)
MP ($26.15)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 2, 2
Hero calls $0.20, MP calls $0.20, 3 folds, BB raises to $1.20, Hero calls $1, 1 fold

Flop: ($2.70) 10, 6, A (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($2.70) 10 (2 players)
BB bets $2, Hero raises to $5, 1 fold

Total pot: $6.70 | Rake: $0.30

Good card to bluff on, but I think you can bet this flop as well.

Originally Posted by Danh Bai

Was this a good play? I felt like he was trying to steal and I wanted to play my ducks.

No-Limit Hold'em, $0.20 BB (6 handed) - Cake-Poker Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($3.50)
Button ($20)
SB ($18.70)
BB ($22.70)
Hero (UTG) ($26.05)
MP ($26.15)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 2, 2
Hero calls $0.20, MP calls $0.20, 3 folds, BB raises to $1.20, Hero calls $1, 1 fold

Flop: ($2.70) 10, 6, A (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($2.70) 10 (2 players)
BB bets $2, Hero raises to $5, 1 fold

Total pot: $6.70 | Rake: $0.30

I'm still playing .05/.10 but I think that villian (without reads and stats) is raising two limpers with something fairly solid... I'd say QQ is definately in his range... down to pretty much any pp, AT+ maybe KQ or KJ also...

Or am I way off here?

I don't like 22 UTG so here I think with his raise, which seems standard, I'm folding this. After flop, with the scary ace out there, I think I'm checking it down...

ok to play 22 UTG but NEVER limp. When called u have initiative and rep the A on the flop and take it down right there most of the time. If you're called on the flop you have to give up imo. Your ducks don't fare that well on the turn.

As played fold the Turn. There are better spots to get your money in.

As played, this hand is only good for a bluff once you miss the set... With no reads, can't make a judgment on whether this was +EV or not. It worked - but if your only reason for raising the turn was "a 3rd flush card hit", I'm not sure I'd consider it a good win....

Oh..and why limp 22 UTG? What was your reason for not raising PF and then cbetting?

Monty, he can be isolating here with a lot more than QQ+.

Look at that turn card, and how many ways that card can scare him. He has to have a boat or a high spade to think about continuing. AK hearts has to be scared shitless...

With that bet size, that only has to work 3/9.70 or 31% (just under a third of the time) for it to be profitable.

Sar, it's not just the flush card that hit that villain must worry about. Limp call=scs, low PPs, lots of hands that have a T in them, Ax with a spade. Even KK is scared sh!tless unless he holds Kspades, and he can't even fight back with that.....

OP, playing your ducks "I wanted to" isn't the best reason :/

Originally Posted by cardsman1992

Sar, it's not just the flush card that hit that villain must worry about. Limp call=scs, low PPs, lots of hands that have a T in them, Ax with a spade. Even KK is scared sh!tless unless he holds Kspades, and he can't even fight back with that.....

In other words... take hero's two cards, forget we saw them and just play the board...

poker's pretty fun that way

This was totally a bluff, I wasn't betting on my dueces, I was trying to represent the flush or a paired ace. I had this guy on a blind steal. He had raised on the button the last few times around and I didn't have cards to defend my blinds with so this time I wanted to play back. I do wonder if he had a legit hand though.

As for me limping in with the dueces, 90% of the time I limp in with pocket pairs under 99. I will call a raise if the raiser and/or other callers have enough in their stack to make it worth my while when i hit a set and break their backs. Is there anything wrong with this approach?

Originally Posted by Danh Bai

As for me limping in with the dueces, 90% of the time I limp in with pocket pairs under 99. I will call a raise if the raiser and/or other callers have enough in their stack to make it worth my while when i hit a set and break their backs. Is there anything wrong with this approach?

Two quick thoughts...

1) I assume you also limp with some other hands in EP (i.e. SCs) to balance this out so I can't read you like a freakin' novella every time u limp UTG....
2) When you hit your set, you're going to have a harder time building a big pot from a limp than a PFR, so you're gonna get paid less
3) You lose the oppty to take the pot down w/ a cbet, repping a bigger EP hand, when you miss your set
4) That was 3 quick thoughts, and nobody likes someone who gives more thoughts than they said they would so there will be no 4....

That being said, there is def debate over whether raising or folding small pps in EP is more +EV. I raise 'em for a variety of reasons (some of which are above...), so consider this just IMHO.

I prefer to raise 'em up as well, for the reasons sar mentions. I'm probably 80/20 or more raise vs limp. If you are limping, then you also have to limp hands to balance, much like Sar says.

reason to raise pf is pretty much that we dont want to lim-call our strong hands utg

Here we are again discussing balancing strategies at micro stakes which, imho, is majorly overrated. I 4 table 50NL on Stars and may have ONE player on each table that I have any decent amount of hands with therefore it doesn't make a ton of sense to balance my play for future sessions as a) I don't run into the same players enough and b) don't hit exact situations enough against the few players enough times to make a balancing strategy worth my while. That said, when I do make non standard moves against a reg I make a note on that player detailing the move I made so if I do happen to run up against that person again I know what I did against them (since they may have made the same note on me).

Now that I have that off my chest, if you DO feel like employing a balancing strategy then you need to add a few big hands into your early limping strategy, not just hands like sc's. When I am playing someone who limp/calls a lot from EP it is pretty easy to play against them post flop as they have small to mid sized PP's and/or SC's 99% of the time.

In most situations I prefer to raise any PP in an unopened or unraised pot.

This turn card is ok I guess but I rarely bluff with 2 outs

Originally Posted by GatorJH

Here we are again discussing balancing strategies at micro stakes which, imho, is majorly overrated. I 4 table 50NL on Stars and may have ONE player on each table that I have any decent amount of hands with therefore it doesn't make a ton of sense to balance my play for future sessions

Now see that's just 'cause you don't stay at any level longer than you should... you should just try hangin' out for like a year or so for value

I've got at least 20 or so regs that I see just about every (or every other night...) at $25NL 6m at FTR... and have north of 2K hands clocked on average for each of them. I absolutely pay attention to what they're limping with in EP (among other things) and adjust accordingly... but I'm a gonna be at this level for another 1,000,000 hands or so, so it's worth it