Big Blind hand for review

Villian was 38/3/1 over 57 hands. I realize that i should have raised more pre. Figure he would have raised pre if he had Ax.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.02 BB (8 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
UTG+1 ($6)
MP1 ($2)
MP2 ($2.05)
CO ($0.88)
Button ($0.77)
SB ($1.69)
Hero (BB) ($2.36)
UTG ($1.82)
Preflop: Hero is BB with A:spade:, 7:club:
6 folds, SB calls $0.01, Hero bets $0.06, SB calls $0.04
Flop: ($0.12) J:club:, A:diamond:, J:heart: (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.12, SB raises to $0.48, Hero ??

I like making it 4x in those situations unless I have a read otherwise (I don't know why 4x instead of 3x but I usually do it with any two cards). I don't really see what betting that flop accomplishes. I guess you could maybe get some value from lower pocket pairs, but what other hand is gonna play back at you that you can beat? I'd check behind him, but fold if I had already bet pot on the flop (Why do you bet so big if you plan on folding to a raise..?).

^Sorry I don't do that with almost any 2 cards at 2nl. I play a lot more nitty because They don't like to fold postflop and if they limp preflop they usually won't fold to a normal-sized raise.

What you need to do is plan your hands.

First, 3x vs 4x. Nothing wrong with 3x. What you need to do (for deception - not a big issue at 2NL but the principle holds) is to be consistent in your raise size. So if you raise 3x with this hand you should be raising 3x here with any hand that you raise. (Except if you make adjustments to this specific player and with this stats and at 2nl you probably can, but different story)

Opponent is 85bb deep. If you raise to 4bb flop pot is 8bb with 81bb behind. If you raise to 3bb flop pot is 6bb with 82bb behind. If you were playing a suited connector type hand you would prefer a 3bb raise over a 4bb raise. If you were playing a TPTK type hand (like AQ) you would prefer a 4bb (or even 5 or 6bb) raise over a 3bb raise. The question is - what range are you playing in this situation? If the range you play has more of the hands that require a 4bb raise you should raise 4bb. If the range you play has more of the hands that require a 3bb raise you should raise 3bb.

The fact that you come here saying that you should have raised more pre means that you do not have a plan for the hand when you decide to put money in preflop. Why are you putting money in preflop without a clear idea of how that is a prudent investment of your hard-earned cash?

A7o is a hand that flops crap. Any hand can flop quads, trips, two pair and that this hand can also flop these things just goes to show that it can't flop much better. If you hit an ace you would normally have to worry about being outkicked. If you hit a 7 there will typically be cards on the board better than 7. Why are you building a pot at all? Are you trying to punish him for completing the small blind? How about punishing him when you have the tools to do so? Preflop if he folds more than 67% of the time when he completes the small blind feel free to raise trash on the BB, but if he's just going to call, don't raise him with trash but rather check behind and just raise him with hands that have potential.

Or at least only raise him if you know his tendencies well enough to know how often you can bluff him off his hand profitably after the flop, because relying on flopping good with A7o is not a good plan.

Flop happens to give you TP. Good, you now have a weak-to-medium strength hand. The pair on the flop is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it makes it more likely that you can split with other aces rather than be outkicked. Like if you are up against A8 and any card higher than an 8 comes you'll be splitting. It's a blessing because with A65 there would be 6 combos of sets that crush you where as with AJJ only one pocket pair (outside AA) improves. It's a curse because while pocket pairs are certainly in his range, so are a lot of random jacks. Like AJ/KJ/QJ/JT/J9. While there are only two jacks left to make combos with that's still 36 or so combos.

So, the paired board here is more a curse than a blessing.

A cbet is not unreasonable. Checking behind is also not unreasonable. What hands are he checking with? Most of them really. If he's missed he wants to check/fold and maybe also with his pairs under J. With a weak ace he wants to check/call. With any J he wants to check/raise.

If you do decide to bet you should size your bet appropriately for the flop. This flop is scary-looking, but also relatively dry. By this I mean that there are no hands possible that have 8+ out draws. The best possible draw is a gutshot with a backdoor flush draw - on a paired board this might not even be a draw to the nuts. A big flop bet is mostly justified by needing to price out draws. You don't need to price out draws. If you want to bet, betting small is not offlimits. Now think about his continuation range.

Scenario 1: Continuation range of Jx, Ax, KK, QQ
Ahead of 12 combos
Splitting with approximately A9- maximum 62 combos - probably more like 15ish as some of the worse aces may not have been limped or may not have called the raise
Behind approximately 60 combos - presumably all AT or better aces have called.
So in scenario 1 you are really not betting for value. You are betting to pick up the dead money when he folds the majority of his range and whatever equity you have against his continuation range is likely to end up being very little as you'll either check down to showdown and maybe win part of the pot or fold to opponent aggression before showdown because you're behind.

Scenario 2: continuation range 22+, Ax, Jx
Ahead of 66 combos
Splitting with maybe 15ish combos
Behind 60ish combos
The idea of betting for value is stronger here. If we could bet for value there would be an argument for making a bigger rather than a smaller bet, but even in this best-case scenario for your hand the bigger bet is not a clear correct decision. You might argue that since the Jx hands will likely c/r you could bet for value and if the opponent then calls you can rule out Jx and continue betting for value. In the event that you see a showdown against a weaker hand I suggest that the way to keep the opponents range the widest is to bet no more than 2/3 pot on the flop, check the turn and bet 1/2 pot on the river. If he calls 22/33 type hands on the flop, this way he may also call the river.

My flop plan here is to bet 1/2 psb and then only put any more money in if I improve (a 7 does not improve me as it is counterfeited by the JJ on the board) or if I strongly feel that my opponent has continued with pairs below J that are willing to pay a little more on a later street. In that case I will consider a small value bet on the river. Bluffing (beyond the cbet) is not part of my plan.

Checking behind the flop and doing a delayed cbet on the turn is more likely to get weaker pairs to call, so if you think he is reluctant to call with 22 on the flop but would be willing to call 22 on a blank turn - check behind the flop. Yours is not a hand that wants a big pot, so pot controlling one street is not a bad idea.

As played, fold. He has a jack. Or to put it differently - the range of hands with which he check/raises contains so many Jx hands that you cannot profitably call hoping that his time he's holding one of the few bluffs in his check/raising range.

With those stats this is a instant muck - he has no air in his range. I almost want to check flop back to let him catch a pair and then value bet turn + river or have him call us down with 77 ect.

great response erpel!

to the OP there is a lot of great information in there, i suggest you read it over and over

woah, apparently erpel posts in the BC like he does in WW. i only read the first 5 paragraphs or so, so i'll just chime in with my thoughts though they may be repetitive.

biggest leak in this hand, imho, is that you're sitting to the exact left of a 38/3 for 57 hands and don't have a single read on him beyond he's a 38/3. i know it's FR, so it's not QUITE as atrocious ('cause there are less opps to iso and everyone's playing more tables and paying attention less), but having the jesus seat on 38/3's is how you make most of your money in poker (you can break even in every other spot and have a healthy winrate all the way through micro and even low stakes). you should be getting involved in a lot of hands against this player and paying attention to his exploitable tendencies and figuring out at the very least if he's the type to be like "ATC, i just wanna see a flop. nope, i missed so i fold" or if he's the type to pay off 3 streets with second pair. even a fold to cbet %age could help us with this.

/rant

preflop sizing is standard. you're going to be doing this with a wide/weak range, so it's not at all bad for shania to make your semi-bluffs cheaper.

on the flop, my standard is to check back and let him catch a second best hand (there aren't many second best hands in his range right now) against unknown fish (but he shouldn't be unknown RAWR!).

Code:

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5,940  games    0.005 secs    1,188,000  games/sec

Board: Jc Ad Jh
Dead: 

        equity        win        tie              pots won        pots tied       
Hand 0:        58.485%          17.27%        41.21%                  1026              2448.00  { As7c }
Hand 1:        41.515%          00.30%        41.21%                    18              2448.00  { A6o }

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I just want to say thanks to everyone for the responses. I am still in my early stages of finally taking poker seriously. Still learning to interprete PT3 stats and how to exploit them.

I would like to respond to Surviva and let you know that i had cbet this guy to death all night, pulled one off with 72 but didnt' show. When he raised, I did fold knowing that this guy had to have a J. Sure enough, He actually showed his hand and he had called my raise with J2 lol...

thanks also to erpel...some of your thought processes will definitely be used in the future. I am still working on having a plan and putting people on ranges verses a single hand or single card so alot of what you said will help.

Thanks Spoon. Point well taken.

Note how Spoon's observation partially invalidates some of my comments.