JJ extracting value,were my bets too small?

PokerStars, Hold'em No Limit - $0.01/$0.02 - 8 players
Replay this hand on Upswing Poker

UTG: $2.41 (121 bb)
UTG+1: $1.32 (66 bb)
MP (Hero): $2.77 (139 bb)
MP+1: $3.61 (181 bb)
CO: $2.10 (105 bb)
BU: $2.00 (100 bb)
SB: $1.95 (98 bb)
BB: $1.54 (77 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.03) Hero is MP with J♣ J♦
2 players fold, Hero raises to $0.06, 4 players fold, BB calls $0.04

Flop: ($0.13) 2♥ 5♦ 5♠ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.04, BB calls $0.04

Turn: ($0.21) 5♣ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.08, BB calls $0.08

River: ($0.37) A♦ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Total pot: $0.37 (Rake: $0.01)

Showdown:
MP (Hero) mucks J♣ J♦ (a full house, Fives full of Jacks)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 67%, Flop: 70%, Turn: 91%, River: 0%)

BB shows A♠ 3♠ (a full house, Fives full of Aces)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 33%, Flop: 30%, Turn: 9%, River: 100%)

BB wins $0.36

I figure villain has A-high much of the time when he calls the c-bet also possible are 43s, Suited broadways and some middle pocket pairs, 2x and rarely the 5.I bet about 1/3 pot because I want to keep all his bad hands in the pot I have been following Jon Little's content lately and he says small stakes you should c-bet smaller than half pot unless scary board I didn't consider this one too scary, tell me, what do you think, do you agree or should it be standard half pot minimum. Another 5 comes making it less likely for him to hold a 5. Suited broadways might give-up with no backdoor flush besides A-high because of showdown equity? villain calls the roughly 1/3 pot again and river brings an A. Villain checks and I think this hits his range good so I check behind and he shows A3ss. Would you have bet more first 2 streets or was the hand fine?

Bet more.

bet $0.08 flop.
as played, bet $0.15 turn.

At the micros, you should almost never be betting less than 1/2 pot. Deviations from this require a specific read on a Villain.
IMO, you're much better off learning to adjust your ranges to betting 2/3 - 3/4 PSB than to try to adjust your bet sizes to match your ranges.

The reason is that if you're playing tight ranges, then you're probably ahead more often and by more than you think you are.
As you get better at treating villains like individuals, you can deviate from your norm to exploit specific traits, but for now, just focus on getting better without letting your improvement go to your head. You're much better at treating villains like individuals than you were a month or 2 ago... but still nowhere near the goal. It's a long, and tedious path.

You're in a spot where you're getting pretty good at understanding your own ranges, but not yet very good at doing so for villains. The villains you're playing against are less good than you at their own ranges, but - honestly - not too much worse than you at reading villains. Your competitive advantage is in your better ranges. So you capitalize by betting more when you bet.


This will change later on, but for now, these factors dominate, IMO.

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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

bet $0.08 flop.
as played, bet $0.15 turn.

At the micros, you should almost never be betting less than 1/2 pot. Deviations from this require a specific read on a Villain.
IMO, you're much better off learning to adjust your ranges to betting 2/3 - 3/4 PSB than to try to adjust your bet sizes to match your ranges.

The reason is that if you're playing tight ranges, then you're probably ahead more often and by more than you think you are.
As you get better at treating villains like individuals, you can deviate from your norm to exploit specific traits, but for now, just focus on getting better without letting your improvement go to your head. You're much better at treating villains like individuals than you were a month or 2 ago... but still nowhere near the goal. It's a long, and tedious path.

You're in a spot where you're getting pretty good at understanding your own ranges, but not yet very good at doing so for villains. The villains you're playing against are less good than you at their own ranges, but - honestly - not too much worse than you at reading villains. Your competitive advantage is in your better ranges. So you capitalize by betting more when you bet.


This will change later on, but for now, these factors dominate, IMO.

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What have I done to let my improvement get to my head? I was just wondering what you guys thought about my bet sizing, Jonathan Little says we can bet 1/3 pot Because we want to keep our opponents in the pot with all their weaker ranges, if we bet larger villain may have folded his Inferior A3 and all hands weaker, . He had 9% Equity and on the turn I got him to call a bet with pot odds of 3.5:1.. How am I not understanding villains range? I put him on a few ranges in this hand and ended up being correct and checked behind? I’m just wondering where your getting your assumptions from I havnn’t said or done anything to give off a vibe that I am letting improvement get to my head ...all I did was ask your opinions about bet sizing in this hand and I agree Icould have gone a bet larger but also trying to follow Jon’s advice

I don't think you're letting anything go to your head, exactly. Just a bit of a general warning that while at the micros, you are getting better and better at understanding villains and their ranges and habits, but there's still a whole world of stuff to learn.

It's good that Jonathan Little gave the reasons for his advice. I'd say the next step is to examine those reasons and see if they apply to the villains you're facing. I doubt they're sophisticated enough to adjust their ranges to bet sizing, so using bet-sizing to exploit them just wont work.

However, I don't play at your tables, so if you think they are that sophisticated (which wouldn't be the population, but an individual read), then by all means, do some equity calcs and see if the ranges he's assuming villains will continue with are similar enough to the ranges you think your villains will continue with.

After re-reading my statement, I think I meant to caution you, just kinda generally speaking, that while you're getting better at reading villains, you're probably not good enough to deviate that far from ABC poker to exploit a villain in a sensible way.
I.e. maybe you're actually right about reading the villain, but your sense of how wide a range to bet and how thin an amount to bet may still end up owning yourself.


My basic rule for learning poker is to always play ABC poker and only to deviate when you've done some equity calcs that support whatever advice you've been given, or what inspiration you've had. Just double check your gut, is my advice.
(Working scientist, here. Is it obv?)

Even at the top stakes, ABC is winning play. It's just not the most winning play all the time. Barry Greenstein may not be a top money winner, but he's steadily successful and his whole thing is to just always play ABC poker. A solid TAG game can be consistently winning, even against great opponents. Now, he clearly knows when to step out of line, but I'd wager that he does so far less than people think he does, and he's playing table image when he does so.

Ok I see what your saying , Berry is a great player. I don’t know if they need to be sophisticated to call a small bet with a mediocre hand or a weaker hand, if you make the bet a reasonable price bottom and middle pair are more inclined to come along to see another card, not always the case but I think that’s what Jon saying. I could have bet more here though

My big guess is that villains at 2NL will call or fold the same range regardless of your bet sizing. They're just not sophisticated enough to notice the difference, or if they are, they're not sophisticated enough to know how to respond in such a manner as to improve their ranges.

So by betting smaller to encourage them to call wider... all you did was bet smaller, and they called the exact same range.
That's my guess.


Ask yourself. You're sitting at a game, and someone at the table who you think is a decent player starts throwing 1/3 PSB's at you OTF. How do you respond live in the moment?
Is it balanced? Does it take your actual ranges into account, or are you making quick guesses based on individual hand strength in the moment?

Probably all the latter. It's not easy to adjust to new game play on the fly. Responding to the familiar is always easier. It's not until after you've spent some time away from the tables studying that new thing that you're actually prepared to respond to in in the moment, IMO.

hmm.. I think I would probably call a 1/3 pot flop bet HU with many hands, over-cards like A-high sometimes, sometimes a draw, and any pair. I would probably fold out absolute garbage though. What do you mean by does it take my actual range into account? I had taken BB's range into account in this hand I am genuinely confused. on a flop of 2-5-5rainbow villain can call a-lot of hands. I think part of the idea of betting small is because when we do so and are called we are facing a wide range that we are beating most of in this instance whereas when we bet larger we can be called by stronger hands that we may not have as much equity against, not in this specific hand but In general I think. and I didn't know you were a scientist that is real sweet. What kind of stuff do you do? like specifically, I don't know much about scientists.

"What do you mean by does it take my actual range into account?"
I was asking those questions more to put the situation in perspective in the moment when you're at the table. When someone does something unexpected while you're playing, you have to make a choice of how to react right then, without the luxury of time to map it all out. You're probably not going to react optimally. However, if after that session you do some equity calcs and figure out what is a reasoned response to the new thing, then you'll have a better shot at playing against it correctly the next time it happens.

I was saying that Villains are almost certainly not studying the game as much as you are, and most of them will not take the time to do any equity calcs or to see how their range plays out to other bets. What they do to respond to your bets is probably minimal.

BUT AGAIN. I am not sitting at your tables, playing against your villains. There may be a couple of them that can respond to this in a manner that justifies you betting smaller to encourage them to call wider. My reason to say this is not the norm is because anyone savvy enough to both be aware of the need for an adjustment and speculating what is an appropriate adjustment will be crushing the micros fairly hard and wont stay there for long.

That player will have some other, huge and obvious leaks if you're that aware and active but can't claw your way out of the micros.


"I didn't know you were a scientist that is real sweet. What kind of stuff do you do? like specifically, I don't know much about scientists."
I work in physics at Washington University in St Louis. I curate, test and setup physics demonstrations for use during lectures. I get to play with all kinds of cool toys, including lasers, a fairly dangerous Tesla coil, liquid Nitrogen, etc.
It's a rockin' gig.

In practice, mostly my job is to help people be less bored during a college physics lecture. lol.
I could pretend that I'm putting personal experiences in their education so that they are not just told to trust us about the science. After all, "trust me" is the opposite of science.
But the psychology has been studied, and the results are clear. Students don't learn any more or less if there are demonstrations in the classroom, but they do feel like they learned more, and they report the classes with demonstrations are less boring.
So at the end of the day... I call myself a scientist, but it may be more apt to call what I do science entertainment.


There's a thread in the FTR Community forum called "Ask a Monkey a Physics Question" and it hasn't been very active lately, but it has over 2k posts. If you ever do have any physics-based curiosity, go ahead and post questions there and I'll answer as best I can.

Awesome I will definitely take a look at that, Also I will be putting up more poker hands in the near future I have been somewhat quite with posts because I have been studying far more than playing lately . St louis? that's sweet, I follow St-louis Chess club on you-tube often, they have some GM's there, Grand Master yasser seirawan is an amazing chess player and teach I have learned alot about chess from him. St louis seems to have alot of smart people there.

You're a chess player? Do you follow agadmator on youtube? I watch his uploads as soon as I pick up the notification.

Do you have a rating?

St louis seems to have alot of smart people there.

Yes. It's a pretty great place to live. Sometimes gets called the biggest small town in the Midwest.

Boeing and Monsanto employ a huge number of scientists and engineers. We have world class cancer research in and around the city, too, which attracts highly skilled medical researchers. Ameren UE (the local electric company) has a lab not far from here that employs research physicists outside of academia.
We have multiple world-class universities, Washington University in St Louis, and St Louis University, as well as a dozen or more state and local colleges.

I'm sure I'm just scratching the surface. I don't honestly know much of what goes on downtown in those tall buildings.

I mean... we're not at a loss for dumbasses or anything, but we do have a lot of jobs here that require higher education.

I saw an advertisement for the St Louis Chess Club on the side of a bus the other day. I was surprised that a chess club had the funds for public advertising.
I suck at chess. I was never any good, and don't have the patience to learn it.


We have pretty high local tax, but general admission to the St Louis Zoo (world class) is free, and so is general admission to the St Louis Science Center, St Louis Art Museum (also world class), Missouri History Museum, and so much more. There are even free seats at the Muny, an outdoor theater where plays and musicals are put on throughout the summer.

Plus, we have one of the most identifiable city skylines in the world. I'm a huge nerd about the St Louis Gateway Arch. It's a fascinating building that is almost entirely empty space. Just this thin ribbon that goes up and comes back down. You can ride to the top of it and feel it swaying in the wind. The curves and shape of it look very 1970's, but it was designed in the late 1930's - so ahead of its time.

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Originally Posted by OngBonga

You're a chess player? Do you follow agadmator on youtube? I watch his uploads as soon as I pick up the notification.

Do you have a rating?

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Ya I play chess its awesome. I don't know agadmator but I will check him out now that you mention him. I don't have like an official real life rating because I've never gone to a chess club or tournament but I play online often, On chess.com my rating hangs around 1300-1400. I learned so much from the St.louis chess club they have a great bunch there. My son has joined his elementary chess club every year ,one time he did good at the tournament where the schools go against each-other each year and the top performing kids would go to another bigger tournament, he did well enough to go to the next tournament where he he lost but did ok. He did that when he was like 9. My sons 11 now and we have been playing the game every night to get him ready for his yearly tournament is next month and I have been trying to get him ready. Practicing openings and different lines, he really likes the sicilian dragon. How about you do you have a rating? we should play sometime I'm sure you would kick my butt but it would be cool.

St.Louis seems like a great place I didn't know all that about it. Actually sounds like a great place to live, I would feel comfortable being surrounded by smart people and hospitals with people who know what they are doing. I live in a city full of factories, high unemployment rates and tons of drug-attics. "I mean... we're not at a loss for dumbasses or anything" lmao! . You've convinced me about St.Louis I will be putting that on my places to visit list now.

I have watched some stuff on the St Louis channel, it's good content. Very educational. Agadomator analyses notable games, either historical gems or ongoing events.

My blitz rating on chess.com is 1596 and my long game rating on gameknot is 1964. I study my games when I have lots of time, so I play much better chess. I spend most of my chess time these days playing variants, either chess on an infinite plane or bulldog chess. Infinite chess is my favourite variant. It's played on a forum on chess.com, bulldog is too.

It's cool that you've got your kids into chess at a young age, I started when I was 7 and I was reasonably good as a kid, but it was the birth of the internet that helped me improve because I was able to study openings and regularly play people better than me.

And if you want to play, I'm captaintugwash on chess.com. Hit me with a friend request. A daily game would suit me best, but if you just wanted a ten minute blitz that'd be cool too.

I added captaintugwash , it has an avatar of a guy right? My screen name is Casefoot

Yeah, the avatar is Father Jack from the Irish sitcom Father Ted. He's a drunk, obnoxious foul mouthed priest.

Accepted, challenge sent.

Accepted it’s your move, do u have discord so we can msg on there about playing

I don't use discord. We can chat during the game though, on the moves list, the tab at the top next to moves.

A) $0.14 is not anyone's life-savings.

B) If you can't afford to lose your buy-in, then you can't afford to play. You should never be gambling money you can't afford to lose.

C) "Because there is a 50/50 chance of losing [...]"
This is really hinting that you don't have any idea how probabilities work and that every decision you make in poker affects your chance of winning or losing. IF your chance to lose is 50/50, that's just interesting, and indicative that you are not winning or losing in the long run (highly unlikely).

D) I'm happy for you that you've found another hobby you enjoy as much or more than poker. Keep in mind this is a poker forum (albeit a mostly dead one) and we don't really do NBA stuff. You're welcome to post on this topic in the Community Forum here on FTR.

I can't even be bothered to reply to this clown. He clearly has no idea what he's talking about.

he wasn't bothered about poker , just here to spam his link that was hidden in the post - so banned him

Well spotted. I missed it. I assumed he was pretending to be interested in poker and the link was coming in the next post.

The post still exists, since it's not been hard deleted. Does that mean the link still functions for the intended purpose?

thinks its only visible to mods

I don't necessarily think there is such thing as too small of a bet.

Sure there is. Let's say you flop a set with, say 77, on 5h6h7d. Table is loose passive, four in the hand including the big blind, and it checks to you on the button. Pot is 400. How much are you betting? The answer is at least 200, and I'd be going at least 300. Anything less is just stupid. You're giving too good a price for drawing hands to get there.

In the hand posted above, it's not quite so clear. I'd go half pot, expecting calls from Ax and pocket pairs, while his KQ and worse folds. Maybe we can get a call from the likes of KQ when we bet 4c, so maybe this isn't such a bad bet. But there are definitely times where a bet is obviously too small.

Well, I think it depends on what your reasoning for playing is and where you want to get. If you're like me and just want to have a good time, trust me, there's no such thing as too small of a bet. I mainly play on this app [deleted link] and only when I have some money to spare with my friends. The person that wins the most has to buy beer for the rest with the money they made from the bet. I feel like it's the best way to play.


[EDIT by MadMojoMonkey]

Christopher, you're lucky mojo modded that post before either me or keith. Don't post spammy links, next time will definitely be a ban.

You know, most people would tell you your bet is too small because people tend to be larger than one over two of a pot size in most cases. And again, another thing you should focus on is your villain; I don't know why people lose focus on villains.
Like someone mentioned above, you need to start treating villains like individuals and know that they are less good than you. Just like how the casino agent told me during my early years of betting, villains don't do so much or spend so much time doing almost what I do; what they do in response to your bet is less than you may think.

Quote:

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Like someone mentioned above, you need to start treating villains like individuals and know that they are less good than you.

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I would say this is misguided. You can't assume you're better than everyone at the table. It's important to identify who are good poker players, perhaps even better than you are. There's no shame in admitting there are people who are better than you. It's important we don't arrogantly assume everyone is bad. That is a mistake.

No matter how much you try to win in casino, you won`t achieve it, because a lot of casinos have their type of game, their rules and others. I use [link deleted] because it is safe and I believe them when they tell me that I will receive the money at time. I use this website for a long time, and I have never had any type of problem. After the pandemic situation a lot of casinos closed, and people started to play online. If you want to play poker, or arcade, or even to bet on sport games, I recommend you to try this website. After I made a good amount of money, I can travel the whole world with my friends and family.

I dunno why you show leniency mojo, I just boot these clowns. I'm not gonna mod posts or ban members when you've already modded the post, but it's clear that guy isn't here to talk about poker.

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Originally Posted by natacameron

You know, most people would tell you your bet is too small because people tend to be larger than one over two of a pot size in most cases. And again, another thing you should focus on is your villain; I don't know why people lose focus on villains.
Like someone mentioned above, you need to start treating villains like individuals and know that they are less good than you. Just like how the casino agent of :Mod edit spam link deleted told me during my early years of betting, villains don't do so much or spend so much time doing almost what I do; what they do in response to your bet is less than you may think.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by OngBonga

I would say this is misguided. You can't assume you're better than everyone at the table. It's important to identify who are good poker players, perhaps even better than you are. There's no shame in admitting there are people who are better than you. It's important we don't arrogantly assume everyone is bad. That is a mistake.

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you are 100% right, I've understood it now. it's even better to assume that everyone is good. right?

Interesting report ... really just put more :D

Hello, and thanks a lot for the information.

There are people who make small bets. This is fine. Definitely, if you want to win a big jackpot, then you need to bet more money. It's simple.