A hand with russ.

[gunga_galunga]

Friday morning before TARGET, I caught up with Russ and we played some $1-2nl at the Venetian. A couple of orbits in, I was utg and Russ was small blind. I raised to $6. Folded to Russ who reraised to $15 or $18, I don't remember. I called. Flop was 456r. Russ bet $20ish I think. I call. Turn is a K. Russ checked, I bet and won the pot.

Comments

[purplehaze9]

You raise UTG. Russ probably puts you on a super-tight range: TT+, AK. When a king hits a turn, probably figures that he beats a bluff and TT (if he included it in your range).

Russ checking the turn is dependent on stack sizes. If Russ has a $200 stack, a turn bet leaves him pot committed on the river if it is called. The only hand Russ could potentially induce a fold out of that he beats is QQ. He is called (or even worse) raised if he is beat. Check/folding the turn sucks, but it is unfortunately the right move against an unknown UTG. Otherwise, you're pot committed against a hand that has you crushed.

I probably raise a range equal to UTG's range (maybe less if he's super tight).

As for playing 53s...definite wtf move. Makes absolutely no sense what so ever at a normal $1/$2 table.

[purplehaze9]

I meant more if he is super tight as he could find a fold in a hand like AK.

[dmorr]

Playing 53s was probably bad but not certainly. It depends on the stack sizes.

So if you have 250 total or something reasonable, then you should let it go utg and wait for something better, and then fold again when Russ raises.

But if you have like 800 and there are lots of other deep stacks at the table, you should still fold it utg because position is super important, but it's not *that* bad, and you should definitely call the raise.

One thing to think about is your hand balance preflop. There are too many suited connectors to play them all in early position, and way too many if you include one gappers. So overall definitely fold that (and J9s too). You should probably be playing about 10% of your suited connectors utg. That's not really all that many.

[gunga_galunga]

Stack sizes were generally 100-400. I had 300. I almost never play something as bad as 53s there. But sometimes...

Impatience is my biggest leak. It wasn't helped by the fact that I knew we only had an hour and I wanted to play some hands before target since I hadn't played live in two months.

[oscarmc]

A good way to think about 3 beting preflop is that you want your hand range to be a mix of Nuts & Air. The exact mix depends on your opponent, more air vs tight players who fold too often and less against players who will call you with 3,5.

The Nuts hand you are happy to stack off preflop or if you flop an overpair. The air hands are bluffs that are super easy to fold if you get 4 bet or miss the flop.

The problem with the JJ hand is that against most players its too weak to want to get all in preflop and too strong to waste as a bluff, save the 3,5s for your bluffs.