Polonium210

The only way I'd fold here is if it was a live game, and the opponent accidently flipped over his cards, and I saw 88 or 89.

Huge cheer from me when I saw he had Queen high diamonds at the end. Super nice call.

Another thing, having the Ace of hearts here is pretty irrelevant. You block the nut flush, but every single player out there would still bet a Jack high flush in this spot. This is a PLO concept.

In fact, it might even be bad for our cause, as you block AK and AQ, two hands that he could conceivably value bet on the river, two hands that you want to value bet.

Check shove? Would we be turning our hand into a bluff in that case? Very confusing thought.

At first glance this looks a bit of a sigh call situation. But at second glance, I fail to see how he can value bet worse here. I'd hate it, but a disciplined fold here is prudent. There's a ton of hands that got there on this river, and I'd probably die of old age before i finished listing them here.

You'd already massacred the hand, might as well give him the rest.

You honestly sound bi-polar or something. But if you're not willing to let experienced people look into you (psychologist), and yet do the same thing every day expecting different results, then I can only see this cycle perpetuating.

I can't understand why people keep playing if it causes so much grief. It makes even less sense that said people who likely have emotional difficulties keep playing. It's such a cold game, if you're not an extremely level-headed individual I can't see how playing a game like this for a living can be good for your life.

I still hold playing this game for a living as a small dream at the back of my mind. I'm a logical, even tempered person, but in reality I'm stuck two tabling in the micros and have been for a while now. I realise there's a huge world out there to be explored with limitless possibilities, and I will very likely find myself doing some sort of 9-5, steady income job. That will probably mean I'll end up with less money than I could playing as a poker pro, but with greater life EV. 

I hope you don't just gloss over my post, as it wasn't really in line with what everyone else is saying. I'm not trying to put you down, but I think seeing someone pronto about improving your situation is very important.

Peace.

I'm surprised no-ones mentioned the flat pre. I personally 3 bet this hand nearly every time when I'm  UTG +1 and the utg player opens. Hate playing a hand as good as this against 4 players. You won't have to make a decision like this against multiple opponents and you'll have the betting lead post flop.

Fair few combos of draws got there on the turn as well, can have all the A5, 56, then maybe 43s made two pair etc. I find it hard to see what bluffs he is representing here, or worse value bets.

Don't get caught up in specific numbers. You'll find yourself tailoring your game to fit in with what a "suitable stat" for yourself is. Just focus on general, good habits for a beginner to get into. Eg: Not playing with marginal holdings out of position, 3 betting with a plan if he 4 bets etc.

I learnt the basics without a hud. I think some use it as a crutch to lean against, and are crippled without it. So I suggest that you don't use one for a a fair while, and learn the fundamentals of the game as they were meant to, without one. When you have the basics down pat, then use one. I think of it more as a tool to help me make decisions, not make them for me.

Checking for sure on this river. I'm probably looking to check call this river. Checking is cool because he can certainly have a lot of missed of flush draws as well, but not have a pair, so he might very well bluff this river card for this reason: 

He has possibly has no show down value and we hav basically repped QJs, KJs, maybe the offsuit combos of these two hands, KK, QQ, and then we could possibly have a missed flush draw that didn't actually make top pair in this case.

I'd expect most people to raise the turn if the T improved him. I mean, if he is slowplaying a set he will want to charge you for the river, if he had JT you'd think he will want to build a big pot now and again, avoid ugly spots on the many bad river cards.

If he overbets the river, make the choice of how often he's bluffing here. (Look up his W$SD stat is a good one for figuring this out)

I mean he (villian) should have shoved the river.

I'd take a very crucial note on how he played his boat. 

You're lucky he played it so badly.

Yep, the deeper you are the better these spots are.  Multiway makes it even better in my opinion. 

Guessing he had aces, since you wouldn't be posting this if you won.

But this isn't 2004, people do play AK and even QQ this way a fair amount of the time. 

Reload!

Classic sigh call situation. It might seem weird, but at these stakes you see some very strange value bets in these situations.

You've sort of put yourself into this position by the river, as in, you really have to call. You're pretty much committed yourself.

Yes, I'd definitely prefer to check back this flop vs an aggro player. I don't see any worse hands he's playing this way by the river. 

Vs a passive player I'd bet this flop, if I was certain I wasn't going to get x/r'ed light or anything. I'd probably fold on the turn.

Yeah, your style Carl seems to be the polar opposite of mine. I've been analysing my game, and found that I'm probably a bit too passive with my value hands, and end up not winning the maximum. At these stakes, players are not only bluffing a ton, but also value betting pretty badly, which means letting them get to the river leaves a lot less money sitting in front of him, and not in front you.

Super high variance play here. I'm personally not a big fan of it to be honest.

It's simply hard to see how we're ahead here. In some situations, I could even fold to his turn bet here, since we know that he's almost certainly betting the river. You have so little invested at this point, you could wait for a better spot, and with position against him in 5/6 hands that's going to be a situation that will come up more often than not.

In terms of ranges, our range looks exactly like it is, and he's able to play perfectly against us as a result. Unless you had some dead solid read that he's going crazy with all Ace highs, K highs, this cannot possibly be profitable. I can't see how he's ever better worse for value.

On another note, you're playing pretty loose lately buddy!

I prefer to bet bigger. But I play 200BB's deep, so maybe that's why.

Hard to believe we're beat, if we were surely we would have heard about it on the turn, after we'd shown so much strength.

I used it as a way to get passionate about the game. Once I felt I was ready to start taking it more seriously, I moved to strategy based videos. I think that a lot of players would have gotten into the game the same way, watching tv broadcasts?

Very interesting that in your other post you were playing top pair top kicker so passively but here you're check raising on the turn a medium strength hand vs two players, out of position, and on a pretty scary card nonetheless. I think your thought processes need a bit of work. 

As played, pre flop and flop are played fine. Turn is where the mistakes are made. You're putting yourself in a very tough spot if someone calls your raise on the turn, and the river is a magnitude of cards, say any heart, 7, 8, 5, 9. I would take a much more passive line. Check call on the turn to the small bet. Then make a decision on the river, based on his rate of winning at showdown, and how often he's bluffing as a result. 

If anyone bets a decent size on the river, it's an easy fold.If the opponent bets tiny like he did on the turn, easy call, getting juicy pot odds.

One more thing, try not to write down the players usernames in these descriptions. It's bad for the game.

The way I started off, at the beginning of last year, was watching every episode of HSP over and over again. Then the PAD ones.  Probably watched just about every single poker video on youtube. I've stopped now as a result. 

Something would help would be to hunt down people who are also poker students. Befriend said people. It's something I haven't been able to do, as there isn't really a community of poker fiends here in Tasmania. Being able to bounce ideas off of each other will be incredibly useful. It's something that nearly every single top pro had when they were coming up. Plus their passion will manifest of you, and vice versa. This will help maintain your interest.

Good luck!

From first glance this seems like a pretty strange fold to me. Almost like you're trying to keep variance down a ton, and are playing outside your roll.

First up, why check call flop and turn, only to fold on a card that is essentially a brick. No draws got there whatsoever. You've under represented your hand a ton, and he'd be value betting a ton of worse hands as a result. I've seen players at these stakes betting on these rivers with hands as bad as TT. If it was an over bet on the river, I would lean towards folding, as it's a value bet 99% of the time then. 

In short, you're costing yourself a ton of money by folding top top on such a raggy board. They most certainly will not be putting you on a hand that good here.

I don't get why the K of diamonds is a good card to value bet thinly, when it can only improve our range of hands, and in turn is actually a pretty good card for what we probably should have percieved would have hit his call two streets range. It's a pretty scary card for both players really. Surely vs an unkown we should give him a little credit, and not think that he'd randomly call down all streets with such a weak hand.

I would never value bet here, as stated above, there's very little worse that can call.

I'm now seeing why we don't post the results on these forums. 

The idea of country reads are quaint, but in practice they don't make logical sense.

I've found so often that Greek players are looser and in general worse than other players. That the Greek economy is in such shit state, why would they want to gamble their last few cents away? Makes no sense :D

Snap call? More of a serious groan call.

Was in this exact same spot last night. Tanked for a while and I called and he showed AK. I think people are absolutely capable of value betting worse at these stakes. They have no real concept of reletive hand strength.

Woooooah.

You have shown down value. Why didn't you happily check behind? You'd win more often than not here. The ONLY hands you fold out better is QQ and AA. And you block half the combo's of the former. You've tried to identify him as a fish, and fish don't make tight folds. I doubt he'd fold AK, as you probably wouldn't play AT this way.

Extremely high variance play. Don't like it at all imo. Another reason making such a unique play like this is bad is because you have no reads on this guy whatsoever.

I'm not even sure there are many missed flushes in his range. There's not really many nut flush draw-y hands that 3 bet your UTG open. The one that makes sense beats you, AQc. AJc that had a big draw on the flop (NFD and gutter) wouldn't be so aggressive on the river, given that you've repped top pair. I don't see any other logical hands that three bet and would be taking this line. A7c wouldn't 3 bet pre. 

On another note, when you see that he's squeezing 8% of hands, have you done some work on equilab or something similar and got an idea of his range? Surely it changes depending on the action in front of him. I'd love to see what you've come up with.

Definitely a fold on the river, as people are going to be pretty honest at this point. You've repped a pretty strong hand the whole way.