Aaron Shadrick

I would be very interested. I play mostly 1/2 and2/5 NLHE. Starting to play 1/2 PLO also. play only live in the Chicago area. The link above does not work.

The same as calling it all the way down. I mean if you are going to go into this hand thinking you have to protect this hand no matter what - 4 bet and if he shoves fold. Maybe he folds or he flats and you still ship your stack. I was just saying if that is the mindset from the beginning of the hand. I would have probably folded pre flop to his 3 bet but would have folded the turn for sure. 

If you went into this hand feeling the need to protect your hands against this reg who you feel is 3 betting way too much from the blinds and you kinda knew you might call down light why not 4 bet your preflop? Does he shove with JJ? If so you can get away with minimal loss. It seems you had it in your head to take this hand to the river anyhow. I agree with James I would fold pre and wait for a hand that plays better post flop.

From the description the only hand I really fear at this point is A3 or A2. It seems he may be capable of opening with either hand and certainly will put his money in on a gut shot draw. I guess he could have over pair. But seeing how light he gets it in I think I shove the turn. I do not shove flop because I think with a big draw (diamonds) he calls 100% of the time. Once the turn hits it really hurts his odds for his draws. Does he put $335 in on your 3 bet on the turn with a draw and only one to come? 

I would be very interested in hearing thoughts on this topic as well. I play 1/2 and 2/5 where there are a lot of min buy-ins. At 1/2 you will see probably 25% of the table buy in at less than 50 big blinds. The same goes for the 2/5 game. The standard play by these guys seems to be to check raise all in with any suited A and pairs better than 8's. Or if they catch any piece of the flop. I often find myself calling the re-raise in position with hands like KQs, AJ+ and most pairs. I do not know if this is optimal or not. I do have a very LAG image at these stakes. I only play live. I am a winning player working on my bankroll so I can get to the 5/10 game comfortably.

Has the villain shown any tendency to bet his draws? If the 2 behind are straight forward players they probably would have bet flop hoping for value from the villain whom you said is a station. Against his short stack I probably call flop wait for other two to fold and shove most turns. What is he holding? AJ probably maybe even KJ. If you check fold this flop you probably shouldn't have opened with your hand in this position. 

I am unsure of how to message you privately on this site. I am very interested in getting some coaching for larger buy-in MTT. Please let me know if you may be interested in helping me along. thanks

I also think that at 1/2 this could be an A4. Many fish will take an A rag to the river in the hopes of spiking an A. Possible he back doored trip 4's. Also possible he called down with top pair good kicker. Using the 4d as a scare card. I have found many fish will not put you on a flush that you bet all the way down. The fact he checks the turn also makes me think he has a weakish Q but he sees your check as weakness. I would call.

I think playing at these limits you will see a lot of players c bet on flop only. Many times you can call the flop bet and if he checks bet him off the hand on the turn. If he fires a second time and you hit complete air I would fold then.

I see plays like this a lot on 1/2 tables. Players will call you down to the river, hit the card you think they need and fold when you bet. I sometimes wonder what they are drawing to. I would even guess she had like 10/8 and was hoping to hit another 8 or even a 10. They will often call with 2 over pair to a paired bored. It baffles me sometimes. haha

I am playing 1/2 NLE at the moment and it can be difficult to make money from UTG with small pp. Especially with the number of loose aggressive players and very bad players that frequent the tables. Many of these players will raise you with any two cards. I do know that they will raise to a much higher amount if it gets limped around to them. I have been basically min raising ($7) from the first 2-3 positions. Even If I get raised to $25 I know there will be multiple callers plus any dead money in the pot to help make up for the implied odds. I know 10:1 is about what you need to make profitable. For the most part you will be able to stack someone with a big hand. Even without the big hand you can generally get paid by 2 or more people for the flop and the turn. Even if they fold the river you can almost get the 10:1 thru multiple players on the first 2 bets. This has just been my experience live on a 1/2 table.

You do run the risk of set over set when playing lower pp but I accept the chance as a part of set mining some of these premium hands.

I have had this problem with bet sizing on 1/2. I was thinking that I did not want to bet to much bc I wanted it to look more like a value bet instead of blowing him off the hand. i thought the $100 on the turn was a good size to represent value as the board was still pretty dry and with the re-raise pre-flop I wanted to represent a pair that was not threatened by the board. I do agree with DirtyD that at 1/2 most players sense anything less than all in as being weak. Thinking back I should have potted the flop after his raise. If he called that I would probably have to check it down. Or as you say just check it down. I think after calling his $20 he probably would have checked the turn and maybe value bet the river. I may have been able to steal with a re-raise then.

He had been playing his premium hands very hard. He was driving the action when he had good hands. That was why I felt he was pretty week with a $12 bet and then only a call on the flop. He had 4 bet a number of the other players with hands as weak as 88 and 99, AQ and even KQ. I think DirtyD's comments about raising larger pre-flop and on turn would have been better. I still do not know if he would have called a shove of about $300 on the river.

Thank you. Our stacks very very close to even at the start of the hand. I think I had him covered by about $75.