NL8. TP decent kicker when river pairs board.

DrSharp

Ok, firstly, hello everyone. Havent really posted much in the last year but now getting back on the horse so to speak. Hope everyone is fine.

On to the hand. Villain sat down less than 5 minutes ago with 100 BB's and folded to lose a couple of quid so no showdown as yet that i have noticed. His standard pre flop raise is the min bet so no read there either. Its not great but at least he is consistent with it. Pretty readless other than that so we are dealing with a largely unknown player here. As for how the others percieve me.....well i would say pretty aggro and pretty active. Some showdowns i have had absolute garbage and my image would be LAG to say the least.

1st question, should i 3 bet pre to isolate or is it just a call. The table is playing like this hand will go multi way. I opted for the call pre as A,J can be tricky and i dont want to play a mahoosive pot with this kinda hand unless i hit big. Which is why i also just call on the flop as it just looks like a weak c-bet.

What does the 8p turn bet mean guys? Opinions on what he is doing? My thoughts was that he was wanting a cheap river card to complete a draw or he had a queen and wanted a cheap showdown which is why i raised to take the odds off him/them.

We go to the river heads up and he donks in to me with a pot sized bet. Whats the correct play now?

 

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
Hawkslfc20	Small blind		£0.04	£0.04	£3.77
ARTISAN14	Big blind		£0.08	£0.12	£3.16
	Your hole cards	J A
villain	Raise		£0.16	£0.28	£5.92
DrSharp	Call		£0.16	£0.44	£10.40
TheBossAK	Fold
smullyman	Fold
Hawkslfc20	Call		£0.12	£0.56	£3.65
ARTISAN14	Fold
Flop
		5 A Q
Hawkslfc20	Check
villain	Bet		£0.24	£0.80	£5.68
DrSharp	Call		£0.24	£1.04	£10.16
Hawkslfc20	Call		£0.24	£1.28	£3.41
Turn
		6
Hawkslfc20	Check
villain	Bet		£0.08	£1.36	£5.60
DrSharp	Raise		£0.80	£2.16	£9.36
Hawkslfc20	Fold
villain	Call		£0.72	£2.88	£4.88
River
		Q
villain	Bet		£2.88	£5.76	£2.00
DrSharp	???

BorinLoner

Whether to 3-bet pre-flop depends on what we know of our opponent.

Does he show any understanding of position? If he's been raising frequently from any position, then this UTG raise is not likely to be a narrow range.
Does he flat call 3-bets with a wide range? If he's just going to fold or 4-bet (or flat with better than AJ) that's a reason not to 3-bet.
Does he play fit or fold post-flop when he doesn't have the betting lead? Happy days if he does.

If he can flat with worse and doesn't have a narrow opening range from this position, 3-betting sounds good. You say you don't want to bloat the pot but the fact he's made a min-raise means your 3-bet can be relatively cheap. If the points above are in your favour then 3-betting to c-bet should be pretty lucrative. You shouldn't need a hand as strong as AJ to do so, just abuse your position.

Calling the flop bet is fine.

Which draws are we charging when we raise the turn? JT, KJ? Probably not worth worrying about those. We have a marginal value hand and we're multi-way. I don't think we need to be raising here unless we know we're going to be called by worse and that's tricky to know unless we think he spews multi-way with Ace-rag. You've played the hand to keep it cheap up to this point, so keep it that way. If he's playing a Queen, as you suggest he may be, then why raise to force him to fold?

I think it's probably better to call the turn. I don't think we're getting value from many worse Aces and I don't see many draws or Queens calling. It's a weird bet but I don't think we need to raise it with a marginal hand.

The river is probably a fold. He seems happy with his hand and this looks like a value bet. May be KQ or something. Would be nice to have reads that say he fires pot on the river with bluffs or overvalues top-pair weak-kicker or something. That's probably unlikely without reads, though.

craigcu12

the best thing here would be have reraised it preflop to something like 32p then you will be in control of the pot.
the min bets are usually done for one of two reasons.
i they try getting the rest to fold when they missed
ii they have hit big and will do try showing a sign of weakness
basically an 8p bet on the turn is not much differant to a 16p bet preflop.
hands such as AJo+ 99+ KJ and KQ i would make a raise right away
only call with 88-22 and suited connectors.

The_Don90

Given my experiance with such a line our opponents can have worse aces. I probably sigh call and move on. Make a note. 

I like pre personally but i may consider a fold, AJ i find is so awkard throo the streets. Expessially if it goes multiway like it will often do at NL8. I defo dont 3bet.

The flop and turn, why are we peeling flop then raising a blank turn? I probably raise flop or station down. - more likely to station fwiw. 

NColley

Call, make a note. 

You can be winning here alot, sometimes he'll of gooned you with QJ or something but his line is f.o.s and we can get some useful info on how he plays his turns/rivers.

BorinLoner

I concur with NColley that his line is... erm.. unconvincing. However, if there's one thing rancid has taught me on here, it's that when weak players go mental on the river, they usually have a hand. That said, I played a little NL4 the other day and called three streets with nothing just to see someone's donking range. So if you call him down, that information could be of enough value to you to make up for the times you're behind. Sometimes you will have the best hand.

I think we're losing the river more than two thirds of the time when we see the pot-bet from a weak player. My experience of calling these down is that they nearly always have it.

DrSharp

FWIW I folded the hand. It became apparent that this kid liked a bluff or two and i ended up taking a bit off him in the end but i am still reasonably happy with the fold.

Thanks for the replies guys.