isolation line check

shakinaces

Am I 3-betting too wide here?

Rec had been min-opening lots of mid-strength hands.  Figured I'd be better placed in the hand if I could isolate him rather than keep the decent reg at the table in the hand.  If I take it down pre then happy days, otherwise I'm in position with a hand that can flop OK vs an oppo with a fairly week range.

When he donks pot I can only ever be behind (even if this is the first hand I've ever played vs someone, I can never be good here lol) but figure to have as much as 15 outs + bd str8, so think I'm happy with the flop shove, even if there is a case to call and give the other weaker player xxx a chance to join the fun.

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
xxx	Small blind		£0.05	£0.05	£17.97
	Big blind		£0.10	£0.15	£7.20
	Your hole cards	Q J
rec	Raise		£0.20	£0.35	£5.84
	Fold
decent reg	Call		£0.20	£0.55	£12.26
shakinaces	Raise		£0.80	£1.35	£9.20
xxx	Call		£0.75	£2.10	£17.22
	Fold
rec	Call		£0.60	£2.70	£5.24
decent reg	Fold
Flop
		10 3 6
xxx	Check
rec	Bet		£2.70	£5.40	£2.54
shakinaces	All-in		£9.20	£14.60	£0.00
xxx	Fold
rec	All-in		£2.54	£17.14	£0.00
shakinaces	Unmatched bet		£3.96	£13.18	£3.96
rec	Show	10 K
shakinaces	Show	Q J
Turn
		9
River
		2
rec	Win	Pair of 10s	£12.19		£12.19

F_Ivanovic

QJs is a nice hand to flat with posiiton, no need to bloat the pot with a 3b - there are better/worse hands we can isolate with. (ie. better for value, worse as a bluff) - tho mostly just for value given villains stack size. I'd probably 3b slightly bigger too - once rec alls the 80p reg is always calling. Make it like £1.10 and the reg could/should fold a decent amount.

As played post - I'm not thrilled with shoving at all. Seems like we have no fold equity and it's not like we have NFD - we could be dominated by that.

board: Th3h6s

Hand	Equity	Wins	Ties
QhJh	48.97%	27,729	5,625
JT+, JJ, Ah5h, Ah4h, Ah7h, Ah8h, Ah6h, 4h5h, 7h8h, 8h9h, 6h7h, 6h8h, 6h5h, 33	51.03%	29,016	5,625

OK, so based on this we're actually doing fine. I thought we'd be closer to 40% - I haven't included every Ax suited hand tho but don't think it will make too much difference since I included 33 even tho he prob wouldn't donk pot sized with 33. 

We do have REG to worry about who could show up with NFD but having Q and J means there are less NFD combos he should have.

shakinaces

I missed this, cheers for the thoughts Ivan.  The 3b stuff makes a lot of sense, I guess I need to go back and revisit what hands I put in to which range pre.

I felt like it would just be too weak to fold on the flop when I have good equity.  At these levels though I'm mostly expecting one pair type hands that are happy to take the money down, hence the pot sized bet. So I figure my flush draw to be good at the very least and unless villain has a weird 2 pair then my Q and J could also be live.  Tx, 6x or 77-99 would make up a decent range of a weaker players pot-donking range IMO, so with £5.24 to win a pot of £13,18 (on the assumption that xxx will fold if I shove) seemed fair?

BorinLoner

What do you consider "mid-strength hands"?

Ranges, lad; Talk about ranges. "Decent reg" isn't much of a description but "his flatting range in this position against this opponent is 22-88 and 56s-AJx. Since he hasn't 3-bet, JJ-AA and AQ-AK are unlikely. 99-TT are 50/50"

Then talk about how his range will be affected by a 3-bet from you. How you expect him to play post-flop oop against us if we 3-bet/if we flat... all that stuff. Do the same for the raiser. If we flat, how will the blinds likely react? What will their ranges be if we 3-bet? All will be affected by how they perceive our ranges, so what's our image like?

It's all a bit tedious to go through all that stuff but you can't know what's the best option if you don't think about it.

I will slightly qualify what Ivan has said on QJs not necessarily being a good hand to 3-bet with because I don't think we need to be so rigid if we have good ideas of how our opponents will react. As a default, in a vacuum, of course it's fair to say there are better hands to have in our 3-bet range, but in game our 3-bet range should be dynamic and change to match the situation and our opponents. 5 minutes after we sit, we're no longer in a vacuum.

Just 3-betting to "isolate the weaker player" isn't a strategy. How do you think they'll react to that 3-bet and how are you exploiting them by doin so with QJs? 

i) "They'll peel ATC and donk-shove the flop with any piece" - Great, 3-bet away with good one-pair hands like QJ.

ii) "Their opening range is quite wide but they're nitty as sin oop facing a 3-bet and will fold all but the premium hands" - QJs is a really bad hand to 3-bet because of it's inherent post-flop potential against the villain's wider opening range.

Where do these villains fall between those two extremes?

At the very least don't define players just as "decent reg". Nitty, loose, somewhere in between? Be less general with your generalisations. :-)

shakinaces

Ha thanks for the response Borin - in truth, I try to avoid that level of detail in clinic posts in an effort to garner some more useful responses than TL:DR

Can't honestly remember who the rec was now, but if I'm doing this then I'd assume it was the sort that plays fit-or-fold, so I'm getting extra value into the pot with a hand which is likely to be ahead of a large part of his range - can take the pot down with a 1/2 pot cbet plus have good equity a lot of time post flop with overs, straight and flush draws.

Mid-strength I'm including lower pairs, any two broadway, suited connectors / gap connectors and suited aces.  Appreciate I am actually (marginally) behind at least two of those groups, but as noted above I expect to get lots of folds versus the last two categories and will have plenty of outs / scare cards to semi bluff post-flop.

When they are the sort that donk a piece of things and you have position (ie can cbet when checked to), trying to get more value pre / isoing seems like a good plan.

As for the reg - weak-tight like majority (inc me) at this level.  Wouldn't be calling the open with their strong holdings and won't be likely to want to play bloated pots OOP to another WT reg with much of their range.  Not surprised by a fold.

percival09

I think the squeeze pre is good, and I actually consider it to be standard. 

Post flop is fine, but I actually think calling will be the higher EV play, simply because when we get it in we're going to be against a bigger fd which is awful for our equity. We also have a lot of turn cards that are give us more equity, 8,9, J,Q, K, A etc, but with the size of the pot and our equity, shoving isn't really a mistake. 

edit: I have just seen that the fun player is shallow, which makes shoving much better

yuranASSet

Much like Ivan said... The problem with 3betting QJs v earlier openers is that you never stand to win much. Generally when you both catch a piece of the flop, your going to be behind. E.g

Let's say the rec is calling preflop with 22+, 76s+, ATs+, AJo+, KQo+ (There will always be randoms that we can't account for but typically unless your opponent is making a huge play, these are generally the hands he will be turning up with. You don't really need to bust out the equity calculator to see that when you catch a piece of the flop and if he's continuing then your behind most of the time, otherwise he's check/folding.

Just some food for thought.