Is this a shove?

If we put him on TT+, we have 31% equity OTT.
There is 70 in the pot and you are risking 81 to win it. That raise has to work about 50% so villain should defend about 50% of his range to deny your autoprofit.

If we make a little EV calculations with you having 31% equity and 50% fold equity, your expectation will be +26bb.
So, your shove is profitable.
To be break even, you need villain to fold at least 20% of his range.

Folding pre-flop is an idea, playing with an ace and a weak kicker in 3bet pots will cost you in the long run

I think its a dangerous play you make. You say he is quite agressive but you open UTG and he 3bets OOP in big blind so basically you have to fold, since a lot of his hands dominates you really hard and if an ace flops you basically want to pay him off. You were Lucky enough he had AQ, AK this time.

Can't you guys read ???

My question was *not* about me calling the 3 bet.
I do not know on which super soft sites you guys play but if i'm not calling 3 bets once in a while I am getting eaten.
My opponent has a 3bet percentage of 9.58!

Also I found out that calling a 3bet shows strength and that many times after calling a 3bet then calling the flop and then bluffing the turn will generate folds.
Anyway, that was my original plan but when the turn gave me also a flush draw and he did bet big I decided to shove.

So the question is: Was this shove +EV? Now I think yes it is.

PS I don't think he had AK AQ.. I think he had JJ or QQ

Yup, I already calculated that with the range you think villain has your shove should be +EV.

I didn't comment anything on the preflop paly cause you asked us not to, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to say something now

First thing is that you of course have to defend against 3bets but you should do it correctly, not by randomly calling some hands. Your UTG opening range should be tight, villain should 3bet you tight and defending 88+,AQ+ from UTG vs 3bets should be already about theoretically correct amount of defends.
If villains 3bet % overall is 9.58, it is not super big. I would say that is still quite ok. But it doesn't mean he will 3bet that much vs UTG opener when out of position. I believe he could (and should) be 3betting only about 2-3% in this spot.
I don't know how calling a 3bet shows strength. It tells villain your range is capped.
You might have got some money by calling wide, floating and stabbing the turn, but I guess that is because 1) you might have a small sample 2) your villains don't know how to play in 3bet pots.. I believe this is quite dangerous against better opponents at higher stakes.

Originally posted by la55i
I don't know how calling a 3bet shows strength. It tells villain your range is capped.

You got me thinking here, thank you for that! Although I find calling with 88 much scarier than with A5s (by the way, I would not have called with A6s, I have a range you know ).

Originally posted by la55i
You might have got some money by calling wide, floating and stabbing the turn, but I guess that is because 1) you might have a small sample 2) your villains don't know how to play in 3bet pots.. I believe this is quite dangerous against better opponents at higher stakes.

I started playing again about 5 months ago. Have about 60K hands. Not a huge winner, have at the moment 2.89BB/100 but had a rough start. I changed my game a bit lately by opening wider when I can win position, and tighten up against real aggression, study the stats of my opponents better (some players with fishy stats can be playing fishy, not being fish). That seems to work fine for now.

Yes, its 2.00 NL lower stakes not being found. I totally agree with you that at higher levels the game will be different. But a very interesting thought and question: Should one *not* do things at a certain level that seems to work there because it definitely will not work at a higher level?

For instance. This trick at 2NL works really well. Say you raise 67S on the button get a caller and the flop goes AA9 rainbow or whatever high stuff. When the opp checks I cbet 2BB (less than 1/3 pot). Opponents instant fold here because they get the feeling of being lured into a monster. I am convinced at higher levels this will not work at all (probably get raised immediately). So is this a bad play?

Thanks for the discussion by the way, really appreciated!

He would have called JJ or QQ:f_biggrin:. Bad shove. (see earlier post).

Originally posted by GrindingNajra
He would have called JJ or QQ:f_biggrin:. Bad shove. (see earlier post).

By now it is scientifically proven you don't read

By now it is scientifically proven you don't read
If you couldn't do the "science" yourself than you don't know what your doing.
Just listen to others when they tell you to fold preflop in that spot.
With queens He should have called you but probably he didn't have those.

@OP: It seems you have a very good understanding of the game for someone with only 5 months experience. Your play here is marginal, but perfectly okay if you know how to avoid going broke with TP, no kicker, and if you have the common sense to realize that you have to float and bluff some. A5s does not pass on its own merits.

Make sure you understand the finer points, such as stack sizes. I'd personally be leery to put in 10% of stacks preflop - even with position. If you were 150 bb deep, then by all means, go for it, the worse the opponents, the looser you can call. Against better players, you can also 3-bet preflop, as your postflop advantage goes down.

Hi YohanN7,
Had not seen your post here so a bit late response, but again thank you for it.

I started playing again this year but I played back then in 2008-2009 when the games were soooft.
Stopped in 2009 when I started losing (I think now because I did not adapt to the games getting less fishier).

Had a rough start this year.

Also a steep '5 buy-in' dip at about 45.000 hands. Then at that point I changed my game, I can remember really well.

STOP calling BIG bets from players with fish stats without having a real hand!
Play MORE in position but ONLY when stats of opponents allow this.
Don't believe the fairy tale you can't bluff at 2NL. Most regs over there will lay down a lot, especially oop, but bluff wisely.
Ah.. and do not c-bet everything. But keep in mind, when you c-bet it will look stronger.
Also, (you taught me :)) c-bet as small as possible.. can look soooo scary! and, as a bonus, a turn bluff c-bet has become much cheaper.

One thing I'm still working on is: THINK before calling a huge bet (when you have trips or a set or a low flush/straight especially against regs)

Ah.. yes of cours.. way to small sample size!!

As the conversation went into the call pre of the 3bet . I don't know what % you open UTG but seen as A5s is in your range i'm going to go ahead and assume something like 14%

So you can defend by calling
88-QQ,AQs+,AKo

and 4BET
KK+ ATs-AJs KQs

or 4bet range could be
KK+,A5s-A2s

( AA KK optional call or 4bet)

Giving you roughly a 40% defending range which is fine, it could even be tighter. Your threshold is around 72% so you don't want to fold more than that so 88-99 are optional calls or folds you can fold 88-99 and still be defending 33% of the time.

It's BB Vs UTG so as someone pointed out their 3bet range is closer to 2% or 3% rather than their over all range of 9%. You can defend a'lot tighter than you imagine without people being able to exploit you and defending tight in most cases is going to be the correct decision. Build up an image of the player with a good sample size and adjust accordingly.

You don't have to analyze situations like these to death. You can call and decide later if you want to pursue things if you play reasonably well. If you decide that your opponent is good preflop, but bad postflop (and you are the other way around), then it is easy to see what makes the most money. Likewise, if you suck postflop (compared to your opponent), then don't call.

Sitting there and developing a preflop strategy for the game of NL2 hold'em is one of the biggest waste of time there is. You don't have to be balanced, because none of your opponents are.

Originally posted by YohanN7

Sitting there and developing a preflop strategy for the game of NL2 hold'em is one of the biggest waste of time there is. .

Learning how to play even at 2nl certainly isn't a waste of time.

I think yohan meant that postflop skill has a lot more significant effect to our game than preflop skill.
Developing a good pre game doesn't take us far if we suck postflop, but by being a better postflop player than our villain we can win even if we make a bit weaker preflop decisions.

But ofc learning this stuff never hurts if our goal is to climb up the stakes.

^^^ Ye agreed i didn't mean to come across as rude i just found it an odd statement. I mean as long as your not limping K2o utg preflop you should be ok. But that's why Preflop ranges obviously help your postflop game if you cut the errors out at the source.