Obviously a “std” raise though just pointing out that I’m still planning on doing something about betsizing in the future and minraising vs raising 3bb’s will defenitly come up there as well. Just pointing out for now that at 10/20 level I prefer 3bb’s as well, just because there’s still a lot of room (read: more room than at 15/30 level) to manoeuvre postflop when pot is 6bb’s with 72bb’s behind.
Great, you limped! I think it’s a good idea to limp early on. Mainly because it’s good/cheap info you get about villain what he does in general vs limps, something which you can (and should) use later on when stacks get shallower and/or blinds go up. I also think T8o is a good hand to do it with, mainly looking for weakest part of medium strength hands to limp, 96s, K2o, stuff like that. Either hands which can still flop toppair/middle pair or some sort of draw or can be checked down and still be the best hand (K-high or Q-high usually) on some boards.
Ok, so you limped and he raised to 3bb’s, what do we do here? I think calling preflop isn’t the best way to play here, I think it’s important you fold here for future purposes. Let’s just start with pointing out that vs a really aggro opponent limp/calling here can defenitly be a good play (someone who 3bets a ton and raises most limps) because we have a semi-decent hand which can still flop something decent + we have position. However, in this spot, we have absolutely no idea what type of opponent we’re dealing with here. Given the fact that he folded two previous hands, I don’t think he’s the type of guy to “bully” and start raising almost any two cards here tbh; this could be the case, some opponents just look at the limp and see “oh, he’s weak, let’s raise him off his hand!” but when he folded first two hands (one on the button) I think that you’re looking at a more tightish range.
Another thing why I wouldn’t call preflop is for the fact I want to test and limp some more hands in before blinds go up and see what he does. Let’s just say you fold here, you limp again in 8 hands, will he blindly raise again because we folded here or not? If yes, you can safely fold again (only invested t10 again) and use this to limp/shove a ton of hands in later stages of the game. If he checks, you can easily limp a bunch of (even) trashy hands till blinds get really high. Vs people who are passive vs limps you can probably limp/fold as low as 7bb’s shallow imo, though you have to know that they let you do this and for that, it’s important to notice this early on.
As far as postflop goes (if you do indeed decide to limp/call), I think you played it fine. I don’t think he’s folding any pocket pair or broadway cards on a low paired flop like that, and I wouldn’t try to bluff early on in general. On turn there’s a decent chance we’re drawing dead so easy fold. If he checks turn again and you pick up an openender I would bet though, because he will have A-high or two mere overs a lot on a coordinated board and getting better hands to fold is pretty valuable at that point.
Weird, all of a sudden he opens 4bb’s. I’m really not used to this but can imagine it happens more on stars due to lack of potbetbutton. I like your fold here, especially since we have close to 0 postflop reads except for that he represented an A oop (but nothing concerned cbetting in position/doublebarreling/etc.). I think my defendingrange here would be like two broadwaycards, probaly A9/A8s as well and pocket pairs. 3betting with AQ+TT+ here I think, 99 being close, probably mix up between flatting/3betting. You’re mainly looking for toppair here obv, since pot will be quity big postflop already, and a range of AJ-A9/KT+/QT+/JT will defenitly work for that.
Again, quite standard hand, but a short thing about cbet-sizing here. I think anything from 60-80 is good to cbet (on a board like this, but in general as well, don’t make it too big). Thing to keep in mind is that it’s headsup, and most of the hands you will be playing will be no pair vs no pair; it doesn’t take a genius to figure out your cbets will be (semi-)bluffs most of the time so we want to keep them as small as possible so they become as good risk/reward as they can; half pot is my standard most of the time, 80 into 120 is good as well but I wouldn’t really do any bigger (unless you have a read/note that villain doesn’t care about betsizing and will call/fold for pot or 1bb, this way you can obv bet bigger for value etc, but we don’t have that read here).
Ok, so far he seems to be pretty nitty, defenitly something to keep in mind. He folded 5/8 hands, I know this is a really small sample but he’s defenitly not going to be a maniak and most of the time he will end up being quite tight for rest of the match.
Given that we just noticed how nitty this opponent has been so far, I would try and start raising close to 100% of my buttons, again, still with the occassional limp mixed in. This wouldn’t be a bad hand to limp in with either fwiw, though in general you should try raising as much as you can if he folds his bb a lot. Obv fold vs his 3bet pre, your hand worth nothing. Note that he opened to 4bb’s once, and he 3bet you now, so I suspect him to play all the hands he plays (or at least most of them) quite agressively.
Haha, ok, so appearantly he’s not as tag-ish as I thought he would be. He probably just happened to have a hand last couple of times as far as I’m concerned. Check preflop is fine, even though I suspect his limping not to be THAT strong, I still think it has a decent amount of limp/calling hands in there given that he folded a bunch of buttons before I can’t imagine him limping hands like 82o, and will defenitly have some hands like J9s included. Vs buttonlimps in general, I think the best way to act vs them is with “selective agressiveness” as bluemage would put it. Don’t blindly raise them, fish will limp/call a bunch anyway and it sucks being oop with a marginal hand which doesn’t flop too well. You can raise bluff him once (after checking first 3 times for example) but don’t overdo it. Just try to widen your valueraising range a bit (like include hands like Q9o for raising limps if you think villain is weak most of the time) and you will not need to raise them that much.
Flop check is also fine, fwiw I would probably check/fold here if he bets pot. We just have a really marginal hand and not a lot of cards which improve us, and we don’t know if (any) of our outs are good (two pair could give him a straight etc). If he bets 1bb I would be more inclined to call. Reason why I don’t lead here is to see if he bets 100% when checked to him, which is why I check most of the time the first couple of buttons villain limped. He checked back, so we should be inclined to (bluff) lead out some more in the future given that he’s not autostabbing.
Turn is obviously a mustbet. I don’t mind your 1bb bet tbh. I think he would bet flushdraws on flop, as would he bet toppair and middle pair before more overcards come, so mainly looking at straightdraws and bottom/3rd pair to get value from and you’re doing great against pretty much all those hands. Sucks a bit if he calls and river is a 6 but I think you can safely check/fold given that I doubt he’s turning a lot of onepair hands in a bluff (76o for example) and if he valuebets them he’s probably going to bet them pretty small (which I doubt a random fish does a lot, valuebetting thin).
I don’t mind your bet of 80 here because in general there’s no need to balance your range vs a fish, however note that the board of is REALLY dry and a bet of 60 will probably work just about as much to make him fold just because there’s not much he can call you with here.
Ok, so this is the part where you raise. Even if his limpingrange consists of medium strength hands, you’re doing GREAT vs those, and have them dominated A LOT. So just raise for value, to like 60-80, any amount is reasonable from 60 to 80 imo, you actually WANT him to call so 80 may be too big imo.
Given that he didn’t autobet last time we checked to him in a limped pot, I think this is a good spot to lead out for 30 yourself. If he has nothing, it’s unlikely he’s going to put more money in the pot anyway himself. So just lead, try and get value from weaker Jx, 7x, flushdraws and straightdraws too. If you don’t bet flop, I would defenitly minbet the turn. There’s a second flushdraw out there and if you just bet 1bb a lot of people will call with Kx (while drawing to 4 outs to chop) because they have a bit of showdown as well with their highcard. After checking 3 times, river is indeed a check though I would defenitly put some more money in the pot if I were you at some previous point in the hand. Just try and have him bet his T8 as a bluff or whatever he checked back twice. I don’t expect him to bet a lot on this river fwiw, though I don’t see too much value in betting either given that you chop with Jx so only looking at 7x (which villain may bet himself) so yeah try to bluffcatch now.
