Online Poker Forum - betting mid pair hu with position, and very strange bad run

LiamHooks · Full House Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 223

Hi basically i am a winning player with a 20% roi and my graph on scope is pretty much an upward hill, however over the last few weeks it has been yo yoing around for 100+ games and looks very average. Because of this bad run as usual i have been looking for leaks in my game, the only thing i could thing of was by strategy when i have a mid pair hu with position, i will usually fire out a c bet sized bet to see where i stand, for example with jq on a ja5 flop ill probably bet 300 into a 650 pot, basically to see if someone has the ace, if they flat call i will probably check the turn and fold to any agression on the river. Just wondering if this is a bad strategy and i am allowing players to call with worse hands and eitehr ourdraw me or sense weakness and bluff me off my hand, shuld i bet betting more in the range of 400 into a 650 pot to see where u stand, or is this a fine play?

Other than this i cannot think of anything i may of been doing different in the past few weeks, other than getting bad beat after bad beat, however this is not your usual bad run i have them often, doubt my play, realise im doing nothing or little wrong and then before long im back to winning ways, however this has lasted much longer, i have not lost any large amounts, just i have not won anything really just yoyoing around and is beginning to last quite a qhile to be just variation.

If you check my sharkscope

absolute poker : billyth3kid

you can see taht my graph is a consistnent upwards hill until the last 100 games or so. Sorry if this sounds like your usual awww im ona bad run whinge whinge whinge post, but if u check my scope i think you will see it looks quite od to be so conistent for 500 games or so and then yo yoing around like a very average playr for the previous 100. Please not i have not changed my limits i am still playing $20-$30 sngs as my regular game. I have however been multi tabling slightly more, but please do not instanty put it down to this, as all i have been doing is starting 3 sngs and then 1 more at 60 blinds instead of my old method of starting 2 and then anotehr 2 at 60 blinds, im sure you will agree this shouldnt change much. One final aspect to consider over these weeks i have been playing at a different address and tables have crashed quite often, which i have to close and then open again and i may miss a hand, this is nothing major however, maybe once or twie every few games

Advice is very much apreciated

templar rage · Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 5:31 pm Post subject:

If you are always folding middle pair HU to aggression, you are folding way too much. People will take advantage of that and start floating you to see if you shut down, and steal the pot when you do. Just because someone calls the Cbet doesn't mean they have you beat. They could be drawing, have a worse pair than you, or just floating. Hand values change substantially when you get heads-up. Any pair is likely to be good, and top pair is a borderline monster. You should have a good reason to fold a pair head-ups.

LiamHooks · Full House Joined: 22 Dec 2008 Posts: 223

to clarify when i say hu i mean when i have raised and have the field down to 1 player not actually hu, i would nto play this passively when there are only 2 opponents remaining, what i am talking about is early on whenu raise hit mid pair you are checked to and then called my just below half pot bet, and then im instantly worried of betting the turn, only 2 fold 2 a push on the river, late on in the game i will probably do this a lot less but early on id rather not take chances like this

templar rage · Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 1:36 pm Post subject:

My bad, I think I interpreted it as 2 players left because I've been playing a lot of HU SnG's recently, so when I've said "HU", its referred to them.

As for your real question.

You could try betting a little more, maybe 400-450, but I don't think it will matter a lot of the time. I don't think there will be a lot of situations where someone would call 300 and fold to 400, in your example, except for some hardcore math guy who isn't getting exact odds at 400, but is at 300. In my experience, the bet needs to be around 1/4 pot or less before people really give pause to reading if the bet is weak. I think it really depends on the player and the board texture. The dryer the board, the more likely it is you are actually beat, since there is less he could conceivably call with, and most of it is probably beating you.

Danduy · Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 4:25 pm Post subject:

It's hard to tell with middle pair when you stick in a C-bet and get called out of position. This can mean a lot. But if you do this often against the same players they will know what you're plans are.

On a dry board, when you stick in a half pot sized bet should be fine. If you go higher in betsizing it is a lot more difficult to play on the next streets because you are building a big pot with middle pair and big pots with a mediocre hand means trouble in most cases. You are behind or you are in front. With no draws on the board, you should base your decision on the players your playing against?

If you are playing at a nine handed table there is a big chance someone has paired the ace. But with only a few players remaining this chance goes down. So there is no shame in check calling out of position. With middle pair i like this option. Because if you C-bet and someone comes over the top or like your example, there is a call, you check the turn and a bet comes, putting you in a tough decision because of the mediocre hand.

With this kind of hand, turn the decision-making around. Check the flop. Call the bet and check the turn. If another bet comes out i would lean towards folding, depends on the aggression factor of the players of course. If the other players checks, try and take the pot with caution.

Also a lot of calls are made to see if you bet on the turn, and if you do, there hand often goes into the muck. But if you check the turn, they will come after you.

C-bet with a good quality hand to for value and come over the top when they bet on the turn after you checked. Because like templar rage said before, maybe you fold the best hand to often.

I hope that you can do something with this information, because if you're playing the 20-30$ stakes, you are playing far longer then me...

daniel9861 · High Card Joined: 02 May 2009 Posts: 8

Don't sound like your problem is a leak in your game you just gotta accept the fact there will be ups and downs on your graph no matter what. Actually worst thing you can do is try to change something in your game you think is a leak because of a little downswing/breaking even and it makes your game worse than it was before the downswing. On the mid pair example, there will be times when someone floats with a gutshot or whatever, but more often than not they'll actually have the ace. Now if it was a really aggressive regular in the hand I'd be more likely to put him on a float than say an unknown.

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