Bottom 2 pair abstract situation

Basic question : how far do you take bottom 2 vs an unknown?

You just arrived at a table and call a raise from position w Q9 in the BB. Villain has raised from SB after it being folded to him.

Board comes A-Q-9.

Villain c-bets.

You reriase.

Villain comes over the top. Just to be practical let's say we're full-stacked w 400$ each, we reraised to 80$ and villain has just come over the top to 200$. Callin costs us 120$ but any bet on a further street will commit us.

How often do you push?

How often do you fold?

Do you ever call?

In your case i fold to a push both because AA, QQ, 99, AQ, and A9 are plausible hands and because there aren't very many draws other than TJ (I assume its a rainbow).

At two tone board makes it a lot easier to felt this.

An overly aggressive player makes its a lot easier to felt this.

A two pair that doesn't very likely get pwned by another two pair (e.g. 24 on a A24 rainbow) makes it a lot easier to felt this.

If a predictable tagg comes over the top its a fairly easy to fold.

Also remember that folding is almost never a very big mistake, because BTP isn't even a monster favorite over any hand.

thx for reply Rent.

This was somebody else's pot actually, but I forgot to mention it was 2-tone. My feeling was it was somewhere about 50/50.

The person who was in this pot is a close friend in the midst of a mind-blowing (yes, mindblowing) downswing and hasn't been posting a lot lately while he tries to fight his way through it.

Originally Posted by Genitruc

thx for reply Rent.

This was somebody else's pot actually, but I forgot to mention it was 2-tone. My feeling was it was somewhere about 50/50.

The person who was in this pot is a close friend in the midst of a mind-blowing (yes, mindblowing) downswing and hasn't been posting a lot lately while he tries to fight his way through it.

tell him it's unnecessary to defend his blind with such marginal holdings unless the SB is a chronic stealer. If the guy is truly TAG, there's no reason to call preflop with Q9, even with position in a blind battle.

JMHO, others will disagree I'm sure.

Originally Posted by Lukie

If the guy is truly TAG, there's no reason to call preflop with Q9, even with position in a blind battle.

JMHO, others will disagree I'm sure.

I am a nit, and I actually disagree here, especially if the Q9 is suited. I love busting people in position with hands like these when they mess with my BB. Remember, the raising range of the small blind (f0r most players) is enormous when folded to.

Whenever i am folded to in the SB, if the BB is really tight, I will raise any literally two cards, precisely because they are like you and will fold hands like Q9.

Originally Posted by Renton

Whenever i am folded to in the SB, if the BB is really tight, I will raise any literally two cards, precisely because they are like you and will fold hands like Q9.

I agree 100%. If you fold hands this decent in a blind battle that's really exploitable. I think minimizing your losses due to the blinds requires you to defend them sometimes even when you're not comfortable doing it.

Good replies. This hand is about me (Genitruc is a good friend of mine) and he was watching me play a session. To clear things up, I had just sat down at 400 NL game on Full Tilt and I had no reads on the guy. In retrospect it's would've been a good fold (I could have exercised pot control with position on him...but well...i try to avoid small pots -->leak). I pushed over his re-reraise and he had AQ.

As far as my call with Q9s to his blind raise I think that's pretty standard especially when we're both full-stacked or deeper. I am just in a swing where everytime I have a marginal decision I'm up against the absolute nuts and every valiant call I make is not even close. I try to fight the sentiment of 'he can't have the nutz THIS time' after running into them for days on end which is messing up my confidence and the plays i'm making.
In my defense, I wasn't on tilt, but the board was two-toned and I thought a likely holding was AK or j10s which would give him an SFD. Which makes my call even worse seeing as I'm even money in the best case scenario.


Oh and Genitruc quit posting my bad hands asshole.

Two pair hands are such a hassle.. they are very often the ones paying off flushes, straights, sets, higher two pairs, etc. You need very good flop reads to know when they are probably good and when they are probably not. I think Renton's analysis is very good here.

Originally Posted by Renton

Originally Posted by Lukie

If the guy is truly TAG, there's no reason to call preflop with Q9, even with position in a blind battle.

JMHO, others will disagree I'm sure.

I am a nit, and I actually disagree here, especially if the Q9 is suited. I love busting people in position with hands like these when they mess with my BB. Remember, the raising range of the small blind (f0r most players) is enormous when folded to.

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I am a nit, and I actually disagree here, especially if the Q9 is suited. I love busting people in position with hands like these when they mess with my BB. Remember, the raising range of the small blind (f0r most players) is enormous when folded to.

This just isn't true. Players with 'enormous' ranges opening from the SB are players I'd put in the category of 'chronic stealers' which I had already said my advice doesn't apply to. Against players who are open raising an enormous range from the SB are incredibly exploitable from the BB, as you can 3-bet and jam the flop or call and float and take a ton of pots away. If there is a good player in the BB, your opening range from the SB should be SMALLER then it is when folded to you in late position (CO/BN).

Whenever i am folded to in the SB, if the BB is really tight, I will raise any literally two cards, precisely because they are like you and will fold hands like Q9

yup, huge hand. Makes the quality hand of top pair, no kicker. If you're lucky. If the BB is extremely tight then you should be opening an enormous range. You imply that I would not make a -huge- adjustment to my blind play rather quickly to maximize my expectation based on a few things you've heard on FTR from people who havn't played a game with me in 6 months or more (or ever), and who have little to no experience playing against me in very shorthanded situations (like this).

edit: FWIW, the original post just said Q9 (Q9 = Q9o), so all my advice was based on that. I'd be more likely to call if it were suited, but both depend a lot on the player opening from the SB. And a lot of other stuff too that is hard to put into words without writing a book or more.

Originally Posted by Genitruc

Basic question : how far do you take bottom 2 vs an unknown?

You just arrived at a table and call a raise from position w Q9 in the BB. Villain has raised from SB after it being folded to him.

Board comes A-Q-9.

Villain c-bets.

You reriase.

Villain comes over the top. Just to be practical let's say we're full-stacked w 400$ each, we reraised to 80$ and villain has just come over the top to 200$. Callin costs us 120$ but any bet on a further street will commit us.

How often do you push?

How often do you fold?

Do you ever call?

Tough situation readless in a blind war. The correct play is probably to just muck, but in the heat of the moment I'd probably push. He might have AK/AJ, right?

Originally Posted by Lukie

Originally Posted by Genitruc

Basic question : how far do you take bottom 2 vs an unknown?

You just arrived at a table and call a raise from position w Q9 in the BB. Villain has raised from SB after it being folded to him.

Board comes A-Q-9.

Villain c-bets.

You reriase.

Villain comes over the top. Just to be practical let's say we're full-stacked w 400$ each, we reraised to 80$ and villain has just come over the top to 200$. Callin costs us 120$ but any bet on a further street will commit us.

How often do you push?

How often do you fold?

Do you ever call?

Tough situation readless in a blind war. The correct play is probably to just muck, but in the heat of the moment I'd probably push. He might have AK/AJ, right?

yup he might. as Rav pointed out the two hands he wants to call against are ak and j10 big draw... it was my bad not pointing out board was 2-tone.

but i think verdict is def a fold here vs unknown. even against ak we're not huge favourite as Rent pointed out.

I posted hand cuz in midst of downswing it can be so tough to make laydowns like this HU. the game is crushing you and you feel like you have to be a hero to come near breaking even.

Originally Posted by Lukie

I am a nit, and I actually disagree here, especially if the Q9 is suited. I love busting people in position with hands like these when they mess with my BB. Remember, the raising range of the small blind (f0r most players) is enormous when folded to.

This just isn't true. Players with 'enormous' ranges opening from the SB are players I'd put in the category of 'chronic stealers' which I had already said my advice doesn't apply to.

A good players opening range from the SB when folded to should be the same as his calling/raising range from the BB in a heads up game IMO. This is to say, wide.

Originally Posted by Renton

Originally Posted by Lukie

I am a nit, and I actually disagree here, especially if the Q9 is suited. I love busting people in position with hands like these when they mess with my BB. Remember, the raising range of the small blind (f0r most players) is enormous when folded to.

This just isn't true. Players with 'enormous' ranges opening from the SB are players I'd put in the category of 'chronic stealers' which I had already said my advice doesn't apply to.

A good players opening range from the SB when folded to should be the same as his calling/raising range from the BB in a heads up game IMO. This is to say, wide.

I'm going to ignore the comparison to a heads up game with 'correct' blinds because it plays so much differently then blind wars/heads up on stars/party with backwards blinds.

That said, define 'wide'. At least try to give an approximation because what may be a wide range to one person may be a pretty small range to another person.

i will raise any reasonable hand on the SB in a blind war. To me, a reasonable hand is Ax, Kxs, pairs, and medium suited connectors. According to pokerstove, this is about the top 30% of hands.

make sure you have good seat selection skills