I'm still unfamiliar with donk betting. I've always thought it should be avoided. Btw if they bet on the river I would have check-raised

I am going through the worst downswing of my life.
This is the 3 hands were I lost all my money. The high pair Jacks was for my all in.
Please tell me if what would you different. Is +6

Hello all, I am new to the team here and basically new to gaming online, but, I would like to hear your honest opinion here - I built a small blackjack game that runs in the browser with play chips only (no real money, no account). The twist is an optional hint bar that explains the basic-strategy move for your hand, for example why you stand on 12 against a 6 but hit it against a 10, so beginners learn as they play.

It's part of a bigger site with roulette, Texas Hold'em, gin rummy and video poker: https://lumenroyale.com

For those who tried it: are the hints clear enough or too wordy, and would you like a practice mode that hides them and scores your decisions?

please don't hesitate to criticize if needed - examples and that so that I can improve

MTTs Specifically*

I am in the small or big blind and I three bet a wider range table position (BN, CO, maybe HJ) from the small or big blind. The villain calls in position, and we see the flop heads up. What am I supposed to do from there? I've experimented with donk bets and check raise bluffs on boards that favor my range, but haven't found my bread and butter betting pattern quite yet. However sometimes I find myself with K7s or A5s post flop out of position and I just don't know what to do. But even when I have hands like top set or a KK AA overpair on a dry board I'm not sure I how to maximizing value.

Altogether I know the ranges of bluffs and value in my out of position 3 bet range, I just don't know what to do when we see the flop.

I’m a new and bad player. However by being tight and playing into certain personalities I am winning.

I’ve studied some theory but it seems to go out the window at 1/2 because people are not playing optimally.

If I’m in the big blind with JQ suited and the entire table limped. When I raise to $20, I still get 4 callers and now if an Ace comes on the flop, I either have to surrender to strength and loose $20 because someone in that group of 4 callers probably has one or I c bet another $20 and get 2 callers and now I’ve got $44 in the pot that I have to give up on if I miss the board completely (which happens so often). Then my only option is to bluff, and I keep getting called by some dude with bottom pair. I do that three times and I’m down half my buy in and have no wiggle room.

Vs if I limp along, I can see a cheap flop and when I make a strong hand I do the same thing and can get all the money in.

I know this is fish speak, but I feel like I’m fundamentally misunderstanding something. Against good players, yes raising and isolating makes sense, where you can actually run bluff lines profitably. Against the typical 1/2 tables I have been making money by limping a lot of hands and getting all the money in when I have a monster and some dumb ass calls.

Can someone help me reframe this mind set? I know it’s bad play and I don’t want to be stuck at 1/2 forever but I’m pretty new to the game.

That’s a bad beat, right? His stat: 66 hand (74% vpip, 33% pfr, 30% 3bet). Could this have been avoided?

Early position villain bet 2.5 bb (50bb stack)
Middle calls (100bb stack)
Late calls 40bb
BB hand QQ stack 23bb

What bet size should bb bet

MP1 posted a 4c straddle, the player after him folded. With the SB and BB posting 3c and 9c ante, plus the 4c ​​straddle, the pot was 16c, so I bet 16c. On the flop, I believe a check-raise is the standard play here, but since I didn't have the nut flush draw, I just called. On the turn, I considered folding, but because he only bet 1/3 of the pot, I called, if he had bet more, I would have folded. The river was the Ah, I was relieved, assuming he couldn't have an Ace-high flush, I figured he only had something like AK, KQ, KK, TT. Did I play it poorly by shoving on a paired board? Or was it fine, given that I was pot-committed and it was just a cooler?

And for tournament, bounty hunters or classics?

I realized the board was dry and I hit a top pair. I know when you're OOP and defending you're supposed to check (for some reason) but I just value bet 33% here. Was that a mistake?

25nl online 4handed

10bb eff. 0.25bb ante

CO (standard tight reg, no reads) opens 2.5bb. Folds to hero in BB with AhQd. Hero 3bets 10bb. CO calls.

Flop (21bb): 9c6d5d

Hero c-bets 12bb. CO calls.

Thought process: CO's 3bet calling range contains some suited Ax, suited broadways, pocket pairs 55-TT and a few suited connectors. He obviously has some very strong hands on this flop, however I think I can still put pressure on hands like 77, 88, TT and 9x, and get autofolds from his overcards that missed the flop. I don't like checking as I give up my fold equity and would be forced to check/fold a lot. My overcards and backdoor flush draw gives me some equity when called. In hindsight I probably could have gone smaller and achieved the same with less risk.

Turn (45bb) 4d

Hero bets 15bb. CO calls.

Thought process: When CO just calls the flop, I eliminate most of the sets and straights from his range, as the player pool tend to fastplay those hands on wet, dynamic boards. He does have som flushes now, but his one pair hands should become more elastic on this scary turn card, so I decide to size down to keep those hands around, planning to shove most river cards.

River (75bb) 4s

Hero shoves 60bb.

Thought process: I think this is an excellent river to shove on. I already ruled out most of his sets on the flop, so he doesn't have many boats here. When he calls the small size on the turn, I also think he has fewer flushes, plus I block a lot of flushes with the Qd. His range is mostly condensed to SDV (1 pair/2 pair), so I will almost never win if I give up here.

Was my thought process sound, or will this lose money in the long run?

Edit: one important timing tell I forgot to mention: villain called quickly (<5 sec) on both flop and turn. In my mind, this skewed him more towards marginal SDV, as a nutted hand would at least consider raising.

Result: CO folds.

I play mostly 1-2nl live. I'm a slightly losing or break even player. Is there much difference between 10nl and 25nl online as far as player talent? Any other random advice is very welcome.

I play on GGPoker; I downloaded my hand histories as a text file and successfully imported them into PokerTracker 4 (I’m using the 14-day trial version). What should I do now, and what can this software actually do? Ideally, I’m looking for a feature that identifies the hands I played the worst—independent of the actual outcome (i.e., luck)—essentially highlighting my most -EV hands. I’m also interested in a feature that allows me to review specific streets (flop, turn, river) based on EV, showing where I played the best and the worst.

Recently I have been playing in an environment against almost only passive, sticky fish. This leads to most pots ending up very multiway, and most flop and turn bets are called by almost any hand drawing to more than a few outs. I have been wondering how this environment would effect optimal preflop play and am looking for your ideas.
First, I considered increasing my open sizes beyond the standard for the game, but this most often leads to the worst players simply finding another table. I also considered more heavily weighting a hand’s EQR for preflop opening viability: this is fairly common advice when anticipating multiway pots as these types of holdings generally are able to make the most hands that are comfortable value betting while very multiway. However, a large portion of the EV from these hands comes from their capability to be profitably bluffed, while bluffing against a handfull of sticky fish is very often far from being profitable. I’m not sure how much these effects with matter, and I’m sure there are other points to be made about this kind of environment, so please share your ideas if you have any!

Final 7 players in a ~$4,104 tournament. First place paid ~$1,500.

We discussed an ICM chop: 1st $963, villain $747, me $704. ONE player rejected it, so we continued playing.

Stacks: Me 1.095M | Villain ~1.2M
Antes: 40K × 7 = 280K starting pot
MY HAND: 7-7-T-8
VILLAIN: J♦-5♦ + two irrelevant cards

FLOP:
Top: 9-6-3 rainbow (one diamond)
Bottom: 7-6-5 rainbow
I flop TOP SET on bottom and an OPEN-ENDED STRAIGHT DRAW on top.
I bet 55K. One caller. Villain raises to 320K with bottom pair and backdoor flush draws! I call, other player folds.

TURN:
Top: K♦
Bottom: 5
I improve to SEVENS FULL OF FIVES on bottom, still open-ended on top.

Pot: 975K. I shove my remaining 735K.

Villain SNAP CALLS with trip fives on bottom and a jack-high diamond flush draw on top.

HERE’S THE MATH:
Final pot: 2.445 MILLION chips

His call: 735K
Equity needed to call: 30.1%
Estimated actual pot equity: 16.7%
Estimated call EV: −327,500 chips
Last five for quads: 2.78% (1 in 36)
Quads + flush on the two rivers: 0.635% (1 in 158)

Exact 8♦ + final five runout: 0.0794% — 1 IN 1,260!
RIVER:

🔥 TOP:** **8♦ — I COMPLETE MY TEN-HIGH STRAIGHT! Unfortunately, he completes his diamond flush.

💀 BOTTOM: THE LAST FIVE — HE MAKES QUAD FIVES!
HE SCOOPS BOTH BOARDS. I’M ELIMINATED IN 7TH FOR $233.

But here’s the most ridiculous part…

IMMEDIATELY AFTER I BUST, THE REMAINING SIX PLAYERS AGREE TO AN ICM CHOP!

I had just been offered $704 in the seven-way chop. Instead, I walked away with $233 — $471 LESS.
Villain called off 735K needing ~30% equity, holding an estimated ~16.7%, and hit the exact double-board miracle.

ONE GUY REJECTED THE CHOP. I GOT ONE-OUTERED FOR QUADS WHILE HE COMPLETED A FLUSH. THEN EVERYBODY CHOPPED.

Sometimes poker is absolutely disgusting. 💀♠️

In blackjack - basic strategy says hit. It feels wrong because you can loose, but standing on 16 against a 10 only wins if the dealer busts, which happens far less often than you'd think when they're showing a 10. Over many hands, hitting loses less money than standing. (One small exception: if you're holding more than two cards that add up to 16 and the table allows surrender, surrender is the best play, but plain hit is the standard answer.) The key idea is that basic strategy isn't about winning this hand, it's about losing the least in the long run.

2-7 Triple Draw Calculator

For anyone into or looking into mix games this is an awesome tool and with a little study and theory can give you an edge in most games

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I’ve been stuck at the micros, so I went through the PHH dataset (a free public collection of online hands from the University of Toronto) and replayed 7.3M 25NL and 50NL hands. What stood out:

1. Min-raise steals don’t steal. First-in opens from the CO, button or SB won the blinds right away 40% of the time at 2x, 55% at 3x and 61% at 4x.
2. Tiny c-bets don’t fold anyone. Heads-up flop c-bets under 1/3 pot won immediately 26% of the time. At 3/4 pot it was 51%.
3. Big river bets are almost never bluffs. Only about 8% were. Fold your one pair.
4. People fold less to all-ins. Heads-up, a pot-size river bet got a fold 68% of the time and a pot-size shove only 55%. Shove your strong hands, not your bluffs.
5. Calling preflop is expensive. Players who mostly called instead of raising lost 13–27 bb/100.

Caveats: these are older online games (PokerStars, Full Tilt and others), so today’s pools may differ. Fold rates also aren’t profit on their own, because they leave out what happens when you get called.

I turned this into a free trainer that grades your decisions in these spots: drillroompoker.com/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=launch.

No real money and no download. Happy to answer questions about the method, and I’d like to hear what’s wrong with it.

$500 live tourney, slow structure, mid stage where most have 10-30 blinds. Hero and villain were playing about the same, slightly more PFR and VPIP than average.

Blinds 10k/20k with 20k ante. 7 handed.
Hero UTG 450k: AA
Villain BB 550k: Q6ss

Hero UTG raise to 50k, Villain BB calls.

Flop: 10s, 7, 2s
Hero bets 75k, villain calls.

Turn: 5
Hero bets 100k, villain calls.

River: As
Villain shoves, hero calls.

Is this inevitable with shallow stacks? Small bet sizing, but would larger bets have made a difference? Maybe shove turn was my best chance? Worth thinking about a river fold?

Trying to learn some pre flop charts do these charts look correct generally? Feels really lose in a lot of positions compared to how I currently play

I was wondering if you could please assist me please with these scenarios that I am not sure about specifically for cash games using the simplified moving button rule

1. If a heads up battle is in play with player A in seat 1 in the Big blind and player B in seat 5 in the small blind with seats 2, 3 and 4 vacant. What happens if those seats empty seats become filled? Where would the button and blinds be for the next hand?
   Thanks

2. If Player A in seat 1 is on the with Player B in seat 4 is in the small blind and player C in seat 5 is in the big blind but 2 players at the same time join to take seats 2 and 3, what happens if player 2 elects to buy the button instead? Do the blinds take their back? In addition, does seat 3 play or not?

   1. If a player busts and rebuys to be dealt straight away on the very next hand, do they have to post a big blind if not in the blinds, the same as if they were a new player taking a vacant seat not in the blinds?
   2. If the small blind busts and decides to rebuy straight away, can they play as the button or would the button skip them and they would play in the cut off?

Thanks

I thought I have the nuts there, so I all in the river. Idk how the JJ can call with the A on the board when I bet quite heavy on the turn. I’m thinking if I check and he bet small on river, should I have gone all in on the river?

Edit: what I meant was, is there a way for me to lose the minimum on the river card?