Have pocket pair, flop pairs

[Silverthunder]

Hello, everyone, I am new to this forum. I have read several posts on this forum but I still have a lot to make my way through; there is some great info that I am coming across.

I am a winning player at .02/.04; I usually 2-3 table, though with a 15" monitor & 800x600 res. the display is pretty insane. I think I can move up to .05/ .10 and still be a winning player but I am building up my balance a bit more because I already had to move down once cause I was too hastey after hitting some bad cards for a while shortly after I moved up.

Cutting to the chase...
.02/ .04 no limit hold em on Players Only
We are both about 150 BB deep
No reads on the opponent; I had only played about 12 hands with him.
Opponent raises from the cutoff to .12
I call from the SB with 88
everyone else folds

Flop comes J66
I check, he bets pot 0.28
I raise to 0.77; he folds

I don't like betting into this because all I beat that would call me are underpairs (22, 33 might even get scared off), AK, and maybe even AJ you might see at these limits. A lot of the opponents that I come across here like to slow play- but more specifically in this circumstance don't raise a jack here; they just call and so betting doesn't necessarily give us a whole lot of info either. The argument for betting is that there is about a 50% chance that the turn will be a card higher in rank than an 8. What play do you guys think is right here? I think it would have been best to just call and then bet the turn as long as it isn't above a 9 in rank.

Sorry that this is not in the standard format but I tried to use the flop turn river hand converter where you paste the data into the website and then it puts the hand in that nice format but it gives me an error when I try to do that. I have been wanting to post a hand for a while, though so forgive me

[Vantek]

I would never do it readless, because that's a crapshoot. I would also never do it at 5NL. If you are at 5NL, there are probably much more important situations for you to think about. Checkraise bluffing dry flops is way too fancy for 5NL (or 10NL for that matter). At 5NL, your strategy should be:
1) wait for a big hand
2) ???
3) profit

[given1982]

Check/raising this flop turns your hand into a bluff. Cbetting and check/calling are both better. I'd cbet as a default against an unknown.

[zayphod]

I call the flop bet and lead the turn for 3/4 pot (no matter what the card). If he folds great, if he calls I check the river and hope he checks behind.

Lame maybe, but you might as well take the initiative away from him and see if he wants it back.

[Vantek]

Cbetting and check/calling are both better. I'd cbet as a default against an unknown.

We flatted pre in the SB against a CO open >_>

[given1982]

Originally Posted by Vantek

We flatted pre in the SB against a CO open >_>

You're right. It's so much easier reading hand histories than a bunch of text.

This is a superstandard check/call on the flop.

[urbansprawler]

You check flop not to turn your hand into a bluff, but then check-raise for value?

[Silverthunder]

thanks for all of the response. Check/ call the flop seems like a descent play. I will probably run with that for the time being.

[Vantek]

I'd just C/F fwiw. Way too marginal readless at 4NL.

[AdrienD]

c/c flop obviously, c/f turn if >8 comes and he bets decent amount again (reason: players at 5NL don't barrel scare cards often at all and most of the time just give up on bluffs unless they have a good draw).
if a card <= 8 comes, I think donkbetting 1/2 - 2/3 pot is better than checking cause players at these stakes tend to be uber passive so you will often get value from 22-77 and some random turned GS/OESD or ace high.

for the river if another low card comes then just valuebet 1/2 pot again you'll get tons of calls from A hi and pretty much any pair.

if a big card comes, just c/f. Thats also why donkbetting the low turn is so awsome: it gets value + you don't have to worry about villain thinking you're weak because you checked twice.