Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $10.00 BB (5 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
SB ($3829.50)
BB ($1000)
Hero (UTG) ($4795.55)
MP ($1490)
Button ($2152.50)
Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q
, Q
Hero bets $40, MP raises to $120, 3 folds, Hero calls $80
Flop: ($262.50) 5, J
, Q
(2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $140, Hero calls $140
Turn: ($542.50) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $330, Hero calls $330
River: ($1202.50) K (2 players)
Hero checks, MP checks
Total pot: $1202.50 | Rake: $3
Results:
Hero had Q, Q (three of a kind, Queens).
MP had K, A (one pair, Kings).
Outcome: Hero won $1199.50
On the river, there’s about $1000 left in Villain’s stack, so less than a pot-sized bet. I see a lot of people shove here, but I actually like his check back. It’s not what I expected, and in fact part of the reason I was slowplaying was that I thought he’d probably value bet quite a few worse hands on the river. If he’s checking AK and presumably AA here, though, I’m not sure if that means I should play my hand faster. I guess I could see check-raising the flop, but with his turn bet sizing, I doubt he’s calling a check-shove there.
Is this an issue of needing to play our hand differently on earlier streets, or just a bad river for all of his flop/turn value betting range [and bluffing range, for that matter]
How does villains 3B frequency affect your decision to c/c vs c/r the flop?
I’m not sure about my play on earlier streets. Probably I wouldn’t do anything differently, even knowing he doesn’t value bet AK here, just because I don’t think are too many hands that will give heavy action on earlier streets but not the river. That means that most of the “wiggle room”, the portion of his range where it matters what I do, is his air. The board texture, dynamic, etc. aren’t right for trying to induce a bluff any other way, and I probably don’t check-call strong hands often enough, so I don’t mind the way I played it.
As for his 3-betting range, it matters a lot. In an UTG/UTG+1 situation, it’s hard for me to be all that weak, so my only opportunity for deception is to try to play a monster like a more marginal made hand and hope he tries to run me off it. The wider his range gets, the wider my range gets, which means I’m going to be bluffing/semi-bluffing more often on earlier streets and therefore can (and in fact probably should) play a strong hand faster.
I think you played the hand (from villian’s perspective) like you were drawing OOP with OESD 9Ts, so even though villian makes TPTK on river it is still a fairly bad card to vbet. KQ is also possible in your range. I think if an Ace rivered instead then he might vbet thin and be forced to stack off, since you probably play KT (flop OESD+OC) more aggressively by CR either flop or turn than the passive CC line as above.
But I think you would have been better off to CR on turn (probably a min-raise or just a bit more due to stack and pot size relative to villian’s turn bet sizing). The reason being is this could look A LOT like two hands: 1) you picked up a club flush draw and now semi-bluffing him off an AK type hand, or 2) you flopped a pair of Q’s weak kicker and either making villian pay to draw out or raising for value to get stacks in. If villian thinks it is 1st scenario then he will call or possibly shove. And if 2nd scenario and villian thinks he has 10 perceived outs (GSHOT+2OC), then he will be priced into calling turn CR and will obviously commit his last 520-570 with TPTK when you make the trivial river shove.
Thanks for the comment, Steve. I agree that my flop and turn play could like a draw, but pre-flop Villain may not expect me to have many draws in my range. I can tell you that UTG vs. an UTG+1 3-bet, I’m usually folding T9s. My intent here was to play my hand as though I had something like TT, AJ, AQ, JTs, which in my opinion make up the bulk of the bottom of the range Villain will put me on.