Despite flopping a straight, I think checking is clearly correct on all streets.
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em Tournament, 200/400 Blinds 50 Ante (9 handed) – Full Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
CO (t12678)
Button (t11345)
SB (t19510)
Hero (BB) (t7756)
UTG (t15153)
UTG+1 (t24828)
MP1 (t17322)
MP2 (t11167)
MP3 (t5135)
Hero’s M: 7.39
Preflop: Hero is BB with A
, 3
2 folds, MP1 bets t899, 5 folds, Hero calls t499
Flop: (t2448) 2
, 4
, 5
(2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 checks
Turn: (t2448) K (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets t999, Hero calls t999
River: (t4446) 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets t3299, Hero raises to t5808 (All-In), 1 fold
Total pot: t11044
Results:
Hero didn’t show A, 3.
Outcome: Hero won t11044
When Villain doesn’t bet flop, he’s announcing he has nothing. Maybe he hit the K, maybe he’ll bluff it, but either way checking is best. River is so blank that he’s going to value bet again if he hit the K, and if he didn’t, then he has air and we want him to keep bluffing.
I think people too often feel the need to take the lead on the turn, either by betting or by check-raising, if they have a big hand but the pre-flop raiser didn’t bet the flop. This is a good play only if you read Villain’s flop check as an attempt to pot control with marginal showdown value. When you read Villain for air, or in this case air or a strong second-best hand, playing passively is usually best. This is particularly true when stacks are shallow enough that you don’t need to raise before the river to get it in.
Andrew: How are you confident that Villain isn’t checking behind with a set on the flop?
I’m not, but I don’t think I have to be. It’s OK to occasionally raise into a better hand, as long as I beat >50% of his calling range. That said, people do bet sets on coordinated flops more often than not, and I’d also expect his turn bet to be larger if he had checked the flop, so that he could set up an all in bet on the river.
Hello Andrew,
This is a good card because villains will try and rep it along with other broadways but what other cards would you check and are there any you would lead or is it more opponent dependant?
My read is that he has nothing and is probably drawing dead, so the only way for me to get paid is either to induce bluffs or to get him to improve to a second-best hand. Thus, I would only lead the turn if I thought this could induce a bluff-raise, but there aren’t many opponents against whom that would be true.
also villains river bet sizing is pretty bad here right??? if he thinks you would fold river surely 2-2.5k would be sufficient
Actually given that my range consists mostly (perhaps entirely, as he perceives it) of bluff-catchers, the optimal play would be for him to shove the river with all of his value hands and then with an appropriate number of bluffs. As it turned out, he wasn’t bluffing: he tanked and folded, saying he had AK.
-what about 3beting preflop?
we have a blocker for some of his 4 betting hands and imo villain will fold to 3bet often enough to make that play +ev…
-on the other side what are your plans when you call preflop oop with that hand (which has bad reversed implied odds when u flop top pair no kicker), with that shallow effective stacks -> were u calling to flop 2 pairs or better or to c/r (play aggressive) flush draws etc or what??
I’m starting the hand with less than 8K, so I don’t think I can 3-bet-fold. Even if I thought shoving were marginally +EV, I think calling is probably more +EV.
As for my plan, I guess it was just to play poker. I don’t think the reverse implied odds are really that bad, because it’s not like I’m going stack off just because I flop an Ace.
Basically I was confident in my ability to play well enough post-flop. Will I outplay him from OOP? Probably not. But I do think that I can play well enough to take advantage of the very good pot odds I’m getting on the pre-flop call. That would probably entail never folding a flush draw, but I do think I could make the right decisions when I flop an A and also sometimes find some other good bluffing or even value-calling opportunities.
of course your not going to get crazy when you flop an A and your not getting to stack of always, but you will at least call 1 bet (1500-2k) and imo u cant quite afford to that and then fold with ~pot size bet left on turn with your stack size
yes, you r starting with 8k, and when you 3bet to something like 2400-3000 u r sending clear message that “you r not folding” cos you r getting good odds for a call and kinda pot committing your self when you 3bet => your 3bet looks really strong =value 3bet
so when all that said, if villain is decent he will realize that, and he will never 4bet shove light as a bluff, which means imo => he will 4bet shove hands that had you crushed (lets say ~99+,AQ+ if he is on a looser side, and that is like 5-6% hand range)
having an A in your hand decrease his 4bet shoving range by ~18%, lets say its 20% for easy math
all above leads to this:
if villain is opening like 20-25% hand range from MP and he is shoving top 5-6% vs your 3bet (that means that he will shove 1 from 5 times and fold 4 times) + you having an A decrease his shoving range for ~1/5 (which means that he will shove ~1 of 6 times and fold 5 times) and you r only 3 betting him 2,5-3x times his open raise your making very ++ EV play imo
cos imo if i get math and ranges ok, it means that your play will make him fold ~5 of 6 times = and you picking up a pot ~2kT$ 5 times out of 6 and adding like ~25% to your stack and you need to win like ~2,5 times to make this play break even imo
what do u think about this concept??