(I’ve made blog posts out of responses to reader-submitted questions before, but it never occurred to me to actively solicit such questions for a regular feature until now! So welcome to the first Thinking Poker Mailbag, and please read on for information about how to submit your own question!)
Q: I recently came across your site and have found the articles to be amazing. I’ve been unable to get past “Hand Reading Made Simple“, as I don’t want to undervalue the wisdom being offered here. My question is in Ex. 1, what do you do if you get check raised to $30 and you only have a showdown hand of TPTK? I ask because we can expect a pot sized bet on all 4th street blanks, that we’ll have to fold to as the villian either has a monster or is playing his drawing hand super aggro. Either way the pot is too big for a showdown hand, but I can’t fold TPTK on the flop.
A: First off, sorry for the long delay in addressing your question (this was submitted over a month ago). And thanks for your kind words
I’d say that your central problem likes in your final phrase: “I can’t fold TPTK on the flop.” Why not? I never saw that rule in Hoyle’s. 🙂
If you believe that your opponent will bet the turn almost always and that you won’t be able to continue to his turn bet, then you have an easy fold. Implicitly, you are also assuming that he has a very strong check-raising range. Otherwise, you should be glad to have call him down on the flop and turn.
In other words, if you don’t think that you have enough equity to continue on the turn, and you don’t think that his range is going to change when he bets the turn, then you don’t have enough equity to call the flop either. The only reason that folding the flop would be a problem is if he has a weaker check-raising range, in which case you should be glad to continue with your hand on a blank turn that you expect him to bet 100% of the time.
I’m guessing your real concern is that you feel that folding is correct but you also fear that it is exploitable. Well, you’re right, it is. That’s fine as long as you are confident that your opponent isn’t exploiting it. Realize that on this board there are very few draws possible, so an opponent with a range of only monsters and draws would very rarely be able to check-raise this flop. If you find that you are getting raised a lot, you may be giving your opponents too much credit.
Against an opponent who might be exploiting such a tight fold by check-raise bluffing, there are still better hands to continue with than TPTK. Against a range of sets and open-ended straight draws, JT and QJ actually have better equity than AK. This is because they dominate the straight draws in your opponent’s range and have a better chance of drawing out on his sets. For more on this concept, see Relative Hand Strength.
Thanks for the question!
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I wish I could remember where my post was but here was the over all question and something that I still don’t have my head wrapped around completely.
You had a hand where you thought it was better to 3b/fold with 1010 but 3b/allin with AK because you’d be dominating a lot of your opponents range while only a slight favorite with 1010.
I wish I could find your exact post and my response but I think that was the over all gist of the theory. It was very eye opening for me and I’ve been trying to find more spots where this would apply.
I wish I could do a search for it.
Also another thing I’d like to see is turning made hands into bluffs. I feel (and maybe I’m wrong) that there’s a lot of value made or lost on those types of hands.
Thanks! Great blog like always.
Hey Andrew,
I think it’d be cool if you did a blog (or series of blogs) on some of your more memorable hands – either hands that taught you a lesson (a-ha! moment), or just hands you think helped improve your game.
I’m also curious to hear what you think your weaknesses are as a player. It’s something I started thinking about recently in my game, in trying to figure out what separates me from some of the better players at my limit / higher limits.
-Chris