Edit: Fixed the suit of card (c) so it doesn’t match what’s in Hero’s hand.
It’s Level 4 of the PCA. Hero is wearing his PokerStars Team Online patch, which in Villain’s eyes probably makes him a cash game grinder with minimal tournament experience. Villain is a young online MTT wizard: highly ranked on Pocket Fives, tons of success, modest live experience but certainly knows what he’s doing in any tournament situation. He’s new to the table in the last hour and neither he nor Hero has done anything remarkable in that time. With the exception of Villain and one other good but short-stacked player on Hero’s left, the table is reasonably soft, certainly above average for the field.
Blinds 100/200/25. Villain (13K) opens to 500 UTG+2. Two of the looser players (16K and 40K) at the table call, and Hero (35K) calls Kc Ts in the BB.
Flop Qd Jd Th. Hero checks, Villain bets 1450 into pot of 2300, the other two fold, and the action is back on Hero. What’s your plan?
Just to focus the discussion a bit, let’s assume that if you raise, Villain will shove or fold. If you call, talk about how you’d proceed on each of the following turns:
a) 2s
b) Kh
c) Tc
d) Ah
e) 8d
I’ll post my usual thoughts and results when I’m back from the Bahamas, which will likely be around the 13th. I play Day 2 today, so wish me luck!
White Flag. Looking forward to the results 🙂
Though I didn’t do much analysis I kind of like call, lead out small on anything but a k. Its pretty tough for him to shove over you without the nuts. If he just calls you got to see 2 cards at a discount.
Discount compared to what?
I just meant discount compared to shoving the flop. Obviously I guess if you check turn, villain might check turn and you get to see it cheaper. Obviously super tough spot (unless you fold I guess) so I am very prepared to be informed how to play better 🙂
I would probably fold although the pot odds are enticing and your hand (a pair and a draw) superficially seems very strong. This is a super wet board and a good player should not be leading into three opponents without something very substantial. I put him on KQ, AQ and stronger. If you raise all-in, I don’t think he folds much. I also don’t think you have the full 13 outs that a pair-and-an-OESD normally does.
Assuming you call, if your draw comes in, with an ace or a nine, it’s going to be a super-scary board, and it’s going to be tough to get paid off, especially being out of position. On top of that, your opponent will often also have a king, so you may well chop even if your draw comes in – or lose to AK.
You have the 10s in your hand, and you wanna know what to do if the 10s comes on the turn (item “c”)? Do you mean the 10d on the turn?
Fixed, thanks!
a) check/fold
b) check / call
c) check / call
d) check / raise
e) check / raise ( fold to shove )
I would check-fold flop.
I fold. I assume most of the time he has a piece betting into 3 players and I don’t want to risk my tournament life in this situation when I’m behind and might not be drawing very well (eg he has AdQx).
Before I answer to your questions I have one:
Preflop the odds to call are great (almost 7 to 1) but you never thought to fold? Isn’t a trouble hand vs three player one of them early pos raiser tourney pro? Isn’t a reverse implied odds hand?
So you saw a good flop for this hand but not under these circumstances. The tourney pro bet…(donk bet wasn’t good to put him in the middle with two players live behind him?) It’ s rare to bluff and may be don’t bet the weak one pair (J or T) range to.
So check-what? To continue we have to know our outs… But we can’t be sure for them, if we have (the Ac,Ah,As are but may be for split pot)… With Check-raise he folds small part of his range and put 65bb with this hand it doesn’t look attractive…
So i check-fold… Here are the reverse implied odds…
If i chose to call then:
a) check-fold looks obvious.. Glad if he give us free card but difficult to bet if will not improve in river…
b) need to be cautious.. we beat now flop 2pair hands but lose to Ax and Kx(x=k,q,j)hands big part of his range… It’ s difficult for him to bet without Ace so check-fold
c)This is the good one from our T outs (the other T is diamond)…if he doesn’t have QQ,JJ… we have to bet and reevaluate after his reaction..
d) With nuts bet-call if he shoves… If he calls look like set or 2pair..
e) Check calling the flop look like a Fl dr so I think we have to bluff and put his tournament life in line if he calls and river is blank…
Finally I want to thank you for the post you wrote from my e-mail…
I would put villain on a range of 99+, plus JT, QT+, KT+, AT+, suited or offsuit. Also T9s, 98s, maybe 87s. So he probably hit that flop quite hard. He is ahead of us with almost all his range, except T9s and 87s.
On the other hand, we have a hand I find difficult to fold on the spot. The range we represent by calling pre-flop is also quite connected to this flop so I would call (950 more on a 3750 pot).
a) On a 2s – a blank turn. We stay with a low pair on a draw-heavy board. I can’t see what hand in the above range a bluff raise would make him fold, so I would check/fold to a raise.
b) On a Kh, we make top 2 pairs with an OESD. On the bad side, villain got nuts with all his Ax hands, and got a K high suit with T9 and 98. KQ and KJ are still well ahead of us, and a second flush draw appeared. A bet could make him fold his T9, 99 and 98 hands, as Ax is clearly in our range, but we can hardly stand a raise. The hands we beat are AQ AJ AT QJ QT JT 87s. I would check, planning to call and see what happens on the river, where a bluff may be an option on any diamond or heart. We may also get the nuts (4 outs to a full house).
c) On a Tc, we made trips with an OESD. Yay ! except that we are still behind any flopped suit (AK, 98s), and there is still a possibility that villain got a full house (JT, QT) or better trips than us (QQ, JJ, AT). The hand we beat are AA, KK, AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ, QJ, T9s, 87s. It still Looks like a little ahead / way behind spot. I would check, planning to call as in b).
d) On a Ah, we have nuts. For the moment. If a h or d rivers, flushes become possible, as well as full houses if the board pairs. I would bet full pot, planning to shove after a raise. The other option is to check / raise planning to call a shove. But given the situation, I would prefer to be the one who shoves on this board.
e) an 8d gives us a gutshot suit draw, and makes a diamond flush possible. Good candidate for a bluff attempt. An 8 connects well to our range, and I would check/raise the turn for maybe 3/4 pot, planning to fold to a shove.
Thanks for your very thorough post. I was confused by one thing: ” The range we represent by calling pre-flop is also quite connected to this flop so I would call (950 more on a 3750 pot).”
Why does the fact that this flop hits your range well make you more inclined to call?
Ahhh… do you mean, rather than to raise ? Sorry, but english is not my native language and I may miss sometimes my aim.
What I meant is :
The flop hit his range hard. Considering our holding, villain is probably ahead. But the flop hits our range well too, and in his eyes we may represent better hands than we have. I dont like folding here for this reason. So two options remain : Bluff on the flop by raising, or call his c-bet. I would elect to call… But am quite out of argument to explain why.
Good question, Sir, have to think about it for a while.