This hand is from Sunday’s $530 WCOOP Second Chance tournament. We’re not particularly close to the money. Table isn’t great but the structure is and there is one big soft spot to Hero’s immediate left.
Villain is 17/15 with 10% 3-bet and 29% Attempt to Steal. Strictly speaking he’s not in one of the positions that PokerTracker defines as a steal position for this hand, but I still think that stat is relevant to provide an idea of a player’s positional awareness. He hasn’t done anything noteworthy at the table, and he and Hero don’t have any particular history.
Hero has been active and has won a fair number of medium-sized pots recently both pre- and post-flop without showdown. So far the table has had more of an “I don’t want to mess with that guy” than a “That guy never has it, let’s go to war” reaction to Hero’s aggression.
Hero just 3-bet to the same size (against a different Villain) in the last hand and folded to a shove. This wouldn’t otherwise be the ideal 3-bet size here, but I chose to keep it the same rather than risk revealing something about my hand. You’re welcome to comment on that if you like, but I’m going to skip past it and focus first on the flop decision:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 150/300 Blinds 40 Ante (8 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
UTG (t8460)
UTG+1 (t74958)
MP1 (t13938)
MP2 (t34929)
Hero (CO) (t14615)
Button (t15892)
SB (t17919)
BB (t967)
Hero’s M: 18.98
Preflop: Hero is CO with J♥, J♠
3 folds, MP2 bets t600, Hero raises to t1333, 2 folds, BB calls t627 (All-In), MP2 calls t733
Flop: (t4063) 10♦, 4♣, A♥ (3 players, 1 all-in)
MP2 checks, Hero?
At the moment the sidepot is a little under 800. What’s your play and why?
Post your thoughts and comments here, and I’ll be back on Thursday with my own thoughts as well as the next decision point.
What are villain’s:
-flop check/raise percentage
-aggression frequency on flop/turn/river
Good questions, but not enough data to have a meaningful idea, unfortunately.
If I don’t know what his c/r % is, or his general aggression numbers, I’d just check it back. He’s checking his entire range here (my guess: 22+, A2s+, K9s+, Q9s+, J9s+, 98s+, A9o+, KJo+ QJo), and the last thing we want is to be c/r’d and have to fold to worse.
If I did know his c/r%, I could:
– bet/fold (small c/r% => likely TPGK, 2p, set) hoping to get calls from his T’s and worse pp’s
– bet/jam (high c/r%, since he’ll be doing this with his T’s and 77/88/99, as well as his value).
Anything in between those 2 extremes, I will check it back.
FWIW I think we ought to be able to make an educated guess about his check-raising range on this flop…
If you were to bet, how much would you bet?
Between 1600 and 2000
Its an open min raise right? has that been standard?
If the BB wasn’t in the hand I would imagine Villain would check-raise a cbet by hero way too often to bet this flop. I think the BB being in the hand makes it less likely for villain to check-raise without an ace. So I would bet 2700 and fold to a raise. My guess is its a break even play so I am not happy about it but I feel like all the other options are worse.
I imagine islidur would “delay” check-raise to a villain turn lead….
Yeah, nothing remarkable about the min-raise. Even if it wasn’t standard, it’s a no-brainer with such a short stack in the BB.
What would you say is the purpose of this bet?
I guess the idea is get V to fold all non ace…
The idea being V if he doesn’t have an Ace will assume its pretty like at least one of BB or Hero has one. He must know you can’t fold ace in this spot.
Plus if you check I think V will bet turn like 80%+ of the time putting you in an impossible spot. You don’t want to be jamming over a turn bet knowing at least 1/3 of time you will be busted.
I guess thinking about it now a super sic play would be to call call but I am not sure I’d want to for tourney life hence bet 2700 on the flop.
Honestly though I felt like this hand/spot had no right or at least good answer.
What’s the value in getting him to fold non-Aces? (I’m not saying there is none, I just want you to think about/articulate it) Do you think he won’t fold non-Aces for 2000? (ie why is 2700 the right amount for your stated purpose?)
Why would it be an impossible spot if he nearly always bets the turn? Sounds like a pretty easy call if his range is that wide. Don’t see why you’d have to jam.
So impossible in the sense to know if hero is good (plus the fear of having to call 2 bets for t. life)
Which isn’t the same as being impossible to play well (point taken). worth an article 🙂
2700…much more and I doubt it is “directly” profitable for hero and more likely/profitable for villain to bluff check raise.
Less and you have to worry a little more he just says whatever and calls(maybe with a plan).
anyways I think I am still for turning JJ (a pair) into basically a bluff to end the hand but honestly mostly just to avoid having to make a super tough decision later on.
I think just checking it back is the play. I think betting only sets us up for a more difficult decision on later streets and may even induce him to c/r or open a later street and force a fold from hero. How would we react if villain check raises or leads out on turn if he calls our bet? There really aren’t that many truly safe cards that can peel off (both remaining jacks would put both straight and flush draws out there, any other paint is troublesome as well) If he is content to check it down, I would be too, especially since a large part of mr all-in’s range includes Ax.
I lean toward checking – the side pot is small relative to the main pot, the board is dry, and we have position for later streets. If we think it’s a high probability that villain has KQ, Kx, or Qx and the all-in player doesn’t have any A, then that would be a reason to bet, but my guess that % is small compared to other hands the two could have.
Intuitively its a Check on the basis of comparing it with an alternative situation where BBs not in the pot and it’s heads up.
With BB all in you gain relatively little from betting: either for value because MP gets worse odd than usual on flop call, or from getting MP to fold his equity because MP folding doesn’t give you 100% equity in the pot.
We should check.
Villain is positionally aware. His open represents pocket pairs and high cards, including Ax, which do well against BBs random hand. There are far more combos of high cards, particularly Ax, than PPs.
On this ace-high, relatively dry flop we are likely only getting called/raised by better if we c-bet. Also, bet-folding is a disaster if, due to our aggressive image, we fold to a (semi) bluff by hands we are far ahead of (gutter broadways, pair + backdoor FD, lower PPs).
If we check back the flop, we may get action from Tx hands or lower pocket pairs.