Wednesday, October 07, 2009

A little payback and hitting your non-nut card on river

Still getting hammered at work which has decreased time to blog. These 11-12 hour days start to get to you after awhile. Oh well, cry me a river.

Yesterday was a litle payback as I ran under expectation. People kept on hitting sets to my overpair and I almost always paid them of. Last night alone, it happened 5 times. I guess you have to take the good with the bad.

Again, due to timing here is a quick hand:

Villain has played every hand; albeit only 6 hands.


Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 Pot Limit Hold'em - 6 players - http://www.thehandconverter.com/hands/316267
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $114.90
CO: $106.10
BTN: $100.00
Hero (SB): $100.00
BB: $127.30
UTG: $89.15

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is SB with As Kh
UTG calls $1, 2 folds, BTN calls $1, Hero raises to $5, BB calls $4, UTG calls $4, BTN calls $4

Flop: ($20.00) Qs Th 5h (4 players)
Hero bets $14, BB calls $14, UTG folds, BTN folds

Turn: ($48.00) 2h (2 players)
Hero checks, BB checks

Intent here was to check raise.

River: ($48.00) Jd (2 players)
Hero ???

I'm going to start here. What's best?

Check/Call
Bet/Call
Bet/Fold
Check/Fold

Ok.. let's proceed

River: ($48.00) Jd (2 players)
Hero bets $40, BB raises to $80, Hero ??

Fold?
Put remaining $41 into pot getting over 4-1.

Have a nice day!!

3 comments:

Henrik said...

If I were to choose the check-line I would definately do it with the intention to rise. If he was on a flush draw - why didn't he bet from position on turn?

Lacking any specific information on villain I guess you'd better stick to the wisdom of Dan Harrington (yeah - he's pretty much a poker oracle to me): Most bets (or absence of bets) actually mean exactly what they seem to mean. It's hard to find the balance between chasing away monsters from under your bed (far from every board with >3 of the same suit means that your opponent got a flush) and foolishly (? wrong english?) asume he never has one. So in this case I definately lead out since I believe the risk is too high that villain just checks the hand down.

... and he raises. Well - see it from his point of view. You also checked the turn. So probably he don't have to be afraid of a flush. If he has say QJ, JT or (better off) JJ, he has to be afraid of exactly one hand now: AK (and QQ, but wouldn't you have continued your betting on the turn in order to protect your set from a possible four-card-board-flush?

... or maybe he just doesn't think, he hit a better hand on the river so now he raises. You don't have much pieces of information yet on him, but from what you've seen so far you cannot give him credit for a range consisting of only flushes. Which would be the only reason (4-to-1 odds as you stated correctly yourself) for not getting the rest of your money in.

Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

I enjoy your hand analysis questions because I always like to start from the beginning of the hand and evaluate how you got to your decision point at the end.

In this case I am very confused by the line you took from the flop onwards. The flop of Qs Th 5h with four players in is pretty much the quintessential example of a flop I would not generally c-bet on. All you've got is some overs and an inside straight draw, there are 4 players in the pot who saw a flop with two high cards, semi-connected, and two of a suit. There is more or less zero chance of you taking it down with your c-bet, and with 4 players in there you are likely to be called or raised by better hands in at least one if not two spots. I prefer no c-bet there, which helps for balance anyways when I might be truly weak on the flop after a preflop steal.

So the flush fills on the turn, and frankly since the guy called you on the flop anyways, you are more than likely well behind here even if he doesn't have the flush. Here I am screaming for you to check it, which you do, but then you let us know that your intent was to check-raise? Check-raise with what? 9 nut flush outs and 3 inside straight draw outs that might already be beat by a made flush? Maybe 10 or 11 outs once, and you are hoping to check-raise a guy who already called you on the flop. That one I cannot uderstand. With that turn card and having already gotten called on the flop, I am looking to check-fold here on out, not check-raise to get more money into the pot whe my opponent has already voluntarily committed money to the pot twice in this hand.

On the river, I would either check-call, or possibly bet a reasonably large amount to ensure that I know I am beat by the flush if he raises. With $48 in the pot, I like your bet size of $40 for that purpose, but when he min-raises you you are now in the exact terrible spot that I try to avoid by having c-bet and gotten called on the flop. You are most likely flushed, but for another $40 and getting 4-1 this now becomes a somewhat difficult fold. I do think you're beat most of the time here -- AK is a very realistic possibility for you here that everyone considers for a preflop raiser, and yet he is still
raising you (and minraising you at that) -- but that's a tough laydown at 4:1 at these stakes. I don't know if I call or fold, but I'm pretty sure that folding is the right play. You made the right-sized bet on the river to find out if your straight is beat, and he told you it was. The real man probably folds here.

But I'm still interested to understand if you have any method to when you decide to c-bet or not on the flop. I would not have led out here, though I might have check-called depending on who and how many others stayed in to see the turn card.

Good hand to review as always.

Fold?
Put remaining $41 into pot getting over 4-1.

WillWonka said...

great comments as usual.

Villain did have the made flush with 97s. Folding was probably right; but with no real read other than he has played all hands so far, I mad the crying call.

My thoughts on Cbetting. I'll have to think about that more and maybe put in a post.

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