Top pair with weak kicker facing a large bet from Brian Townsend, high stakes no limit

Called it. I’m happy and not at all surprised to see the results. I’ve seen this guy, sbrugby, play at fulltilt, and he is aggressive, aggressive, aggressive, to put it lightly. Given the action here, I don’t think he’s holding a stronger K. The only real possibility that has us beat, I think, is he happened to back into a low two pair. It’s a risk I’m willing to take, especially against a hyperaggressive opponent.

In a weird way, that was a brilliant play against a super-aggressive opponent. Really aggressive players can’t stand two checks and will make a huge bet on the turn or river to take the pot. Gutsy call but a good one - if this guy had K-10 (or even K-5) he would have been ramming it down your throat from the beginning.

Definitely a low pair or an ace rag. Possible A-Q pre-flop but he would have bet out on the flop if he had that. The only possibility for him was hitting that six with A-6 or 6-6. We knew he didn’t have tens firstly when he just called pre-flop and for sure when he didn’t lead out on the flop to stop the flush from killing off his trips; With a pair that still might be good he’d bet on the flop just to see if you were flushing. He was beat from the flop and should have either bet out on the flop or folded to your action. He just gave his hand away.

I hate these high-stakes cash questions, as I play lowstakes/tournaments. It just seems too strange for me.
Looking at the way the hand was played, I agree that it looks like a bluff and that even if I am rigth half the time there is a huge EV in calling.
But playing lowstakes I could never put in that big a stack with one pair, even less with that kicker. I would have folded the best hand and forgot what my guts told me, but that I why I don’t play highstakes (that and my bankroll…).

Divide the amounts by 100 to make it a 2/4 game or 200 to make it a 1/2 game if it makes it easier to relate to. Either way you should come up with the same decision for the same reasons.

I agree with staff here. We have to look at a few things:

* the strength of our hand
* the perceived strength of our opponent
* our perception of our opponent’s perception of our strength

We have a pair of Kings. That’s it. And, by not betting the kings on the flop, we can expect some resistance the rest of the hand. I think it is a big mistake to not bet the flop, but against aggressive opponents, perhaps a check isn’t an awful play. Anyway, for our strength, we hold top pair; a very well disguised top pair.

What can we put sbrugby on? He is a loose aggressive opponent, but that doesn’t mean he is a bad player. You’re not going to see him flat calling with a lot of speculative hands out of position. I think I would assume two broadway here or a small pp with him making a preflop call OOP. Being an aggressive opponent, I think we’d expect Townsend to lead this smallish pot if he caught a piece of it and I think we may see him semibluff a draw here. I think he also needs to lead a set here as well with the draws on the board. Since our opponent is passive, we can’t assure ourselves that he’s going to bet so that we can check/raise. So, I think Townsend has to lead pretty much everything here on the flop.

We check behind on the flop… What does this suggest to Townsend? If we had any piece of that flop, we’re probably betting. If we caught no piece of that board, we’re probably betting. The best time to not make that continuation bet is when you flop a strong draw, but you’re afraid of being c/r off the hand by an aggressive opponent. So, our most likely holding is either two broadway AQ/AJ/QJ or two hearts (or we may trap with a huge hand like KK, but we are risking scare cards galore which could push us off our hand, beat us outright, or kill the action. Our most likely holding though is going to be some sort of drawing hand.

Ok, back to Townsend’s hand: when a brick hits the turn, Townsend is probably now thinking that he has the best hand, but instead of leading out, decides that he can get you to commit a little more before blowing you off the hand so he decides to check/raise. In terms of what we put Townsend on here, I really don’t think we need to give him too much credit for a hand because we look so awfully weak. He could be making his own semibluff at the pot or he could c/r with air here, which basically is the same thing as with any pp. Heck, he probably feels that his pp is good, and if not, that you are not strong enough to call a huge bet. So, again, a small pp sounds about right; a set doesn’t feel right; he could be on his own draw. But, I don’t sense a ton of strength here.

Ok, so we call the check/raise. Again, this shows some amount of weakness or confirms to Townsend that we are on the draw. If we had a monster hand, here is an opportunity to build the pot. Since we do not build the pot, again, it screams that we are on the draw.

Again, back to Townsend’s hand. He shoves the river. I think his play is based totally on his perceived weakness of our hand and the fact that all of our possible drawing hands missed. Heck, he’s making it difficult for us to call with AK. So, I think we have to read his shove as his perceived weakness of our hand rather than him shoving for value on his own hand.

Again, the staff here hits it on the head–what second best hand are we calling with here a huge value bet? Not much. I mean, we end up calling with a weak hand, but it’s pretty clear that he’s looking to blow us off the hand rather than get paid off.

Anyway, I chose to call. If we’re going to call the c/r on the turn, we almost have to call the river shove.