Daily Hand Quiz

you should lead!!! get info on what your opponents have, or make them fold to your draw!…free money to play poker at: pokerstrateg y.ccom/u2YAUB

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Voted lead – 1900. I think a c-r here will indicate to your opponenets that you are on a draw. A check may get checked around and a chance is lost to build the pot. Hero has an active image so use that as an advantage here; at the least you have 9 outs.

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Lead. You accomplish two things. You take it down right now if no one has a king, and you find out if someone has a king. If you get called you still have outs.

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Check-Call

It’s a free card, why bet into it and get a check raise?

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This is what you get for weak limping after the pre-flop raise…re-raise or pitch it, calling is just asking for trouble. But we already called, soooo…

My problem is that ~2000 bet here makes the pot almost 5000 – almost half the last player’s stack. I doubt he’s calling – I see either a fold or a shove coming if we bet. If he shoves, we’re going to have a real tough time calling (although if BB and/or UTG also shove then we are getting decent odds to bust people).

A lead might act as a blocking bet, but I just can’t see a call in any situation here from the last player.

If someone is slow-playing a king, why waste 2000 chips? Peel a card for free (assuming last player checks) and see if you can crack a K and/or a weaker flush draw.

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Why why why lead?? We have a very good draw in a multi-way pot and we’ve been checked to. Take the free card, instead of leading and folding to a CR.

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totally agree with catcher and chiao – not much benefit in opening here. anyone with a hand that would call (K, medium pair)would more than likely check raise us off our draw. there is no reason for somone to just call us with a made hand. lets hope we hit the flush and someone made the king high behind us.

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I’m check-calling this one for a small bet, folding for a large one.

For a 1/2 pot raise, you will be called lightly by any pair or a king.

Also, unless he is a preflop raiser in last position, most players check the K on the flop when they hit because otherwise their flop raise freezes the action on the turn and kills river action. So it will probably be checked around and we have a flush draw, so why not try to take the free card against the opponent we don’t have a read on?

While a strong lead on this flop into a nit after you raised preflop would be correct, raising into 3 other people with A hi and a flush draw with effectively 60BB or less behind (18000/300) is an error. If we were in a tourny and pretty deep 300-500BB and I wanted to establish a splashy/maniac image, as a % of my stack it wouldn’t matter much then.

As is, the reverse implied odds for this hand relative to our tournament M are too high to play this hand aggressively. What if you hit the A and someone else leads? Or a J? if the BB has K2 or other 2 people had 22, you’re already drawing virtually dead.

What inexperienced players don’t know is that this is one of the most, if not the most, line-determining flops in texas holdem.

When a player raises, he says he has a king. The other players then ask, “Why would you tell me you have a king when there’s nothing on the board to pay you off and others haven’t shown strength. I don’t believe you,” and call with any pocket pair or king. Since good kings and pocket pairs are included in virtually all players ranges and sometimes form the heart of their range aside from Aces, in a pot against multiple opponents, it is almost certain 1 of them will have one. You have very low fold equity on the flop. If you fire on the flop, and then , if someone hasn’t lead into you, fire on the turn big, you will likely get folds from small and medium pairs, you might get called by some QQ, AA, and will be raised by kings. The flop bet followed by the big turn bet, and the fact that good kings aren’t terribly rare like 86 for the straight makes this an unprofitable bluffing spot.

If you have a big hand, you check the flop to say, “I don’t have a K” to try to extract value on later streets and keep your ability to grow the pot open. If you have a medium strength hand, you don’t bet because hands you can beat will fold while only hands that got you beat will continue and in online poker, there just isn’t enough information available to tell which opponents have. If you have nothing, you check because you have 0 fold equity and hope to get lucky on the turn.

For a 1/2 pot raise, you will be called lightly by any pair or a king.

Also, unless he is a preflop raiser in last position, most players check the K on the flop when they hit because otherwise their flop raise freezes the action on the turn and kills river action. So it will probably be checked around and we have a flush draw, so why not try to take the free card against the opponent we don’t have a read on?

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John Kugelman Reply:
July 20th, 2009 at 2:30 pm

^^^ What he said.

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One more thing – we have an excellent position to play pot control here. If the guy behind us bets and gets check-raised big, we skedaddle. If he bets and gets called, we close the action with our call and peel the card. If he bets and everyone folds, we can still call and keep things in check – or we can even CR ourselves.

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