Medium pocket pair multiway on the turn, NL MTT

DailyHandQuiz

Game type: $50 freezeout, PokerStars
Stage of tourney: Final table bubble
Your image: Tight
Opponent’s image: Unknowns
Your hand: 9♣9♦

The setup: You’ve got a solid stack on the final table bubble of this freezeout on PokerStars when the following hand comes up.

You get 99 in the SB. The table folds to the button, who min raises. You call and the BB calls.

3♥7♥J♣

You lead for 3775 and both players call. The turn is the 5♠.

What’s your play?

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You get 99 in the

8 COMMENTS (Jump to comment form)

black fair

Lead.

Personally I think its a must that you second barrel in this spot.

I don’t really see the point in leading the flop if we wouldn’t also lead this safe turn card.

Keep applying pressure.

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alekhine11 Reply:
September 28th, 2009 at 11:25 am

Spot on.

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_CityBorn_

I agree with black fair. If youre leading the flop, why wouldnt you lead this turn….its pretty much the best turn you could ask for. Lead enough to make a draw fold, and drop it if someone comes over the top.

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John Kugelman

We’re out of position with second pair on a drawy board. It’s an easy board for one of the villains to semi-bluff a draw or value raise a jack. What do you do if we’re flatted again and the river blanks? What if it’s a heart? What about an ace/king/queen? This is such a marginal spot and we’ve got no idea where we’re at. I check/fold.

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_CityBorn_ Reply:
September 28th, 2009 at 2:54 pm

Most players wouldnt “value raise” a tight player who has lead out twice out of position holding just a jack. If they were going to raise, it would be to protect their hand, and Id think that would happen on the flop if it was going to happen. The biggest concern would be getting called a second time…at that point you have to be pretty sure youre behind, and you have to decide if you want to make a bigger risky play for the pot on the river or surrender.

And sure, at any time, anyone can semi-bluff a draw, this situation doesnt seem to invite that in any special way.

I totally understand check-fold here, but the flop lead doesnt make sense if youre going give it up just because you get called. Thats a sure fire formula for spewing off a lot of flop bets.

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John Kugelman Reply:
September 28th, 2009 at 4:13 pm

I’m not sure why we led the flop. It smells exactly as weak as it is. Actually it smells like a draw to me and if I were one of the villains I might very well float the flop and then raise the turn. I’d even do that with a jack; if I put the hero on a draw I’ll often wait for a blank turn and then raise figuring it’s less likely the hero would semi-bluff re-raise with a flush draw on the turn with only one card to come, putting a lot of pressure on a hand like KJ.

I suppose I’m saying that leading out like this is likely to create action and not drive both players out. People are generally suspicious of donk bets and play back at them a fair amount, and for good reason as we can see from our hero donking out with a hand that can’t stand much pressure.

The point is, why are we betting? Is it for value, or are we turning our 99 into a bluff? I don’t think our hero has thought this through. You should have a good reason to be betting out twice. It’s like when a LAG 3-bets preflop with 86h and then feels compelled to triple barrel the flop, turn, and river to represent his “aces”, stacking off for no good reason.

Don’t follow up a bad decision on the flop with the same bad decision on the turn.

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black fair Reply:
September 28th, 2009 at 11:12 pm

The only bad decision is leading the flop and shutting down here.

You can argue for check-folding preflop if you want, but once you decide to lead the flop you have to lead the turn.

We’re out of position yes, but we still have initiative which combined with our tight image is our best weapon. To throw that advantage away now just cuts so much equity out of this hand for us and makes our flop lead the donkiest play possible.

We’re betting for value. There are so many hands that will peel that flop in position and the turn card didn’t help a single one of them. The majority of our opponents range are draws. We are likely ahead at the moment so we can’t just check through here and allow a free card or entice someone else to take the initiative.

TriBeCa99

I don’t really like leading the turn with both players calling. I’ll happily double barrel the turn against just one opponent, but not two. It’s just too unlikely they’re both on the heart draw, which means a big chunk of at least one of their ranges has us beat. Our bet here now has to be nearly 1/3 of our remaining stack, and I’d much rather hang on to my 40BB for the time being.

The real mistake in this hand was flatting 99 5-handed against a button minraise. Unless villain is raising less than ~15% of hands in LP I’m 3-betting this all day.

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