Two pair in limped pot, NL MTT

DailyHandQuiz

Game type: $109 freezeout, PokerStars
Stage of tourney: Mid stages
Your image: Aggressive
Opponent’s image: No strong read
Your hand: K♠2♠

The setup: You haven’t been able to get a lot going this tournament. You have an above starting stack, but the blinds are starting to creep up. This hand you get a suited K in the BB. The first three seats fold, a player limps, and the table folds to the Sb, who limps. You check and flop bottom pair:

Q♥A♦2♣

Everyone checks. You turn two pair: K♦. The SB checks and you bet 200. The limper calls and the SB folds. The river is the 4♠.

What’s your play?

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8 COMMENTS (Jump to comment form)

samo

Voted check-call. I think we can get a busted draw or a Kx to bet here. Leading may not get the extra value of a call, which is what we want since hero very likely has the best hand. Lead-call/lead-fold probably means hero is beaten, so why lead? Check-fold: hero bet the turn, why fold when the 4 hit the riv?

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John Kugelman

Voted bet/fold. This is a clear value bet. Checking misses a lot of value. There’s no reason to think the villain is going to bet if we check. There’s a good chance he just wants to show his Qx or Kx down as cheaply as possible. We have no read on him so expecting to induce a bluff or a thin value bet by checking is wishful thinking.

“Lead-call/lead-fold probably means hero is beaten, so why lead?”

Because our hand is definitely good enough to value bet but may or may not be able to take the heat of a raise. Folding to a raise doesn’t mean betting was incorrect. And if we’re calling a raise then betting is *certainly* correct.

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John Kugelman

Also, check/raise would be better than check/call.

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Pirate21 Reply:
January 18th, 2010 at 10:06 am

I totally agree with this. IMO, this is the only reason to check the river.

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Nncoco

Value bet. The bet on turn may have been a stab in which case he’ll fold. Nice to take pots without showing.

Fold to a big raise.

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Pirate21

I agree with value betting this and calling a reasonable raise. There’s nothing here telling me I’m behind so check-fold seems really weak.
I guess v could have J-10 but what else are we afraid of given the board and action?

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cada.yang.gold-LEGENDS

voted lead call but would rather lead raise. no real threat out there.

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McCowish

Raise-raise is best. Among the options given, lead-call is the best one.

Check-fold: far too weak in a hand where no strength has been shown and you have two pair-you will win the majority of the time at least calling.

Check-call: We have two pair and with the weak line of the hand, we will beat the range of the hands that would call, thus we should raise. Check, with no aggression at any point in the hand by the other player seems much less likely to extract a bet.

Raise-fold: Raise to extract value is a good idea. Folding to a reraise is a bad idea; with the way the hand was played, there are only one probable threats out there 5d3d, and that’s only rarely played. Most the time, if he reraises here, he has a hand you can beat such as a bluff, a busted diamond draw, or an inferior two pair.

raise-call: I kind

PS: I peeked at cada’s comment and agree-with the way the hand was played, it is VERY unlikely your opponent has the best hand and given pot to your stack size, raise-raise is best, first raise standard value bet, second raise to pretend to be bluffing but still beat the vast majority of the call down range.

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