Daily Hand Quiz

fold. his move looks very strong. it doesnt mean he has a king, he could be donking out with a 7, but considering his m.o. is calling pretty light preflop, and now hes check raising all in against preflop raiser, im gonna give him credit for having a king. theres no need to put 30 big blinds, over half my remaining stack in without persuading evidence that im ahead…especially early in an mtt.

[Reply]

I’d probably huff n puff and fold. Its early, plenty of time to go, no need to stack off guessing. I don’t think he’d do this with a king but who knows. He could still be winning with 10s, Jacks, Queens, Aces, or pocket 7s of course. I’ll wait for a better spot to get it in…

[Reply]

Villain’s range is polarized to air / trips (monster). IMO, No need for SB to be c/r ing so huge with a K. Why is he playing this flop so fast? I would expect a flopped trips to call and let the opponent hang himself. This opponent is aggro, and don’t know whether he has shoved flops in the past, but I voted call.

[Reply]

Call. Definitely call.

He can be raising our c-bet purely because we’ll often have whiffed broadway cards. For this reason I tend to reduce my c-bet frequency on paired flops against smart opponents as they’ll rightly put you on a lot of no pair hands.

He could be doing this with air or with any pocket pair he flatted pre thinking it’s best. If he has a king good game; many opponents will not play trips so aggressively so I’ll discount Kx.

Another thought: We shouldn’t be continuation betting this flop if we’re going to fold to a raise. It’d be far better to check back and strengthen our check-back range than throw away such a strong hand on a non-threatening board. Presuming the hero called or raised a turn bullet checking back the flop would make it more credible in the future when the hero checks back on paired flops.

[Reply]

John Kugelman Reply:
March 1st, 2010 at 2:06 pm

“Presuming the hero called or raised a turn bullet checking back the flop would make it more credible in the future when the hero checks back on paired flops.”

I fail at English.

Checking back the flop with the intention of calling or raising a turn bet would be a great way to keep us from getting bluffed lightly whenever we check back flops like this one. Checking back a good pocket pair gives our checks more weight so opponents can’t necessarily take a check as a sign that we’ve given up.

[Reply]

John Kugelman Reply:
March 1st, 2010 at 3:09 pm

Also the continuation bet size is too large. On a dry flop like this half pot will do.

[Reply]

Snap that off.

[Reply]

I’m calling. Agree with Kugelman that the raise doesn’t say trip Kings – more likely something like A-7. Only hands I’m really worried about are the couple pocket pairs over ours, but that makes up such a small percentage of his raise and I can’t see a smooth call pre-flop unless he has AA.

[Reply]