Daily Hand Quiz

Re-Raise to define our hand. I fold to a re-re-raise but and I proceed cautiously if an ace flops. But AQs is too good to fold or to flat in this spot.

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Waste_Of_Paint Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 2:19 am

“I proceed cautiously if an ace flops.”

Really? How/why do you plan to do that? If we raise to 10k and villain calls, there will be 24k in the pot and we’ll have 39k behind. Are you going to just call/check it down or lead/fold? That would be crazily nitty imo. Why would we play AQ strong pre-flop against a wide range and then slow down when we hit the Ace? It just doesn’t make sense.

AA and AK are in villain’s range but they are a very small part of it – especially given that we have one of the Aces – so if an Ace flops I’m going to attack it. I would raise a lead from villain and lead myself if he checks. If he does have us beaten I consider it a cooler.

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Morat Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 6:22 am

3betting AQs with the intention to fold to a 4bet is wasting a great hand. If you don’t feel comfortable about going all in pre 30 BB deep, just calling and playing in position is much better.
Oh, and don’t be cautios when an ace flops. AK is a tiny-tiny part of his range, while your AQs is pretty much disguised, so you may even stack AJ, AT etc.
If you call and the blinds raise – 4bet allin! Squeeze is more often a move than real strong hand these days, and again, AQs is a disguised monster here.

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kaimano Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 9:32 pm

If I re-raise and he calls, an ace flops, he checks, I bet 1/3 of the pot and he raises all-in, I think AK is the greatest part of his range.

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John Kugelman Reply:
April 14th, 2010 at 9:31 am

Don’t bet 1/3 of the pot.

Easy quiz today. Re-raise.

We don’t have a strong read on our opponent, but we do know that the bubble has just burst, which usually makes players loosen up and widen their starting requirements. Villain is also sitting on the biggest stack at the table, so I am giving him a wide range to open from the hijack here, and the small bet size suggests to me that he’s trying to steal the blinds cheaply.

I make it 10k to go and expect to take the pot down now. If villain calls, we get to see a flop in position. If he raises, which he might do given our image, then we have another decision to make. I would probably fold to any action from the other players acting behind.

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Fold. You’re only 30% to improve on the flop and you can easily loose your stack if two hearts appear but we don’t improve. We can also loose our stack against a trappy AK or QQ+ even if we hit, which are both well in V’s range. Quit till you have the opportunity.
Raising is just crazy. I would never put my tourney life on AQ.
No need to play fancy, since you have a playable stack. Your M=13, which means you can fold another 117 hand and go deeper into money w/o risk. Wait for a better spot.

Cliffnotes: raise all day obv.

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Calling is fine, raising probably better. Boring quiz.

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Borderline call or raise depending on whether or not I think I can call withou being raised by one of the 3 left to act. Voted call. Hate going to war with what could amount to ace high.

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The only interesting (sort of) nuance is if people would call due to position but risk SB/BB coming in because they are getting a good price.
Also, if H raises, the flop blanks and V check-raises what should H do. This, of course, depends a lot on the read of V.

Conclusions: raise if table is a limpathon, call if people are tightening up to move up in the money.

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I would flat call as the raise isn’t that much. Most likely we are ahead or a flip away with a small poker pair. I would say let’s see a flop and then take it down in post-flop play.

No reason to throw more money in with a raise until we know we have the goods. That way I can disguise myself if an Ace hits. Since we have a loose rep, there is no way the person puts us on a high Ace, with a flat call.

Ace hits I will take my chances against A K possibility…. Queen hits I am even happier..

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_CityBorn_ Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 8:09 am

agreed. minimize investment, disguise strength, and take advantage of position.

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Raise and call a 4-bet. We’d be too invested to fold after 3-betting. Importantly, raise/folding would be a pretty bad option. We should either raise/call here, or just flat call if we’re afraid of getting stacks in. AQs is a monster facing a MP raise, though, so given how often I’d be 3-betting here this is definitely a 3-betting hand.

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Nelson Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 7:44 am

I like the call and evaluate the flop. The call is cheap – we’re in position – lets see some cards and go from there. Hey Kugs – you going to play in any WSOP events in Vegas this year? I really wanted to but won’t have the coin…

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John Kugelman Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 8:03 am

Yeah, gonna play one or two of the $1K events. Just for fun, cashing would be a pleasant surprise.

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Agree with the Raise contingent – and Waste_Of_Paint has it nailed the best.
Big stack’s small bet in an unraised pot feels like a weak attempt to steal and I think we’re way ahead most of the time. Any of the three remaining players would have to wake up with a serious hand to get involved, so raising to around 10K should isolate us in position against him. V likely calls fairly wide here given our loose image, so we should still be fairly confident if we hit either card on the flop.

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Loki Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 12:18 pm

what about the 65% of the time you don’t get an A, Q or 4 card flush? Bet?
what if you bet and V check-raises?

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John Kugelman Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 12:32 pm

Villain will usually 4-bet or fold, not flat call OOP. Stacks aren’t really deep enough for him to do that. We only have 30BB in our stack so his room to maneuver in a 3-bet pot is severely limited, as is ours.

But the times he does we have our full range of options open to us. Depending on the flop texture we can c-bet or check behind. If we c-bet and get check/raised we’ll have to call off the rest as we’ll be pot committed and unable to fold to a shove. Mostly we should consider ourselves more or less committed once we 3-bet and should get it in on almost all flops.

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Pirate21 Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 1:00 pm

I agree with John’s comments.
Just because we miss the flop doesn’t mean V hit it. We need to decide what range V is putting us on and act accordingly.
Since my starting premise is that we’ve got the better PF hand most of the time, we’re still ahead after the flop often enough to justify staying aggressive. And remember, he has to act first so if he comes out firing, we get to decide if we believe him.

Loki Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 1:03 pm

Agreed. The pot-committed argument is what I thought might tip this toward a call. Say you go to the flop with 10k in there HU (a blind will probably call but roll with me on this) then you could bet on the flop for 7.5k and fold if V came back hard.
Raising standard 3 bet takes about 12k out of H’s stack (down to 37k) and a bet on the flop into a pot of about 30k means H is committing 22k or so more with only 15k behind. Not so fun when V puts H all in.
Of course, the point of re-raising PF is to fold out V and you can’t do that if you call. But I think H loses the value of “defining V’s hand” due to stack size.

Pirate21 Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 1:01 pm

Don’t forget the straight draw too….

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I’m with the call contingent. Players behind all have good stacks, so not much worry about someone shoving. Have position and a decent stack with a very playable hand.

Raising is certainly an option, but I agree with Loki on the economic differences between call/raise. Realize that a call likely makes this a multi-player pot, however hero has position. I’ll opt to play pot control.

Folding in this spot seems so weak … what kind of spot are we waiting for to play-back at?

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i take a 3bet/get it in preflop line here, but I can see the argument for flat calling. This is about as shallow as I ever flat call tho. I like the idea of a flat call inducing a light squeeze from the button or blinds, which we could happily 4bet shove. If we flat and one or both of the blinds come along, or even worse the button then we’ve put ourselves in a grim spot on a lot of flops by not raising pre.

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