Daily Hand Quiz

Hmmmm. This guy has bought in short and has been pretty quiet = he is looking for a spot to double up. It looks like he might have hit the jackpot here.

What hands is he going to limp pre-flop here then call a 4x bet from a LAG player? More often than not I think this is a small-medium pair looking to setmine. He’s not really got the stack to do this with medium suited connectors and you’d expect decent broadway cards to open-raise from the cut-off. Although a quick call can often indicate pre-meditated action, I don’t feel that this guy is getting tricky and looking to float off another card and take it down later. He is not just bleeding chips here with Ax.

There are no feasible draws on this board so I am narrowing his range to 22-66 and maybe some kind of funky king (KJ, KT, Kxs). Most of this range crushes us, and for me it is too expensive to find out if we’re ahead. I toyed with the idea of a blocker bet of around $40, but the problem with doing this is that if he does have 33 or 66, he will jam over the top a lot of the time against our image anyway with his turned draw as a back-up in the case that he’s run into a hand. So we still won’t know where we are and we’ll be perilously committed to an ugly pot.

Our 77 looked pretty pre-flop in a 6-max game and still looked nice enough on that flop. But with a short player flatting our c-bet in position when we’ve been as active as we have, the alarm bells should be ringing. It screams to me that this guy is letting us hang ourself. Don’t fall into the trap. I am not putting another penny in here. Check and hope he checks behind and gives us a free card, but if he doesn’t then don’t bleed any more chips when it’s very likely we’re in big trouble.

Check-fold. And FWIW, I would do exactly the same with QQ.

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I’m not a very strong cash player. But my gut is saying check. What could he have that he open limps, and then calls a 4x. Then we bet the pot, and we get a quick call. My instinct has always told me that quick calls are either real quality draws, or they are some kind of top pair or quality second pair that aren’t going to fold after just a flop bet, but aren’t necessarily worth a re-pop. I wish our bet would have been a bit smaller, but oh well. So since there are no flush draws, I think he has either 67s, or some kind of KJ type hand. Any solid 2nd pair here would have raised pre I’d imagine, but I wouldn’t completely rule out a poorly played 88-JJ. Unless this guy is just a complete mush brain, which is possible buying in for nothing and then open limp/calling. I’d play it super safe here. Its most likely he called with over cards, we went to the flop as a coin flip, and he won it. Oh well.

Check and see what he does. He hasn’t been sitting here long enough to have a read on us, and we don’t on him, so there’s no reason to suspect either player of getting out of line. If he bets again, believe him, and if he gives us a free river, hope the showdown is very cheap, and possibly fold if another likely over card hits on river, J Q or A. I’d call a turn bet if it was small enough, and if I do, and he fires hard on the river, I’m outta here. It really sucks to go this way with only one over card, but it is a VERY likely hit one, and what are we hoping for here? Unless he is going nuts calling a pot size bet with ace high, we are in trouble here.

The thing is, unless that river is a 7, 1) We probably aren’t beating anything, and 2) He likely doesn’t have a hand we can get much more out of anyway. So just get to the showdown as cheap as possible, without getting out of line. The pot is as big as we need it to be for a hand like this. Don’t get stupid here and voluntarily make it bigger.

Check, proceed with alarms, try to be super cheap. Call cheap / Fold big. Remember though, I am a break even cash player, so this could probably be completely backwards advice, but I think a lot of the feel for situation is still the same.

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Waste_Of_Paint Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 4:03 am

I agree with your comments apart from the range you’re assigning to villain’s hand… do you really think a set is out of the question? Limp-calling pre-flop wtih 44/55 makes perfect sense and so does the flop call. Our flop bet was near pot… he knows he’s only leaving himself a little more than there is in the middle. To me his flop call screams real strength.

And does 67s really fit the action? He started the hand with 34 big blinds. He’s been playing quietly with a short stack. Even if he did limp-call pre flop with 67s, his post-flop play makes no sense to me… he’s getting a horrible price to call and with the awkward stack size there are no implied odds. I would expect him to jam-or-fold the flop with 67s.

Agree he could well have a king (as I mentioned in my first post) but I think small pairs are more likely.

Having said that, like you I am not a winning cash player (yet) so what I say must be taken with a pinch of salt

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general johnson jameson Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 11:59 am

Yeah I didn’t really hash out much of what I thought.. I was mostly talking about possible hand range after the pre flop actions and calling the flop bet. The 67 is a lot less likely now, but I still wouldn’t put it past a bad player to chase a good draw. I didn’t mention 44/55 because there are other hands we are losing to that are much more likely. Getting out flopped is still getting out flopped, whether it was by a smaller pair or an over card hitting. In theory, every single time you see a flop you have to give possibility of a set to your opponent. This gets tedious and unnecessary, which is why sets are such dangerous hands and why they are nothing but profit. You have to proceed usually assuming he doesn’t have one. That’s why there’s no sicker deck than set over set: both players are expecting to get paid off. So in this case I just didn’t bother to mention it, because like I said, we are either ahead of ace high or a draw here, or we are dead to 2 outs regardless of whether he has a K or a set. Having a set or a K doesn’t change the fact that we still are dead to a 7, so that’s why I didn’t bother mentioning if he had 44/55. Occam’s razor on the hand range. Though I think it is most certainly in the range of pre-flop action, and it fits the fast call really well.

The only possible difference I can see, is that if we river a 7, a set is the only way I see him really going broke. Even if we snatch the winning hand on the river, I don’t think his KJ or KT is going to pay us like we want, so I wouldn’t give that much implied odds for it if we decide to call a small turn bet by him.

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I’d lead for about 1/3 pot. I would have bet 1/2 pot ($18) on the flop.

In this scenario, I think K10+ or KXs would likely raise PF. 55- likely limps, so a set is possible. At the same time if V flopped a set they might pounce on the Kxx flop. V bought-in short so may be waiting for an opportunity to double-up and leave. I think 88+ is raising PF. If called, I’d shut-down on the river.

If our read is wrong, the Hero’s agg play remains consistent, hopefully setting-up a mistake later in the session.

Although contrary to image, check-folding is fine imo. Check-calling gives V the chance to write the amount.

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check fold. he either has a set or Kx which means we’re headed for trouble if we continue. he’s playing short and patient which means wait for a hand you hit and double up, no need to oblige. players like this are easy to play against.

as a side note, i am a winning cash player, so you can trust my advice

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