Daily Hand Quiz

im leading large – around 3/4 of pot (3k).

if you lead small you give villain good odds to peel. what do you do when opponent calls and a 5,3,heart,6 comes off?

attempting to check/call or check/raise leads to same situation if opponent checks behind.

im leading for about 3k and shoving nearly all turn cards.

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Im leading “large”….something like 3k. Easy choice to me. We’re betting what we’d bet with just about any holdings we’d 3-bet preflop with. Our entire range leads here, missed or made, and Its up to F to decide if he wants to continue. Checking and giving a free card makes no sense since nothing we’d 3-bet with wouldnt lead. That would be suspicious, and could let him draw for free. Even if he stabs, then what? check raise and look super strong possibly killing the action? check call looking very suspicious as well? Then what, check the turn again? No way…charge him to draw now, try to induce action from a non-believer which could lead to a bigger pot, and hope he’s got a pair above the board so it’ll get juicy.

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That is a massive re-raise, and he still called. It is very curious what he would be willing to drop 1600 more into, when so far this appears to begin as just a generic steal attempt from the button, but then comes this ridiculous re-raise, and he still calls. This seems to mean 3 things to me. 1) he actually does have a hand and wasn’t stealing but raised for value, and 2) he is skeptical that we actually have a hand, and suspects his may be best, but wants to see a flop in position first, and 3) i have to assume he anticipates us firing a c-bet. there’s no way he can think he is going to call our 2k, and then we are going to check. so his hand is probably good enough to handle a c-bet if the flop is right.

it will be difficult for him to fold any made hand here, since this is exactly the type of flop you look for when you play it safe. plus, its most likely we didn’t hit it. If all he has is ace high, its likely he’s going to fold no matter what we do. but in the case that he is skeptical we have a hand, lets feed that. do something like bet the pot, something that would make him further think we have zip. press the insecurity a bit further.

There is no way he has anything that mixed with that board after calling off a flat 2,000 chips. Any 35 or 57, or something like that is pretty far fetched. Possibly he flopped a set, but not likely. And the hearts only matter if he’s holding some high ones.

to me this is one of those hands where you’re either going to make zilch, or make a lot of money off of a non-believer. he completely fits all signs of a non-believer so far, so lets reinforce that, and do what someone who is full of shit would be expected to do.. bet the pot, or something very heavy. maybe even slightly over bet. don’t worry about charging out draws… there is no draw he could reasonably have here on this board except 2 high hearts, and we aren’t playing to make money off draws, we’re playing to get a pair to over commit.

i’ve said before there are certain times you can make good dough by preying on peoples skepticism or insecurities. this is just another one of those times… his actions so far suggest he has a certain image of us, and the best thing to do is play exactly as that image would predict, and keep him thinking we are full of it, and on a harmless board.

bet pot, or slightly over bet pot. we made a bloated pre raise that looked full of shit, so make another bet here that looks full of shit. it will be extremely hard for him to fold any over pair here, and there are a ton of them. Unless he got lucky with 66, we are sailing.

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Major Dude Reply:
February 3rd, 2011 at 11:13 am

“to me this is one of those hands where you’re either going to make zilch, or make a lot of money off of a non-believer.”

Yes. This is the key insight. I spent too long thinking about cute strategies for us to get a little more money out of AK or AQs. But that’s not what the hand is about.

We want Villain to set fire to his entire stack if he’s got JJ or TT. A big, rude c-bet from us is the best way to get the excitement started. He’ll probably put us on a whiffed AK, and then the fun begins.

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blue Reply:
February 3rd, 2011 at 8:00 pm

Hes not folding JJ/TT no matter our bet size

by betting too big, we are preventing him from bluffraising since stacks are such that he has no fold equity against us.

Overbetting is bad for this reason since he cant bluff or float us.

“A big, rude c-bet from us is the best way to get the excitement started”
fine. get the “excitement started”. meanwhile ill bet 3k and get all the chips.

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general johnson jameson Reply:
February 3rd, 2011 at 11:20 pm

his stack size is such that betting 1k less for 3 instead of 4 isn’t going to matter enough. Leaving him 1k extra isn’t going to entice him to do anything any more aggressive than he would normally if we bet the pot. and you’ve already said that solid pairs aren’t folding no matter what we do.

so if the real question, is to get him to float AK, or bluff raise us with AK, having an extra 1k behind isn’t going to change the stack sizes. if he’s going to float hes going to float, an extra 1k isn’t going to change that. and if he is going to raise at all, its going to be all in, regardless if he does it with an extra 1k or not.

putting him on any kind of draw here is pretty far fetched, unless it is AXh. Anything else is pretty rare, unless he has 55 and fills a gutter. I’m not convinced he’d drop 2k on a pair of 3s either, against an image that is consistently showing down the goods. even doing so, betting the pot still prices that out so he’s making a mistake.

you’ve sort of solved your own problem there, trying to eek out more cash from AK with goofy stack sizes is already going to be a problem, and a 1k difference isn’t going to change anything. the focus here should be to sell skepticism, not sweat AK over a piddly 1k.

blue Reply:
February 4th, 2011 at 10:20 pm

betting 1k less does affect the hand.

1k less means he has more fold equity when he shoves. therefore hes more likely to shove.

if you want to sell skepticism, we could just shove the flop. obviously a terrible play but since all you care about is selling skepticism…

gg

“not sweat AK over a piddly 1k.”
every chip counts. gg

Marty Reply:
February 3rd, 2011 at 6:42 pm

Agree with everything apart from the “That is a massive re-raise”…

75-150… so 225 in pot
he bets 450 so 675 in pot
We have to put in 375 to match his raise so 1050 in pot
Then we raise it 1550 more… giving him 1.7 to 1…

I’m not sure this is much of an overbet… being out of position and all.

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general johnson jameson Reply:
February 3rd, 2011 at 11:30 pm

what i meant was that its a massive re-raise for him to just flat call without a real hand. it folded to him and he went x3, this looks like a dime a dozen attempt, but our raise is so big that for him to flat call at 1.7 means he was raising for value. i didn’t think this was an overbet. just that its such a large bet to flat call, it defines his hand a lot.

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Marty Reply:
February 4th, 2011 at 2:09 am

Ah…. yes yes yes

samo Reply:
February 4th, 2011 at 10:36 am

Agree, as they don’t have implied odds to call suited connectors, broadway gappers, etc. Range I put them on is JJ-, AQ+, with a pp weighing more heavily.

Lead for $3k. Hero has been showing down good, so let’s hope the V is thinking we are c-betting light. Their call of the PF raise may mean an over-pair to the board, so let’s initiate and get the pot stirred further.

Checking always runs the risk of a free card doing damage, plus it makes playing the later streets somewhat awkward.

Lead small – similar reasoning in that we are giving draws a decent price to call.

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