blonde poker forum

Tell me if you're getting bored with my APAT hands and I'll stop :)

Early stages, blinds at 50-100. The table has been quiet and tight. No major pots.

UTG - 9.5k. Hasn't got involved in many pots. A Scandinavian, who has had a little joke about his loose aggressive countrymen. Opens up for 300.
You (mid position, 3 off the button) - 9k. Got out of line in one pot running a bluff (raised flop bet with position, was called and bet off on the turn). You have  Kd Qs.

Question 1 - instant fold?

Let's say you don't mind giving a bit of action to get the table warmed up and call. Everyone else folds.

Flop is  Kh 8c 3s. Opponent checks, you check.

Turn is Qd. Opponent bets 600 into pot of 750.

Question 2 - call or raise and, if raise, by how much?

You raise to 1800, giving opponent over 5/2 on his money. He dwells a little bit before calling.

River is  Tc.

Pot is now 4350, and opponent bets in 2000.

Question 3 - do you flat call or raise? If you raise, how much? Does the appearance of the T on the river slow you down at all?

with over 3 to 1 pot odds and top 2 pair I call. I think you're beating enough possible hands of his to justify this and only beaten by a set or AJ and if he had a set I would maybe have expected a reraise on the turn. No point in raising as you will only get called or reraised if you are beat. If you call & lose you still have over 5k left with blinds still low

Im raising on this river, this is a prime example of chip extraction, you want AA/AK/AQ? to pay you to the max here and get paid. I raise the river enough to get a call but nick a few more chips. Play to win baby.

What happens if he re-raises you with the aforementioned hands?  You might end up laying down the best hand.  I don't want to risk my tournament life this early.  I call.

Are we going to hear the eventual outcome of this?

Having thought further about this it smells a bit of KK as this is the only hand he could safely check the flop without betting to find out where he was and with no fear of being outdrawn, except by quads or by you having flat called with AA pre flop

Pre flop, I had to give him a little bit of respect, obviously. So I put him on AK/AQ, AA/KK/QQ/JJ/TT and possibly AJ. It was a loose call by me but I did want to get a bit of action going on the table.

After the flop inaction and turn action I discounted JJ and TT. I thought all the others were possible, lthough I figured his play with AJ would be pretty dodgy. So now his five probable hands are AK/AQ/AA/KK/QQ. AJ is possible but unlikely.

I will post the eventual outcome of this (I flat called so it went to showdown), but this kind of position really interests me. Playing this correctly is the kind of play that gives a player an edge and I'm really unsure whether a value raise here is +EV or not. He probably calls with AK, maybe with AQ, probably with AA. Any of the others he's coming over the top and I have to lay down and curse.

I wouldn't want anyone's analysis or advice to be led by the outcome, so I'll keep the outcome to myself until this evening :)

Ok looking at the evidence we have this is what I think....

The flop is an absolute peach for a continuation bet...no draws of any kind and a king to represent. But your opponent doesn't go down this road. Why not? There would only be two reasons to explain this...either he has hit the flop hard or he has nothing and just doesn't fancy taking a stab because of the whole Swedish bluffing reputation thing.

The queen hits the turn and now he wakes up with a 600 bet into a 750 pot. This makes me very much inclined to discount the "hitting the flop hard" scenario. Why check to conceal the strength of your hand and then bang out a near enough pot-sized bet on the turn? Around 400 looks more consistent with a pot-sweetner to me. No, I think the queen has contributed to his hand in some way...but in a way weak enough that he wouldn't mind taking this pot down uncontested right now. My inclination would be that he is holding either of these....A-Q (2nd pair), 10-J (open-ended), or A-J (middle-pinning). Those holdings are more consistent with the information. Of course when you then re-raise, a player may well be inclined to want to stick around with one of these hands as well, so again they fit the evidence we have.

The river is a 10 and he now bets 2,000 into a pot of 4,350.....So he is now betting less than half the pot INTO the RE-RAISER when he was betting most of the pot a moment ago! There is no doubt in my mind that his hand is stronger NOW than it was on the flop! This can ONLY be a stopper bet with A-Q or a value bet with A-J. In the absence of any further information and the fact that it is early doors I don't think it is wise to nail your colours to either of these holdings with much certainty...so just call.

this has me intrigued - it's worse than waiting for the next series of Lost

fold he had  Td Th

rotflmfao

Ooooh, you're good, Mantis. He had AQ.

bleugh, you lot too tight imo. In answer to your query kinboshi, IF he re-raises us, then we know we are beat. VVVVV few of your opponents are going to bluff on the end here.