blonde poker forum

OK, this hand cropped up in the $50 Stars rebuy comp the other night. The details may not be entiely accurate because I was a little out of it.

It is approx 2 hours into the comp and we have about 15k with the blinds at 150/300/25 ante. Villain is in the sb and has an average stack of around 20k. I have shown a few hands, some total bluffs, as well as some strong holdings, so I have a mixed image. Villain has been pretty steady, hasn't got out of line, but is willing to play poker rather than just waiting to hit cards. He seems to be opting for steady progress rather than big pot fandango's.

It is folded around to me in the HJ and I raise it up to my standard 900 with  Ts  Js. Anyone looking to limp/fold and reasons please. Villain takes his time to call in the sb and bb folds. So we go to the flop with 2,300 in the pot.

Flop comes

 9s Ahrt Qc

Villain checks. What line do you favour here? Do you prefer checking behind or do you bet the draw & represent the A. I would say for sure Villain is going to know I bet the A almost every time when he checks....so not wanting to disappoint him I bet 1,400. Villain raises to 3,800.

What do you want to do now?

Either call and raise the turn, or just 3bet now.

I liiiiiiiiiike.

I check here and hope he fires on the turn so I can bet him off there (unless I hit obviously in which case I shall be going slowly slowly if he bets into me on the turn)

I appreciate I am not experienced enough to give advice - but her it goes.

Imo his likely holding is something like AJ or AT. There are no obvious draws out there (except for JT !) with the rainbow flop. So if he has AA, 99 or even AQ/A9 he is quite likely to slow play these and not  raise on the flop. Just call with aview to check raising the turn, especially with your image.

With his likely holding in mind I'd call with a view to betting if he checks the turn. If you miss and he bets big on turn he probably has more than AJ/AT, and you can fold with 2/3 of your orig stack left.

I think however there are also arguements for folding and going all in on the flop :

Folding - you don't have the odds to call - only 3-1 (5-1 normally required odds to call open ended straight).

All in  - If you are raising you have only approx 10k left and the pot is approx 10k - you might as well go all in . Assuming you you are right it will be a very tough call for him with AJ, especially if he likes to avoid big pots as described. And even if he calls you ahve 8 outs - 32% chance of drawing your straight with 2 cards to come.

So in summary I prefer the safer option - call with a view to betting if you miss and he checks to you.

IMO his likely holding is air. Why would he CR AJ/AT?

Tricky one,

Nothing wrong with representing the ace. I check it sometimes, bet it others.

I think I might 3 bet shove here...hard to believe he has a strong enough hand to call. I think Flushy is right it's more likely he has air here.

I like it A LOT. wonderful bet size on flop allowing you to 3b shove still with fold equity.
He's repping what? Some AT type holding? huh. Probs decided to turn 88 into a bluff for some unknown reason, deffo shove now, bdfdftmfw!!!!!!!


BTW.....

if your not going to 3-bet/call this raise, then i prefer a check behind on the flop.

Thanks for the opinions.

The Villain in this hand was actually fellow Blonde member Horneris.

My thinking was pretty similar to the posted ones actually. In the first place I am thinking he has air or maybe some random pair like Alex said. His bet only costs him like 3.8k but the impact it has is quite powerful because if I don't have the A I'm representing (and I probably don't) it's sure going to be tough to continue with the hand. While his bet was a good one to pressure me, I think turning the tables on the fucker and pushing here is a good way to reverse that. Because he's rolling along nicely and has avoided major confrontations he can't really call the bet without maximum strength (which he probably doesn't have), and I have outs anyways.

At this point I think Stars experienced some sort of software glitch, FACT! Because Horneris actually fist-pump called my shove before I'd even shoved, it was that quick. He showed A-Q, and hitting a draw is not something I do so well.

Now I figure if Horneris played the hand like a real man rather than a bit of a fanny I could have got out of this scuffle alive ;).

Not sure about my strat really considering he hadn't stepped out of line. He played pretty good in the comp thou, but next time he will find himself having a bad day at school.

Do tell!  - slight cold obv

Unlucky Mantis. Per my original post I thought he would slowplay AQ. Shows what I know !

In hindsight a call ( or fold) was best on flop - but I thought it close desicion between call or raise. I assume if you'd called the flop , when the blank came on the turn, he would have probably bet ( maybe 5k ) and I guess you would have folded as you would have had little fold equity by going all in at that stage. Decisions, decisions !!

the only time i see slowplaying big hands thesedays is on an episode of easenders when phil mitchell has the archers on one hand and then all manner of stuff get thrown in the mixer. Car keys, mortgages, IOU's jewellry, frank butchers ashes, and the good guy usally wins with a straight flush vs Quads.****

Horneris came onto msn and told me he stuck it in your eye, and posted the hand to me, i replied, "i like his line",
its a pretty cold flop for the two respective hands.


****- and its always 5 card draw, however we never see anyone draw, i think they just deal 5 cards. Pretty cold place to play albert square yo.

It was AQ Blue tho so looked really amazing and was scared if i 3 bet pre he might fold;

 Qd Ad

Look, so Preddy!!!

And i was gona check/raise most flops.

In a way.

hahahahahaha.

Unlucky man,

I had Q9s as the only strong hand to be worried about but hard to consider AQ much with PF action.

I would frequently check this board with AK / AJ / A10 and as a consequence I would probably check this behind a lot. Bear in mind that if the villain is competent then he shouldn't really be checkraising this flop and then folding an awful lot as it isn't a spot where people should do something aggressive with a pair or better and then give up given the shallowness of the stacks. 

I'm not sure this is the best strat. In fact I'm still not 100% sure of the best strat really.

Because it appears to be a situation where villain shouldn't be checkraising and folding a lot the power behind the checkraise is only increased. So if Villain is indeed competent he will know that for 3.8k he can put in a powerful checkraise move with atc knowing that it looks like he wont be folding. This is a pretty strong move, and should be a pot winner. In fact the man himself says.....
So the check behind on the flop only really works if Villain has hit a perfect flop.