blonde poker forum

3 handed in a 9 man-STT
Blinds : 150/300
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3 players
[SB] hope2play (1640)
[BB] brester20 (5630)
[But] HERO (6230)

HERO :Ts :Js Initial Pot: 450

HERO raises to 800
hope2play folds
brester20 calls 500
### FLOP ### :Jc :2d :Kd Pot: 1750
brester20 checks
HERO bets 1200
brester20 calls 1200
### TURN ### :Ks Pot: 4150
brester20 bets 300
HERO ???


He min bets less than 10% of the pot.
Does this bet mean he's got Jacks with me and is trying to showdown his hand cheap?
Does it mean that he's trying to draw at a diamond or a straight cheap?
Does it mean that he's got a King and is trying to bet for value or induce a shove?

What's the play?
Opponent seems like a reasonable player thus far, although he missed a few chances to use his stack 4 handed.

Longshot: he's really good and is messing around with KJ. Unlikely.
He has a lonely King: very unlikely. The only thing that adds to this poss are relative stack sizes. Many times I find large; large; small; stacks and the two large want to keep pots small rather than give the shortstack his best hope.

It is very very likely that he is 'stating the price' of his draw, like you suggest. I tend to poke this kind of behaviour in the eye, I would add about 600 to it. If he has a K or better, he reraises, you fold. If he calls, river is a blank, and he pops 1200 as punishment for your turn flat call, then maybe you have more info to call it.

So depends on the guy. Some want to avoid fights, some know the EV of changing the stacks round to 7K 4K 1.5K.

(awaits the arrival of those who add a lot more than 600 on the turn. Enter Flushy, stage left)

ps  Ad Jd or  Qd Jd not imposs if he's passive like you say. Not nice scenario :(

imo to be calling but not re-raising your opponent has a decent but not very good hand. With a very good hand he's assuming his hand is best and probably re-raising all in  (assuming of course you don't have a very tight image) . Out of position and with the stack position hes not calling a medicore hand or even small suited connectors.

I think that restricts the likely suited cards he would be calling pre flop and just calling on flop. Perhaps A9,A8,A7,A6 ,Q9. I personally think with QJs hes pushing after the flop.

I think the non suited candidate hands are QJ, KJ , KQ, KT, K9 - and all of these hes winning. So imo statistically more likely you're beaten. I tend to treat small bets exactly the same as a check. imo be glad hes bet just 300, call and see what the river brings. 

It's a weird one man, he could have a King, he could have a Jack, he could have a draw.

Just flat it, and see what happens on the river. Flat call makes it look like u could have a King which might slow him down on the river assuming he doesn't improve...

Why would you bet 300 into 4,150 on the turn if you had 3 kings? That would be crazy. There is more in the middle than either of you have left in your stacks so it's not a time to get crazy. If you had 3 kings you would either check to the guy firing at the pot and hope he puts you on a draw, or you would put your oppo on a draw and fire at the pot yourself. What you wouldn't do is bet 300 and give any draw such a cheap last card. So if you don't believe your oppo has a king you can't call 300 into 4,450.

More likely that your oppo wants a river himself for 300 and he's using the ss to try and make his gay bet look bigger than it is. Why give him what he wants? So we use the ss to pressure him back and push all-in. Because there are so many river cards you hate your oppo will push all-in lots whether he has it or not. So there is no need to call and see what the river brings because we already know. Can you call all-in on a diamond river? No. Can he call all-in on the turn without a King? No.

I would push and take this sizeable pot right now. If he has a King I would play another STT immediately.

Shit, I misread this, missed the whole pot size thing! For some reason thought his bet was sizeable

Wow his bet is mega weak...

On re-anaysis, l agree with Mantis, shove. QJ is probably only hand he has that has you beat.

what are the stakes here?

at the lower levels he will call your bet on the flop if he has any king or a flush draw

So a King comming down here is a scare card. Also at the lower levels players tend to call with a draw or a weak hand but when their hand improves to a monster they suddenly bet really small. They get loads of chips in when they are behind but then bet the minimum when they go infront!

If it's a slightly higher standard then he may have called your flop bet with the intention of betting the turn regardless of what card comes out. But then his bet size makes no sense if that was his plan.

So erm.. I don't know LOL! :D

Given the info I'd put him on a King or a flush draw. I'd be inclined to just call here as I cannot fold to such a small bet but.

the only problem (or the main problem) with calling is that he'll most likely put you all-in on the river

Sorry johnboy, I should have put in OP, it's a mid-limit game.


I lumped it in, more out of principle than anything else.
Didn't like the idea of WYSINWYG's smaller raise as it doesn't really achieve much. (No draws will fold to the extra 600, no chance of inducing a wondeful fold from QJo. etc.)

He called and showed me  Kh 7h


Felt a bit outplayed as I would have almost definately checked behind if he checked the turn. I fired a big bullet on the flop and got called, enough to slow me down 9 times out of 10.

The donk bet induced me to raise him. :(
Somebody said something about treating a donk bet like a check, I guess that's what I should have done here?

Maybe I should stop analysing these things ;djinn;

I think it's reasonable to expect most oppos by the turn here to be on a draw rather than holding a King, what do you think? He calls rather than bets and then places a weak bet on the turn in an attempt to slow the action (I find this extremely common).
If I put him on a draw, my bet or raise is to charge him if I think he is behind, not always to make him fold. In fact, it is probably more profitable to always place the bet that he calls, even if he hits occasionally, rather than the one that closes the door on him.
Such an odd way to play K there. Did he feel you were beating him up in previous hands?

/\ That.

wat

just call and keep the pot small, lol at even considering bloating the pot in this spot.  i also think checking the flop is a reasonable option but bettings ok

If you decide to try and keep the pot small by calling his 300 your oppo will bet large on the river. So how is calling going to keep the pot small? If as a player you accept the 300 bet is a King then your oppos will enjoy betting 300 into you a lot whether they have the king or not. How very easy for them. We are 3 handed and there are 2 kings in the deck. The guy will have to show me one. Tank played the hand as well as he could imo.

then you have an easy fold?

Flat the turn, shoving is super spewy here imo.

Regarding the river it would depend how much bb bets but if he shoves the river I would fold. Very few people are going to bluff off their whole stack in this spot.

where on earth is this deduction that hes going to bet big on the river coming from

Call, call a smallish bet on the river, fold if he shoves...

PS, when they min bet way under the pot on the turn, they usually do it on the river too, ie, for a cheap escape...

I'm pretty sure the shove was a bad play.

It burns me coz I hate min bets, they're pointless. Only this one ended up having a point. :)

I frequently min bet in and out of position when I'm very strong, works a treat. Induce induce.

Think I go for the flop check too, keeping the pot smallish unless I improve. Would be happy to bet or call one street on turn or river depending to an extent on the board, but more than this is probably too much for your middle pair and threatens to bloat the pot to the point where you're playing for stacks with a marginal hand and little idea of where you are. Checking flop may let him make a draw for free but in general it probably loses you little value if you're ahead (especially as it might prompt him to have one stab with air) and pretty much makes it impossible for you to get stacked - as someone else said, villain's not going to double-barrel bluff off the rest of his stack, particularly with the shorty there, so you get to stay in control.

Posted by: Longy

That's quite a bold statement to make Longy. If villain has diamonds shoving the turn is not super spewy. If villain has Q-10 shoving the turn is not super spewy. If villain has a Jack (particularly Q-J/A-J) shoving the turn is not super spewy. If villain has any other hand then shoving the turn is not super spewy. In fact shoving the turn when there is more in the pot than you have in your stack is never super spewy, especially because villain's calling range is limited to a King. And saying a villain you know nothing about MUST have a king because he bet 300 is pure fantasy, unless of course you know villain has a king because Tank said he did.

And even with a King, maybe not even a call then (his kicker was an 8, you both had big stacks, the other guy didn't, and your play to that point could have reasonably been trip Kings or better).

You try to build up a general picture of an opponent, this guy looks a bit weak passive, and the guy in that general picture doesn't seem to min-bet-induce too often, maybe the OP saw it that way too.

The point is not what his range is for making that bet, but what actually is achieved by shoving and what that does to his range. Unless we believe opponent is poor and will stack a worse hand than a jack here, we are turning our hand into a bluff. Why you would want to turn your hand into a bluff im not sure, we have plenty of showdown value.

Fwiw i misread the op and thought this hand was on the bubble, so i will just say i think shoving is spewy. Not super spewy.

Fwiw I thought the min bet was with either a Kx with a small kicker, or Jx with two diamonds.

The push over the top is good if he's likely to put down a better hand than yours, which is down to your read on him.

But otherwise you're probably behind, and you're opening yourself up to a whole lot of pain.

He's either going to see the shove as mega strong, or a semi bluff/ bluff.

Either way, unless you are damn sure he's likely to put it down, I can't see the benefit of a push.  You've got some decent shown down value if you can get there cheaply.

And you've got plenty enough chips that you can put it down if the river is dodgy, and he shoves at you.  Even if he bluffs you off the pot, where's the shame in that?

All that means is it's cost you 300 chips to teach you how to play him next time he tries it, and you've got AK waiting for him.

Sometimes it seems to me that everyone tries to win every pot ( I'm probably worse than most at doing it ) And I'm often telling myself that in many cases it's patience that wins in the long run, not daft aggression.

When the pot in the middle is greater than the stack you have left you are not turning your hand into a bluff when you push, you are protecting your made hand from being outdrawn. I would push A-K rather than call 300 for the same reasons.

The most important point is this. If you think your oppo has a king what possible reason would you have for calling his turn bet?? Calling the turn even if it is only 300 is super super spewy imo because what are you hoping for? You can't win. And then again if you don't think your oppo has a king why would you call the 300? Let's just rule out calling the 300 shall we because it is senseless!

On the river the pot will be about 5k and your oppo will have about 3k. I think your oppo will bet all-in on the river a lot because the pot size makes that action worthwhile. No matter what people think 5k in the middle means the showdown wont be "cheap" because he pushes 3 kings as easily as he pushes a missed draw. If a diamond comes you could easily lay down the best hand. If an Ace comes you could easily lay down the best hand. If a 9 comes you could easily lay down the best hand. If a Queen comes you could easily lay down the best hand. You give your oppo an open invitation to bluff you on lots of river cards by calling his turn bet. In fact he can push all-in on a brick river just because your turn call looked so weak and you could easily lay down the best hand. If he does complete a genuine hand on the river you could have prevented it by moving all-in yourself.

Let's say a brick hits the river and he bets 1.5k into 5k with a King. You will pay this off because you have "showdown value". So by only calling the turn rather than pushing you possibly save yourself 1.5k in the end, but you allow every draw to get there and you invite any worse hand to bluff you off the pot. This just isn't worth 1.5k. This is 3-handed with a ss in play and 2 pair on a drawing board isn't as marginal as people are making out.

You can't know he has a king, he might have a king, and the percentage likelihood of him having something else makes it worth calling the 300 in a pot that big.

Posted by: WYSINWYG

You can't know he has the king but you can know he's going to bet the river. And what are you going to do when he bets the river? You need to sort that out before deciding your turn action imo.

I agree with WYSINWYG,  the call for 300 chips is anything other than senseless.  I don't see it as being as simple as 'Either he's got a king or he hasn't'  A king is definately in this range, as are many other holdings.  To me, going broke here with ss on 5xBB is senseless.  I know big hand big pot, small hand small pot is an oversimplification, but there are times when it makes sense.

Surely this is one of them.  You have the perfect position to control the pot size.  You've got a gazillion xBB, so you can look at the river, and then decide.

This particular 2 pair is pretty much only mid pair, though. With a crap kicker to boot.  And it's the ss that defines for me, at least, the old risk reward ratio stuff that James Browning used to rattle on about ( Anyone see anything of James, nowadays btw ).  And to risk 10 % of the payout for 300 chips is fine for me.

You never know, if the flush hits, I might even be tempted to represent it for a small bet ( ok maybe not , but it might slow villain down as well )

Normally i'd agree with you, but for  less than 1/2 % of our chips I think we can afford to spew 300 before finalising our decision

Call...

Just always call the river and you get the same effect as shoving the turn with the added benefit your oppo might bluff, if you shove the turn he probs aint playing 78o

C'mon James, you don't get the same effect at all. You pay off A-J/Q-J/Q-Q, any pp hitting a set and any flush or straight draw that completes, and that wouldn't have happened if you pushed on the turn. If there was like 700 in the pot I would agree with you.

lol you think AJ QJ QQ are leading to fold?

Posted by: Royal Flush

Maybe. But pushing represents your only opportunity to beat these hands anyway. Calling on the river wont beat them. These are the made hands that beat you, but I'm more concerned about the plethora of draws that can beat you, random A's and Q's that can beat you, as well as the realistic possiblity you will be bluffed anyway. I don't mind paying off a king on the turn but I'm not liking paying off a hand that got there on the river...there's 5k in the pot!

You can't beat those hands, end of. What 'random Q' am i worried about? I can still get paid by flush draws when they miss, same for str8 draws. If a diamond comes and he shoves, then we swallow, other than that very unlikely event we win a bigger pot and lose a smaller one.

James, your strat is greedier than Rowland from Grange hill.

Never seen it.

Greed is generally a good thing in poker.