blonde poker forum

BlackBelt poker Live.

Blinds are 75/150

My image is fairly active, have had to fold some spots.

I open to 375 UTG with  Kd Ad, playing 13k.

UTG+1 calls. Julian Thew calls in MP. All else fold.

Flop (1125)  Ahrt  9c 3s.

I check. UTG+1 checks. Julian bets 600. I call, UTG+1 folds.

Turn (2325)  Qc

I check. Julian bets 950. I tank call.

River (4275)  6s

I bet 1000. Julian more or less insta jams all in.

Hero??

I called the turn planning on a blocker bet otr with any non club.

hate the river lead, c/c way better once you've taken this passive line.

snap fold as played.

Ugh, bet flop.

Seems like you kinda butchered this one. I bet the flop.

Don't blocker against good opponents as they'll know what you're up to a lot and exploit it.

As played I think you have to fold.

Open for more pre. Lead out on the flop and, as played, hate the lead out on the river.

fold now.

Disagree - think sizing pre is fine.

I hate the general line, esp against the player. You really think your getting 3 streets off him by checking? I can't think of many positives. Its not like hes going to put you on air/ a non ace when you c/c.

Open size is fine

checking flop is fine/sexy. river is dreadful.

UTG it seems a bit low to me (Probs going 450-475 in a live tourney). In later position I would open for 375-400 (Then again, I'm a lot more active in late position than in EP)

Pre is fine, river is a really trivial fold.

He's bluffing

Blocker bet/folding the river vs a good player seems like a mistake w/ tptk.  I dnt mind a lead, but I size bigger for value - probs a click above/below 3k.    Once we c/c flop and turn, our hand is pretty face-up, so I think river may be closer to c/f than c/c.  Theres no worse hand that Julian values.

Don't care how sexy checking the flop is I hate it.  Agree about hating the river lead.  Afraid you butchered it massively.  Trvial fold now.

agree with pleno, taken a good line imo

but c/c or c/f the river NEVER lead its a complete trainwreck

i agree with this

yah. only point in leading the river is to bet-call, and that's horrible obv.

I dont mind the preflop, the flop or turn play.  If you check call the river id say you played it fine.  My questions/thoughts are:
1)  What are you trying to achieve with this river "blocker bet"? 
You're going to get raised by all hands that beat you and hes going to call behind with hands like AJ where as if youd checked to him he probably would have value cut himself.  This blocker bet may dissuade him from bluffing you on the river and will also allow him to bet much bigger on the river as a bluff i.e. if you just check the river i doubt very much he goes all in.
2)  Did you think what you would do if he raised before you bet? 
If you're betting to induce a raise then fine, if you're betting to fold then fine (well not really fine but at least you know why you're doing it)
3)  Do you think there is fundamentally a problem with playing your hand face up versus a good player? 
My view is players often bet to "find out where they are".  the problem is good players know what question your asking and will give you an answer that suits them (it wont necessarily be the truth).  Here you've basically said hey Julian i have a good but not great hand here, please dont raise me as i wont know what to do if you do. 
4)  Would you ever "blocker bet" with a super strong or a bluff hand?  If you never do this with strong hands youre open yourself up to getting f*cked with.

If you're going to check the flop, then surely your line on the river has to be check-call?

why

or chk fold. as under-repped as your hand is OTR I feel pretty confident that a tournament player as experienced as Julian isn't going to value-slice his own wrists with many worse hands, I think it's only AJ and there is some % chance he knuckles that back.

Oh just realised this is a 6max tourney? Yh he prolly Vbets AJ, maybe AT (although IDK how often he bets AT otf without initiative) and A8downwards less likely still. Honestly I think c/f might even be better but id have almost certainly chk/called and cant see it being that bad

IMO I like leading more, as traditionally speaking you rep more airballs by cbetting this flop, i mean this is a flop that the PF raiser is expected to bet a high %, checking is cool or "sexy" from like a theory perspective cos you can take 'safer' more passive line with weaker parts of your range when you have AK in your range by the turn in this spot, so its harder to get barrelled off weaker hands and makes bluffs a lot harder.

problem is when you actually have somewhere near the top of your range ike you do here you get into sucky river spots like this where you never have air (so your villain less likely to bluff/more likely to chk marginal stuff back) so your oppo's perceived range OTR is kinda polarized in a spot where your hand is hugely under-repped and that makes it really hard to fold.

people are 3barrelling alot atm in poker imo when they put someone on a weak range. cbetting into 3 looks semi strong and doubt we get many floats utg vs 2 players. cant see many aces in either of their ranges, so think best way of getting multiple streets is under reping our hand and getting somebody to be creative. its live ffs its boring and people like to spew.

i dont like river lead as we never do this with kk and looks like we have an ace, and utg we should have big aces.

@ lildave. Julian never knuckles back. More like a gentle open palmed caress of the felt in the gentle manner that befits the nicest guy in poker.

Really appreciate the replies. Now see how cheap the river COULD have been, fml.

I open folded (I know, tw#t), and Julian snap shows  6c 8c.

arent blocker bets a fold when raised, and induce bets/calls?  completly butchered hand, made it too complicated this early, just cbet and take it from there

I felt that betting the flop would not extract maximum value from the hand. I just absolutely butchered the river and I can see how awful a move it was. With a c/c otr I get way more value than a cbet/b/b line. Just my opinion. I can't see me getting three streets out of Julian unless he has minimum 2p.

He showed you the bluff?!

So mean!

He loved it too! :p

I think he was only doing it as BadBeat had just come to have a chat with him.

Humiliated me he did.

Julians had more pha threads made about him in blonde than anyone ainec.

People worry too much about balance when there is NO need for it here.


Overthink a simple spot much?

tbf, you should just go all in on the flop ainec.

We're playing the country's most prestigious tournament, there are reporters around and all in looks pretty cool.

If some muppet says 'we're only getting called by better'. Just say pussy

lol what? he opened the barrels after we checked? almost exactly proving our point right no?

i think its quite simple/std but u asked me to expand.

I meant this....

'people are 3barrelling alot atm in poker imo when they put someone on a weak range'.

Don't people barrel a lot anyway when they think someone is weak? Why is that a recent trend?

I think check - calling twice looks more like AJ/AK/A10 than most other hands and I think our range to c-bet this flop is wider than our range to check call it.

Why can't you see many aces in their ranges aside from one being in hero's hand and one being on the board. Seems fairly std for someone to flat pre with A9s or AQ

calling w/aq utg+1 would be an error, as would calling a9s imo

i'd maybe 3bet both though :d

Disagree

Peeling with AQ here is abs fine.

Ldo

ok if people think calling aq is fine, then he should probably go for a few streeets of value too right? anyway its such a dry flop that we're gponna get more value from checking and inducing his bluffing range that cbetting and getting called from a9s etc.

I think a lot of players might stab this once, poss twice but don't normally go for 3 barrells here. I think the only reason Jules shoved the river was the blocker.

I'd usually bet the flop but checking is fine. This is actually the best hand to do it with if you are going to have a c/c range. Before someone tells me balance doesn't matter i'd just remind them that this is a poker forum so obviously we're going to talk about theory and ranges and balance, rather than irrelevant population reads like "this is lollivepoker so always bet". I have no idea what you are doing on the river, seems like the most obvious c/c ever. I suppose you are value betting. Please don't categorise bets as blocker bets it is stupid, just stick to "value bets" and "bluffs" and you'l be fine. Showing your hand is ridiculous, particularly in this spot where you're basically folding the top of your range. I suppose you are trying to be friends with him but just remember that in poker we are not trying to be friends with people; we are trying to crush them for every cent they have.

gd post

I think you've played it absolutely fine up to the river where you totally butcher it.

Check/calling 3 streets is a good way to extract value and also limit risk this early in a deep stacked comp oop.

Your hand looks so much like an under pair your oppo is always going to be repping that ace by firing the 3rd barrel.

He's repped it twice, he can't stop now and let your 99/tt/jj win at showdown.

The fact you've got the A with a nut kicker means that you also beat a good chunk of his value range where he's put you on the under pairs but thinks you'll hero him.

By putting out a river bet you give him the chance to raise and make his hand look even stronger that it did. This is why you have the decision with a good hand yourself.

What were stacks at the start of the hand?

Does Julian have you well covered? If he does you could make the river bet to induce the jam if you fancy getting funky.

If not leading the river is just a mess because bet folding here sucks.

i dont think this is true personally but i think a lot of people will disagree with me

Perhaps 'good chunk' was a bit much. Medium chunk maybe.

You think he's checking back weaker aces?

Surely he's not going to think we've check called twice and are now check raising the river?

That's one hell of a line to put us on.

no i think he'll think we've check called twice and now wont be calling much worse OTR, i think when he bets the river expect to get shown AK/AQ/AJ/99/33 or a bluff. Julian is pretty smart, and will be well aware you could WELL have an ACE OTR and opening UTG prolly expects it to be a decent ACE

There is also the question of how often he continues with bluffs OTT, when its kinda of likely he'll need to fire three to win, or the amount of times he decides not to pot control AJ on the flop/turn.

Dont get me wrong I think its a perfectly fine c/call but once I've checked the river I'll be really hoping he chks back, this is the #1 problem with the super passive line is that it becomes extremely difficult to fold in spots where perhaps you should because of how under-repped your hand is. Again, not saying the line isn't good, because it is, I just think that saying because we've chk.called the flop and turn with pretty much one of the best hands we could have means we should DEFO chk/call the river is incorrect

Another reason i prefer betting flop is because if you're letting Julian control the size of the pot he's often only letting it get big when he has a hand like ours beat, and like Dave said it's gonna be hard for us to find a fold often because of how underrepped our hand is. Similarly see him checking back AJ after we c/c two streets too.

Disagree when hero has opened UTG. Really struggling to rep air here when you cbet and I think that Julian is unlikely to decide to put him on JJ/QQ/KK and pull a multi street bluff with his air.