blonde poker forum

UTG is new to the game. I've probably played close to 100/100 since he joined about 11 hands ago :D Would like advice on the hand from flop-river. I'm perfectly happy with pre although understand why you might want to fold.. Flop/Turn I think is q standard but happy to discuss, no idea on best river line.

Ongame Network $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 1675657 (http://www.handconverter.com/hands/1675657)
DeucesCracked Poker Videos (http://www.deucescracked.com/?referrer=converter_dc) Hand History Converter (http://www.handconverter.com)

SB: $146.38
Hero (BB): $738.73
UTG: $203.00
CO: $560.46
BTN: $245.50

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with 9 :heart: 8 :heart:
UTG raises to $7, 3 folds, Hero calls $5

Flop: ($15.00) J :diamond: 4 :diamond: T :heart: (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $10, Hero calls $10

Turn: ($35.00) 4 :heart: (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $24, Hero calls $24

River: ($83.00) A :heart: (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $46, Hero ?

agree 100% up to river, where I think bet/call is more profitable vs his whole range, as played I'm check shoving all day

I agree totally with Mr. James Keys of Keys Capital Trading Inc.

I would be leading this river as it's a good river to bluff + mixed withh your probable aggro image means he may well look you up pretty light with a whole load of hands he will chk back. Going to call if he raises but that would suck a little bit. Check shoving is a line I also like but I really do think he'll chk back quite a lot of the time which obviously might be wrong as he didn't here :D

Agree with both of the above

I completely disagree with the advice to lead the river. Villain will most likely value bet all hands that he would call a lead with. Plus he will bluff some too - especially on this particular river card. IMO you should not be seeking to maximise vs his whole range as James suggests... you should be seeking to maximise vs the stronger part of his range, and v the weakest part of his range - because he is not putting any more money in with the middle of his range (whether you lead or check), but he will bet the strongest part of his range for (thin) value and sometimes bluff with the weakest part of his range. Don't worry when he checks back the middle part of his range (KJ/QQ etc) - he is not calling with these hands if you lead anyway!

Obviously this would not be the case if you were facing a very weak tight opponent who is going to check back trips, straights and AK/AQ on the river, but will call if you lead. But this was not mentioned as a read so I am just assuming UTG is a decent reg who knows how to value bet thinly and balances appropriately with bluffs etc.

N.B. This is NOT a good spot to lead as a bluff either because his range is uncapped and this river card hits his range harder than ours. Obviously leading as a bluff will work sometimes either when opponent has a weak part of his range, or when you 'win the levelling war' and he folds cos he knows you know that this hits his range hard so you must be super strong when you lead etc. But that way madness lies, and making a habit of leading as a bluff into a strong uncapped range is not going to work out well in the long run....

P.S. Just noticed from the hh that the board paired on the turn!! I blame the badly formatted hh obviously lol ;-) Pretty sure that this changes some of my advice, but haven't got time to go back through it cos have to go out.

He'd probably check KK-QQ, KJ/QJ, anything else? Possibly more combos he'll bet for value i reckon.

Like it all, c/jam > lead river imo

+1, think the argument about getting looked up light works the same this way, but for stacks. Assuming villain can v.bet thinly, if we c/shove I think we get heros a decent amount, we dont rep much, assuming we raise KQ otf a lot, sets otf/ott and possibly doesnt think we will value c/shove AJ/AT here, so we have a v.v.small range, vs a wide range of bluffs, villain can definately call a c/shove with 1-pair hands, but I don't see us leading the river as a bluff that much here vs villains uncapped range, so villain probably wont be jamming here as a bluff. (much less likely than heroing it off imo).

I have to admit to also not seeing the board paired on the turn. Can you do a hand history with pictures next time pleno, for those of us that struggle with reading comprehension.

I still think leading the river is the best option, even more so in fact now that I think check/shoving is very marginal, with there being so many hands that beat us and it being very heroic for villain to call us with anything worse. I agree with Stu that this isn't a 'good card to bluff', I think Dave says this as an omahahaha player who is more used to people 'betting the change', whereas in holdem it's always suspicious when somebody wants to steal the initiative from the player with the betting lead. I also agree that our range is very much capped and villain's range legitimately includes nearly all the hands that beat us, but this is exactly why I prefer to lead. Although the villain's range is uncapped, numerically it's still vastly weighted towards hands that we beat, many of which will check behind I think (imo AK off is too thin for villain on the river, AT/AJ would be the line for me, in before "not vbetting thinly enough bla bla bla") and very very few will call a check-raise (worse flushes + KQ?). However because villain will be checking behind often I will be bet-folding a lot of my medium-strength hands otr, and I think that's how a lead will be perceived a lot of the time, so I think if villain is competent he will see that we have a capped range whereas his is uncapped and will turn a lot of hands that he would check back into a bluff vs a donk lead. This was my thinking before when the board was unpaired also, and I think it works even better now.

thoughts on c/call?

tyvm Stu/James et al for responses.

I think you played it well though i'd lead the flop sometimes. Check call now, crai vs some.

yeah prefer c/c to c/jam, though when I backdoor a flush and don't want to raise it that makes me lean towards other options, like bet/call

b/f?

Oh I forgot to come back into this thread and mention a really important point...

Check-fold the turn. Seriously. To quote Pleno's signature, "You're oop with 9 high against an uncapped range with terrible visibilty (i.e. you're basically bluffcatching when you turn gin and you have no showdown value)"

If the board had not paired on the turn then c/c turn is ok, but seeing as it did pair you just need to c/f.

And I still don't agree with leading the river...

PRetty sure Rob that about me when he was telling in the summer :D

Yes it was Dave, I remember it. And it fits perfectly here.

fold turn? we have fd too?

Yes I know. But we are out of position with 9 high against an uncapped range with terrible visibility... ;)

Seriously though, as everyone has realised, we are not exactly fist-pumping to bet the farm when we hit our backdoor flush; to some extent we still only have a bluff catcher. So it's not like we have this amazing equity hand on the turn that we can't possibly fold. In fact we have a hand that actually suffers from reverse implied odds. Obviously if the board had not paired on the turn then everything is different.

BTW, just to clarify... my initial post in this thread was recommending checking rather than leading the river - with a view to check-raise jamming. This was written when I had misread the hand history and not seen that the board had paired. I still think this is by far the best river play on an unpaired board, and that leading is just bad. With the board pairing on the turn, if we get to the river then we should still check-call rather than check-raise. Leading the river is still bad. I think the majority of posters recommending leading the river (either when the board has paired or when it has not) are not thinking properly about the opponent's range and which parts of this range we are able to target for value.

sigh