blonde poker forum

First hand of online $55 comp, 3k starting stack, blinds 10/20, bout 200 runners

We get  Kh Kd on the button

Folded round and we make it 60 to go. Both blinds call.

Flop comes

 Qs 4c 5c

Both blinds check and we cbet 120

both call

 Th

Checked back again so we bet 320 into 540

sb raises to 780

bb folds and we call. Are there better turn options?

River is a brick and villain leads 888 into 2100

Is this...

a) easy call
b) easy fold
c) easy jam

Would appreciate any thoughts.
 

I'd fold the turn. His c/raise is ridic strong for several reasons:


a) he's got the bb to act behind him who's over called the flop therefore has to have something
b) he's got you to worry about who look strong too betting again into 2 players
c) it's on the turn, people never bluff c/raise the turn
For those reasons, I'm out.

Fold river as played.

river is very trivial fold.

Call river as played. Fold turn tho, not close.

thing with these spots is the relative value of our hand comes crashing after the c/r our hand goes from being basically the nuts to what is effectively QJ here (QJ and KK are different hand on the turn but you kinda get the drift) there are ofc a few very feasible (semi-bluffing) hands Kc Jc / Jc 9c are most likely along with Ac Jc but those hands have a LOT of equity against you and his legit value range (QT and sets) has us crushed.

Considering all this alongside the fact that its so very very unlikely he is totally air-balling as it's the start of the comp, there's no antes, he's OOP etc it really makes it a very undesirable spot for us to get stubborn in, right at the start of the comp airing towards the side of caution in close spots will very often be the best play as your equity in the comp won't  with each chip won at the same speed it decreases with each chip lost. Say you're worth $70 in this in hand 1 you double up you're not worth $140 now, but if you bust out you're worth a big fat $ZERO!

+1

Baluga theorem FTW.

Why are we calling river?

River is close - far closer than the turn IMO. But we are getting a great price and most importantly there is no more betting to come which means that we are guaranteed to get to SD for this price - unlike when we call the turn bet.

Nothing wrong with folding the river either, like I said... it is close.

In principle, the nut worst line is to call turn and then fold to a very small river bet (this could be a good play under VERY specific conditions, usually requiring some sort of ninja read). But of course, just because we make a mistake on the turn does not mean we have to call river to 'be consistent' - we are allowed to correct our turn mistake on the next street. So folding river ok too. But I am a sucker for a good price - and this is a VERY good price!

Hands that beat us QQ TT 55 44: Only TT makes perfect sense really all the others can be heavily discounted due to pre-flop and flop action (no check-raise). So 3 combos of TT, 1 combo of QQ (v generous) and 3 combos of 44-55 combined makes 7, plus 2 QTs and only half the QTo (3) as I think most people fold that pre, so 5 combos of QT and 7 combos of sets makes 12 combos that beat us. Getting nearly 4:1 on the river that means we only need to find 4 combos of hands we beat to make this a call. I think AQ for value is perfectly reasonable, at least to the extent that we can include 4 combos, plus the possibility of turning QJ KQ into a bluff (also perfectly reasonable imo) and we have to look him up here I think.

That said, what makes the turn a fold and river a call vs pretty much the same range is that the villain's bluff combos now have 0% equity whereas they had 10-25% on the turn, and our odds are better because our call finishes the betting for the hand.

Also agree with Stu that folding here to a bet that happens nearly 100% of the time after we call the turn is terrible from a game theory POV, although those considerations are secondary to the above working.

Its probably still a fold however I think everyone is giving a random villain on level 1 of an ongame $54 way too much credit.  He almost never has a pure bluff range but they can deffo show up here with loads worse for value like AQ/KQ/QJ/QXcc and they can still show up with flush draws.  Using the timebank and OPR'ing the villain when he c/r's the turn should be the 1st thing you do.  Check their ABI, profit/ROI and early-early/mid stage bustout %s.  Im calling turn and calling river V lower ABI players with decently high early bustout %s

the bb dynamic is interesting to me. Does he over call the top of his range very much on the flop? In the hand I thought no.

If we now put ourselves in the sb holding two clubs can we take off with a c/raise semi-bluff with strong expectation of success either here or on river? Seems like a better line for us to take than more passive options. Fact it's early and player behind etc seems to make conditions pretty good to get out the gates quickly. Don't know if that wud be enterprising or spewy.

Don't really agree with the bolded. Can't imagine he'd play a flush draw this way very often, and think it's too optimistic to assume he can c/r turn for value with 1 pair hands if he didn't on this flop. Turn seems like a pretty clear fold to me.