blonde poker forum

I have been finding this spot alot recently (online MTT's):

first level of a deepstack MTT

UTG raise 3x (lets assume we think this means strength)

You flat button with  9h Th

flop A T 2 rainbow

he checks you bet (say 2/3 pot) he flat calls

turn 8 (to bring  a 2nd suit  - not necesssarily the h)

if you put him on KK/QQ or lets say thats what they have - what line to you take from the turn onwards to try and win this pot - do you  (assuming villain cks the river)

1. let it go ck/ck to catch on the end and get paid  - or to bluff a scary card (say the J which completes a flush)
2.  do you bet to rep the A and then bet again on the river
3. do you bet the turn and then give up when he calls and checks it back to you on a scary river

and for grinders who perhaps see this alot - do people ever fold the KK into a relatively small pot here?

sorry i havent got a HH as an eg

My reason for asking is that i frequently find myslef bluffing at scary rivers and always getting called by the KK QQ type hands.

So, should i just let it go if i dont improve past the flop or is there a way to take this pot down more often than not when the blinds are still small?

Could just fold pre....

please exclude folding pre from responses - i didnt - and it isnt a spew at 10/20

Meh. You can try firing to get him off whatever he's holding but I don't really see the point for such a small pot. You're not going to win much when your bluff gets through but you'll lose a fair bit when it doesn't. I pretty much always call you with KK/QQ in these spots because a) it's cheap in relation to stacks, b) i've often got the best hand as people try to run pointless bluffs, and c) even if i'm wrong I get to see your hand and see what you're up to.

Note that i'm not "calling for information" before someone accuses me of that. It's just a nice bonus if my hand isn't good which it is a good % of the time.

rly?  Tc x x or  9c x x boards - anyone opening 99+ is likely to get three streets of value here, plus the number of times you do your tits in with straight / flush / combo draws when your an underdog etc...

the whole point behind my example was that the board is A high and they check the flop oop

so i guess we should be checking behind on the turn and not bluff betting if we miss the river, but stick in a very healthy v bet if we hit?

on a basic level, if you are playing this pre against a first position raise then you are looking for a big flop to start betting strongly. I'd check the flop for starters with our middle pair.

I don't get why not discussing pre is possibly a good way to analyse the hand. Just blindly calling pre and then not having a plan postflop on various textured boards doesn't seem very sensible to me.

As played given his presumed uber strong range, I would just check behind the flop and look to pick up more equity on the turn. Especially given that our read is that we are going to fire on multiple streets to get a better hand to fold. As the only reason to fire the flop is to set up a bluff.

i dont mind flatting pre. i like to check behind the flop and then bet for value if our hand improves.

I never fold pre but its level 1 of a deepstack MTT so i NEVER look to get into a multi street bluff spot.

Just check the whole way, as played check.

This,

Yeah not worth fighting over scraps this early mate!