Horror Session - Hand 3

[Scully]

By the river I'm almost certain I'm not winning this, but at what point can you get away from this?

Villain is 44/10

Titan Poker 0.10/0.20, hand converted by the iPoker Converter at Talking-Poker

saw flop | saw showdown

Button Scully77 ($19.80)
SB Playing4Drugs ($38.27)
BB BlueTop ($18.6
UTG sparkleru ($14.3
UTG+1 derbastix ($21.00)
CO flogpog ($21.46)

Preflop: , 3 folds, Scully77 raises to 0.80, 1 fold, BlueTop calls 0.60.

Flop (1.70) Q Q J
BlueTop checks, Scully77 bets 1.00, BlueTop raises to 2.00, Scully77 raises to 6.00, BlueTop calls 4.00.

Turn (14.70) 2
BlueTop bets 3.42, Scully77 calls 3.42.

River (21.54) A
BlueTop bets 5.13, Scully77 calls 5.13

Scully77 shows T Q
BlueTop shows A Q

BlueTop wins 31.80 with A full house, Queens and Aces

[Taardvark]

I think by the turn it's shut down time. The bets are feeling like sucker bets.

I wouldn't have put villian on this kind of cooler hand but I would have pegged him for a made flush there.

[Neilis]

3-betting this flop is a mistake. If you get to play a big pot here you have kicker problems a lot even if villain is a fish. Trips with a bad kicker is not a big hand in a lot of situations. I would go into call down mode after being raised on the flop.

[emmapeel]

With both players starting late in the hand the ranges of both should be quite wide. Therefore on this flop most of the hands played will have missed. In order to stay competive villain must play back with more hands and consider this a good flop for things like 66 here. I think villain must re-raise bluff more often too as most of his hands will only be good for that. In short villain should have more than just trips or a big draw to be playing back here.

In view of the above, putting in another re-raise on the flop seems right as we still should be well ahead. I think calling is an option if villain is aggressive though. It might be good if villain is passive too as now we might not be ahead so much. Putting in another re-raise seems right though, maybe to a bit more though to win more money of drawing hands.

I think I'm calling the turn too.

Villains bet is annoyingly enticing on the end. I don't think we are beating enough though, Some T9 hands maybe. I'd love to re-raise bluff here but I don't have much left. I think I might call as we've come this far but maybe it is better to fold. It looks like KQ might be the most likely for me.

EP

[emmapeel]

AQ? I'm glad I didn't have enough to go for the bluff on the end now.

Neilis may be right about calling the flop. In my opinion villain should be playing back at the button more often but maybe players don't do this often enough. Villain may have what he is representing more times for it to be best to call. I think I'm still putting in another re-raise though. Depends on how villain is though.

EP

[janeg]

[Neilis]

[emmapeel]

I think it is important to try to figure out how the hand should be played and then adjust from there. This is how I see things.

Hero has bet 4BB in order to try to win the 1.5BB in blinds. So if the blinds fold around 72%ish of the time then it is +EV for the button to be playing any two here. So if the blinds fold 28% of the time or roughly 85% per blind then the button shouldn't fold any hand. It is actually better than that as the button will win sometimes even when called. To counter this the blinds must play back with a wide range. At least a 20% range per blind possibly much more.

My point is that the ranges involved should be very wide on this flop. Most aces and pairs, JT+ and some connectors for the BB here and a wider range for the button.

On this flop and probably a lot of flops the BB will be faced with a similar problem as preflop. He likely has missed the flop but again can't let the button get away with winning with a single bet. He will be giving away too much by just folding weak looking pairs here. He may even have to bluff sometimes with high cards or even just an ace. In other words he can't give away 60-70% fold equity to the button on this flop.

The above is the reason why I think the 3 bet on this flop is a consideration. Villain should have much more than just trips here.

For me, Calling or 3 betting on the flop is a close decision. I'm actually warming to calling now though. Another factor is that a big draw might push to a 3 bet which will put us in a tough position.

EP

[Neilis]

I fully understand that the range of villain is extremely large here and his range to raise us on the flop is pretty large because it's a nice flop for us to not have much.
Lets say his range looks like any pair, suited connectors higher than 56s, Q9+, JT, AQ, AK etc... Obviously we have that range completely smashed on this flop.

So he raises us lots and we beat a huge percentage of hands he does it with. Sweet.

The problem is when we 3-bet he folds pretty much everything that isn't: JJ, A Queen he called our preflop raise with and maybe AA or KK. He should have three-bet us preflop with AA, KK , QQ and JJ but if he didn't then we beat the overpairs which is good. That's about the best of the good news.

So lets think about Queens he called our preflop raise with. This is where it gets ugly. It's pretty unlikely he calls preflop with a Q worse than Q9. That means that when it comes to Queens his range has us totally flogged. Sure some fishies might have like Q2-Q8s sometimes, but really that's pretty unusual.

What else can he have? Lets tell the story.

You raise: I have a hand and I think it's better than the guys still to act.
He calls: I have a hand good enough to call but I don't want to 3-bet.
You bet the flop: I still have a hand. It's better than yours.
He minraises: This is where it gets interesting. He says either I have a big hand please call me or I don't believe you. Go away.

Here's the problem. Neither of those things is something you can raise against. If he's going have a big hand then you LOSE to more of those big hands than you beat. This is bad.
If he's going Don't believe you but my hand sucks too... then if you raise he FOLDS and you don't get any value for having him crushed.

3-betting loses us money when we're losing and makes him fold when we're winning. Our hand is both not good enough to raise and too good to raise. That means that our best play is definitely to call and my preferred line from there assuming blanks would be check-call the turn and check-call the river if he bets the turn, or check the turn and valuebet the river if he checks behind the turn.

[janeg]

[Scully]

Thanks for the comments guys - plenty of food for thought there.

One thing that some of you may have overlooked is the guys stats. He is a total fish who will stick around with draws, lower pairs, etc.

Does this change anyone's thinking (esp Neil who seems on his own in not liking the 3 bet on the flop )

[Neilis]

[emmapeel]

I'm starting to think that calling on the flop is clearly correct now. I'm sure the re-raise is a good play against some opponents though.

Against a fishy type, as it looks like this player was, a re-raise is more likely to get called weakly, but then again: what range of hands would a fish mini-raise the flop with? Maybe calling against the fish is correct too.

It's not so easy for me to decide what to do against a fishy type. This player may have weaker trips more often but maybe calling is still best. I think it is closer now though.

EP

[janeg]

Trying to work the math out on this. Scully says he's a fish who sticks around with draws, pairs, etc. PF, this looks like a straight blind steal, assume BB will call with 20% of his hands, and, since he just cold-called with AQs, also assume he likes to trap. Running the numbers through PS we get:

[Scully]

Wow - interesting analysis from Jane there.

Thanks for running that through PS and posting the results.