Evolving Through the Pokerz

Your bet size on the flop suggests that you aren't committed to your hand at this point? I think I prefer just bombing the turn, he isn't folding KJ or QJ yet and you'll get about the same in by the river.

It's a spot where betting this size on the flop allows us the opportunity to take lines like this on the turn and river. I think that when we bet 9-10 on this dry flop, we limit our opponent's calling range to hands like KQ and KJ. When we bet smaller, villain's calling range becomes wider. The wider his range is, the less likely it is that he has something that can call a turn bet and the better a turn check to induce is. If we had bet 9-9.50 on the flop and felt that most of his flop calling range was KT-KQ, we'd certainly barrel for value on the turn and river because he'd likely check back a street, given the chance.

Lines I like are ------ 1) bet/bet/checkcall or bet/bet/bet depending how the board comes out ------ 2) bet/checkcall/checkcall (to induce from draws/worse kings, take this line versus spazzy players and people who make thin value bets) ------ 3) check/bomb/bomb to get calldowns from suspicious pair hands from a cally/non-stabby or timid player who folds to a lot of c-bets but might get suspicious when you check the flop ----- I don't like your line at all because it is really totally transparent and doesn't win you any extra money. It isn't terrible in the same way shoving 72o preflop is, but it isn't a line you can balance and you'll let a good player off the hook with a hand like JJ or TT when you allow him to let the turn check through far too often.

Bet/bet/check-call is pretty terrible on this board, imo. The only credible hands that call 2 streets and have a need to bluff are QsJs,QsTs, and TsJs and a majority of villains are checking back all their Kx hands. Players at these stakes aren't value-betting KQ here...especially in rush poker. If villain does bet the river, when we check, I think we see 9x most of the time.

bet/bet/bet is fine, but only works against KQ and maybe KJ unless villain is a total station. As I said before, I think that betting this particular size on the flop makes Kx a smaller part of his range than if we'd bet something like 9-10. Again, if we size it this way on the flop, I think bet/bet/bet would be optimal.

Bet/checkcall/checkcall is decent but I think this is the wrong board texture for it, simply because it's hard for him to peel the flop with something that has no showdown value. I think a lot of players would fire one on the turn and then check the river with their PPs and 9x.

I agree with everything you've said about check/bomb/bomb. Checking keeps all the crappy non-sd hands in his range, putting him in a spot where he's most likely to bluff the turn and river.

As for hands like TT and JJ that check back the turn, we're never getting three streets of value out of them anyway, so we're not sacrificing a lot of value. Furthermore, our turn check induces some lighter calls on the river, and IME, an opponent with TT/JJ is more likely to pay 2 streets vs b/c/b than b/b/c.

As for balancing this line, I think that (if we're concerned about what we're repping to an unknown) we can rep a fair number of hands here. The flop is dry enough that we're cbetting our whole range, and any spades we have in our range have picked up equity, but may not barrel this crappy card. The river bricks off and we make a last-ditch effort to bluff villain off of his floats. As for repping a monster, the only monster we can have is KK (maybe 99) and really, there's nothing to say that villain wouldn't play a monster like this. This is why the issue of balancing against an unknown is almost moot. We have no idea how he's going to interpret what we're doing here.

lol meant to say K9 in the 6th line. :)

Do you think that most people assume this is true, "The flop is dry enough that we're cbetting our whole range..." Because it certainly isn't true that I bet my entire range here, and I wonder if people assume that it is the case that I am. Hence, I get a ton of action on my check/bomb/bomb lines because they think checking back is either giving up or a medium strength hand, and they can't imagine me having a value range on the turn that wants to bomb for two streets. In actuality, I am often checking back a hand like KQ here precisely because I will get a ton of extra action and there is almost nothing to protect against on the flop. As you say, we aren't getting three streets most of the time so we don't miss much either.