Mid/High Stakes Limit Hold'em Poker Forums

So here's a hand I played against bicyclekick. He's one of the original lag/tags: a very good thinking player.

First I'll post the hand then I'll post some questions:

Poker Stars $50/$100 Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 1091037
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is BB with J 6
2 folds, BTN raises, 1 fold, Hero calls

Flop: (4.5 SB) 4 8 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets, Hero raises, BTN calls

Turn: (4.25 BB) A (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: (4.25 BB) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets

Now some questions:

1. Does anyone prefer c/c on the flop? A c/f?
2. If you do c/c the flop, do you semibluff any turns? Which ones?
3. Are you betting any part of your range on this turn given a flop c/r?
4. If you are, what line are you taking with this hand?
5. Does anyone prefer to give up on the river?

I think his button steal% is very important, as well as his ability to semi-bluff raise turns.

If I c/r this flop, I'm think we have to barrel all the way because we're going to see QJ/QT/JT/KT/KJ/KQ and think "oh my god..." far too often otherwise.

But then if he's capable of bluff-raising the hands mentioned and then some, you all of a sudden simply have to give up on the hand if he calls the flop c/r unless you improve.

So it seems the line is to c/r and give up if he's going to be tricky against you on the turn. What I wonder is the % of right away folding to a c/r on flops like these and flops in general. Where do we look that up in HEM?

What I wonder is the % of right away folding to a c/r on flops like these and flops in general.

its probably close to 0%

Tbh, fwiw, btw, I think id c/f this flop. I dont think our hand has that much "best hand value" as most T his and 7 his are going to have really good equity against us (I think, most of them are OE or gutshots but they also contain a lot of 6's which we have blocked). Also, we only have 3 outs over a random 2nd pair so its not like it should feel super gross folding right away. I know we have good backdoor draws, and we should have some bluffs in our range that when the scariest cards roll off (ex T or 7) it doesnt make our hand, so our villain cant fold all his bluff catchers correctly, however, I feel like we have some worst hands that we can use such as T5 and possibly 53, 63 suited if we play them. (eh, i thought there would be more hands with less sdv than J6 but i guess there arnt that many so im sure c/r'zing this hand can never be a terrible choice).

As far as the turn play, I mean, i guess it just depends on how wed play our value range. I feel like I wouldnt consider checking with 8x or 9x just because there are so many broadway card combos in our villains range, especially ones like QT QJ JT which we dont really want to check to because I dont expect everyone to just auto bet those hands as a semi bluff since it looks like we have a pair and are not folding.

As played I really like the river bet.

Tbh, fwiw, btw, I think id c/f this flop. I dont think our hand has that much "best hand value" as most T his and 7 his are going to have really good equity against us (I think, most of them are OE or gutshots but they also contain a lot of 6's which we have blocked). Also, we only have 3 outs over a random 2nd pair so its not like it should feel super gross folding right away. I know we have good backdoor draws, and we should have some bluffs in our range that when the scariest cards roll off (ex T or 7) it doesnt make our hand, so our villain cant fold all his bluff catchers correctly, however, I feel like we have some worst hands that we can use such as T5 and possibly 53, 63 suited if we play them. (eh, i thought there would be more hands with less sdv than J6 but i guess there arnt that many so im sure c/r'zing this hand can never be a terrible choice).

As far as the turn play, I mean, i guess it just depends on how wed play our value range. I feel like I wouldnt consider checking with 8x or 9x just because there are so many broadway card combos in our villains range, especially ones like QT QJ JT which we dont really want to check to because I dont expect everyone to just auto bet those hands as a semi bluff since it looks like we have a pair and are not folding.

As played I really like the river bet.

lawl i dont think i answered a single question^^

1. I think i'd kf, and be more inclined to kr in huhu. I think it's an ok play to kr here; on one hand you have tons of gutters on this board (56, 57, T6, j7) along with your other straight draws which seems like plenty, on the other hand it's fairly obvious once these hands pair so the real value vs someone like bk is that when the turn is a 7c, you're going to get most of his non-pairs to fold by the river.

2. If I did kc, I'm check-raising any club or 7 turn.

3. Yes, I'm still betting 9x+ for value and all the draws.

4. I play it the same if I did kr flop. I think we have better 3card straight/flush draws and probably don't need to extend into just 3card flush draw with some weak backdoor gutters category here for bluffing. But I'm not sure.

River bet is definitely good.

Since you were the one to teach me about checkraising these kinds of boards with these kinds of holdings, yes i do like it very much with your hand on this board. We have a ton of cards that we can continue to fire on the turn, any club, 5/6/7/10/Q and also board pairing cards although they arent great, id still bet them.

Id almost never check/call here because simply put not many people give up once you call on this kind of board, and also because i dont really have a balanced check/call check/raise in these kind of spots/boards myself. If i did however c/c, id checkraise any card that gives up OESD or flushdraw, and obv any jack.

I will be continuebetting the turn with any draw that i checkraised the flop with, against people who percieve this turncard to be a "scary" card, id be inclined to bet-3bet my OESD`s and barrel most rivers, expecting to win a decent % right there on the turn. Id also bet all my slowplayed overpairs/9x and sometimes even my best 8x.

Finally as played, the river bet is kind of mandatory as he shouldnt have a pair here almost ever, could have 4x 55/77, and when you take this line it really looks like weak 9x, 8x or something better that was going for the turn cr, depending on your history with BK. Him probably knowing that youre a tricky type of opponent might lead him to check back with some draws that he would have bet against a lot of other players.

3. Yes, I'm still betting 9x+ for value and all the draws.

Which draws, if any, are you threebetting if raised?

67, 107, J10? Id assume.

67, 107, J10? Id assume.

First impression: that seems like way too many combos given our value bet/threebetting range here? It's 16 combos each so we're going to be bluffing 48 times vs. 25 combos better than one pair. I suppose we should add some of our AK combos as well, but even if we add them all, that's still only 37 combos in our value range.

So yeah. Way too much.

Im not saying that i would 3bet them every single time, those are just my candidates IF i was to bet3bet a draw on the turn. The decision to 3bet has tons to do with my opponents tendencies ofcourse.

Whats the best way to balance here jeremy?

I agree that its prob too many bluff combos on the turn...

First impression: that seems like way too many combos given our value bet/threebetting range here? It's 16 combos each so we're going to be bluffing 48 times vs. 25 combos better than one pair. I suppose we should add some of our AK combos as well, but even if we add them all, that's still only 37 combos in our value range.

So yeah. Way too much.

I'd just pick a couple of the suited 67 or combo draws if I had them. We/I don't have the AK in our distribution here I don't think since we chopped that one off with a kr on the flop.

Pretty much agree with Juice on c/f the flop. I get that there's a bunch of turn cards that could make him fold A3 or whatever but I don't know if that makes up for the times he has something better than that plus the times those turn cards don't come plus the likelyhood of him knowing our flop c/r'ing range is incredibly wide if we're c/r'ing hands this weak plus we have J high and a backdoor oop against a good player.

I am going to against the grain here and say I do not like the river bluff. If he thinks you play all your non-SD draws this way, you might have a tough time getting many better hands to fold.

I don't have that much experience vs BK, but you could maybe even consider check-call if you have a read/history even though you will get owned by 8x and underpairs.