Mid Stakes Shorthanded NL Poker Forums

First hand with this guy. Call or fold river?

Poker Stars $3/$6 No Limit Hold'em - 3 players - View hand 1805512
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BTN: $480.00
SB: $915.00
Hero (BB): $600.00

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is BB with Q Q
BTN calls $6, 1 fold, Hero raises to $27, BTN calls $21

Flop: ($57.00) 2 K A (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn: ($57.00) 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $36, Hero calls $36

River: ($129.00) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $126, Hero?

Tough spot with no info. I think I would lean towards folding but I could see reasons for calling. It does seem like he is polarized OTR and would most likely bet the flop with his FD's, leaving him with few value combos that might want to bet this size. OTOH, it's hard to know exactly what kind of thought process weaker players have until we get some reads. I feel dumb when I call here and get shown A7o.

Fold.

pretty big betsize on the river.

without reads its probably a fold.

I wouldn't have even called the turn without the club draw and it's impossible to know his tendencies for checking behind Ax, Kx or how thinly he can value bet you when your range is face up so it's a fold IMO.

This seems like a super standard fold to me, is there something I'm missing?

I wouldn't have even called the turn without the club draw and it's impossible to know his tendencies for checking behind Ax, Kx or how thinly he can value bet you when your range is face up so it's a fold IMO.

not knowing his tendencies doesn't make any play more correct - it just makes determining the correct play harder. people tend to want to fold when they are unsure, but they easily forget that any action, including folding, can be a mistake.

i tend to call (too much) in these kinds of spots. it's a bit of a crapshoot, in my experience. pot betting fish tend to fall into slowplayers and bluffers almost always. <10% of the time i see something like Ax or any non-flush/air hand. the guys who pot twice are more likely the bluffing types whereas the guys whose bet sizes increase tend to be stronger in these spots or are simply revealing they improved when their bet sizing increases.

so, i'd probably fold

the guys who pot twice are more likely the bluffing types whereas the guys whose bet sizes increase tend to be stronger in these spots or are simply revealing they improved when their bet sizing increases.

so, i'd probably fold

It's so true. I'd fold too.

Dont you have to bet the flop here donk bet the flop 3/4 pot? This board hits your percieved range and missed his set mine range. I assume at NL600 villain open raises a suited Ax type hand. I think you win often otf.

Dont you have to bet the flop here donk bet the flop 3/4 pot? This board hits your percieved range and missed his set mine range. I assume at NL600 villain open raises a suited Ax type hand. I think you win often otf.

why do we want to bet the flop?

you shouldn't make range inferences based on the limit when the two most significant things in determining the player type and basic range are: open limp button and 75bb stack

Giving up is fine vs. a passive calling station whose range consists very heavily of Ax or clubs.

@Terp, I agree that having a difficult decisions doesn't make it any more or less a fold, but given he knows exactly what we have and we have absolutely no idea what he has from our individual lines respectively, there's just no point in taking a stand here IMO.

The only reason we even called the turn was because we turned the second nut flush and have marginal showdown value in case he gives up on a bluff, no reason to turn into a station on the river.

why do we want to bet the flop?

you shouldn't make range inferences based on the limit when the two most significant things in determining the player type and basic range are: open limp button and 75bb stack

I am having a hard time constructing his pf range here. Its 3 handed, villain is not full stacked, he limped called the btn. So is he a bad tricky player doing this with AA KK and trapping. Or not so good player and is trying to hit a set, flop a flush or strait. He looks to be weak passive to me. I would just put the bet in otf and see how he responds to that and re evaluate if called or raised. But I am sure you are going to tell me how lame that would be.

Giving up is fine vs. a passive calling station whose range consists very heavily of Ax or clubs.

@Terp, I agree that having a difficult decisions doesn't make it any more or less a fold, but given he knows exactly what we have and we have absolutely no idea what he has from our individual lines respectively, there's just no point in taking a stand here IMO.

The only reason we even called the turn was because we turned the second nut flush and have marginal showdown value in case he gives up on a bluff, no reason to turn into a station on the river.

when you say 'there's just no point' you're still falling into the same track of thinking. reframe the question in terms of EV, in terms of pokerspeak: is it +ev to call here? in other words, does he bluff enough that we should call?

on the river, there is not a reason or no reason to call, there is only EV.

your argument that our hand is face up should only be used to justify a fold if you think he will valuebet more often but not bluff more often (swinging it more clearly to a fold). in reality, i think this argument here goes the other way. a limp/calling fish will have all kinds of stuff like Q7 here and not a million potential thin valuebets. it will encourage him to bluff, which should encourage a call.

all that said, i still think my reads on sizing would persuade me that he is not bluffing enough here to call.

I am having a hard time constructing his pf range here. Its 3 handed, villain is not full stacked, he limped called the btn. So is he a bad tricky player doing this with AA KK and trapping. Or not so good player and is trying to hit a set, flop a flush or strait. He looks to be weak passive to me. I would just put the bet in otf and see how he responds to that and re evaluate if called or raised. But I am sure you are going to tell me how lame that would be.

haha, i will make a point to bring 'lame' back.

you're right that we cannot get a great handle on his range. i know in moments like this, when i was not yet a practiced handreader, i would look at the board and name the obvious hands. this wasn't a very accurate handreading method because it ends up arbitrarily overweighting the random combos i happened to name.

we do have some info, but it's just not very precise yet. ask yourself: is it more likely he is being extremely tricky with AA/KK/AK (total: 15 combos) or that he is predictably limp/calling really weak holdings like T8o/J6s/etc? the difficulties with this kind of handreading are that we get no clues on the width of the second range and that we have no idea how to weight them yet. in practice, i would guess that a fish's range is <1% AK+ here on the flop, but i'm not sure how comfortable i'd have been making that claim six years ago.

as far as betting to win the pot, why? pretty classic "if he folds you had the best hand." and, if he calls, you neither won the pot nor knew your handstrength and you probably are losing the pot! let him bluff.

Targeting multiple levels of one persons range? I read about this in an article that is not lame.