Dodging bullets?
 

Very soft 2/4 game - site has no hand history so I apologize. BB is the closest to a decent player - pretty standard TAG. MP1 is hopeless.

Hero is Button with KdQd.

MP3 posts blind. Folds to MP1 who calls. MP3 checks. Folds to hero who raises. SB folds. BB 3-bets. MP1 cold calls, hero calls.

Flop (3 players, 10.5 SB): Qc Ad 3d

BB bets, MP1 calls, hero raises, BB 3-bets, MP1 calls, hero caps, BB calls, MP1 calls.

Turn (3 players, 11.25 BB): Qs

BB checks, MP1 checks, hero bets, BB raises, MP1 folds, hero...??

Am I seeing monsters or is this AA or AQ 100% of the time?

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

I call down from here, even if flush hits on the river.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

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Am I seeing monsters or is this AA or AQ 100% of the time?

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It will be fairly often, but not enough to fold. Calling down is still a good idea. I don't again raise unless the case queen hits the river.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

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I call down from here, even if flush hits on the river.

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nh. Seems reasonable to me. just dont make a big laydown.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

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Am I seeing monsters or is this AA or AQ 100% of the time?

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It will be fairly often, but not enough to fold. Calling down is still a good idea. I don't again raise unless the case queen hits the river.

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hmmmmm...I mean, I understand that the pot is huge at this point and hence it would take a beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt read to lay this down, but on the other hand I just cannot think of any other hands that I could put villain on at this juncture. Any suggestions?

BTW - perhaps "standard TAG" isn't even a good description of villain - he is of the common breed of players at this level that play conventional/solid preflop and will bet the flop for exploratory purposes but usually won't raise the turn unless they really have the goods. Plus, the checkraise here screams someone who cleverly assumed that someone made trip queens and was waiting to punish them.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

I think we can just call down from here. I think villan will show us AA or AQ pretty often, but we definetly can't fold.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

[ QUOTE ]
BTW - perhaps "standard TAG" isn't even a good description of villain - he is of the common breed of players at this level that play conventional/solid preflop and will bet the flop for exploratory purposes but usually won't raise the turn unless they really have the goods. Plus, the checkraise here screams someone who cleverly assumed that someone made trip queens and was waiting to punish them.

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NH sir. I will be watching your future posts, and hopefully others will
as well. You clearly understand this level of play.

-ZEN

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Very soft 2/4 game - site has no hand history so I apologize. BB is the closest to a decent player - pretty standard TAG. MP1 is hopeless.

Hero is Button with KdQd.

MP3 posts blind. Folds to MP1 who calls. MP3 checks. Folds to hero who raises. SB folds. BB 3-bets. MP1 cold calls, hero calls.

Flop (3 players, 10.5 SB): Qc Ad 3d

BB bets, MP1 calls, hero raises, BB 3-bets, MP1 calls, hero caps...

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I don't like that.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

i dont like it either. our equity is nothing spectacular after he 3-bets the flop. everyone sees flush draw + pair and thinks the pair adds all this extra equity. well when you're AT BEST adding two outs here (the queens when he has AK), it doesn't make much of a difference because he will outdraw us a ton with AA or QQ.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
BTW - perhaps "standard TAG" isn't even a good description of villain - he is of the common breed of players at this level that play conventional/solid preflop and will bet the flop for exploratory purposes but usually won't raise the turn unless they really have the goods. Plus, the checkraise here screams someone who cleverly assumed that someone made trip queens and was waiting to punish them.

[/ QUOTE ]

NH sir. I will be watching your future posts, and hopefully others will
as well. You clearly understand this level of play.

-ZEN

[/ QUOTE ]

I would like to give a thumbs up to this description as well. A lot of these guys aren't much different than LP fish in terms of postflop play other than they read a couple of kiddie pool books and so they learn to raise light on the flop for information and free cards.

I dunno about this hand though. He did check/3bet a bettor and a raiser OOP so that's a little different than raising some random flop donkbet to his immediate right. The cap is probably still ok because you have position and value but I hope you weren't planning on betting a turn brick. I'm not a fan of the initial flop raise either.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

So, a decent player 3-bets preflop from the BB. Even if he also knows that MP1 is "hopeless", MP3 is an unknown, and it's less likely that he thinks you're stealing, so maybe you expand his holdings to JJ+/AK/AQ. When he 3-bets you on the flop, JJ/KK are gone, imo, and you're behind everything else he could be holding.

But, you have the NFD plus other outs and 2 opponents who look like they're not going anywhere. So, I don't hate the cap on the flop.

When the Q falls on the turn, you just pulled ahead of AK, and QQ disappeared. That's all. That leaves you behind 6 combos of AA/AQ and ahead of 12 combos of AK. So, folding isn't an option.

Call or 3-bet?

You just lost MP1's dead money. You're situation isn't going to change, no matter what falls on the river. But, you look like a 2:1 favorite, here, IF IT'S EQUALLY LIKELY THAT HE'S HOLDING AA/AK/AQ. The question is, "Are the 3 hands equally likely?" and I think the answer is: you don't have a good enough read. So, call the turn raise, call any river, and see what he shows you.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

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i dont like it either. our equity is nothing spectacular after he 3-bets the flop. everyone sees flush draw + pair and thinks the pair adds all this extra equity. well when you're AT BEST adding two outs here (the queens when he has AK), it doesn't make much of a difference because he will outdraw us a ton with AA or QQ.

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I third that motion - haha...I was wondering if someone would say something about the flop cap. I didn't like it after I did it, for the reasons that you outlined. Product of multitabling (actually, multi-siting, lol) - I probably didn't take the time to really assess the situation until after the fact. I was in that "pair+flush draw" auto-pilot that you're talking about.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

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I would like to give a thumbs up to this description as well. A lot of these guys aren't much different than LP fish in terms of postflop play other than they read a couple of kiddie pool books and so they learn to raise light on the flop for information and free cards.

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Thanks to you and Zen - I appreciate it.


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The cap is probably still ok because you have position and value but I hope you weren't planning on betting a turn brick. I'm not a fan of the initial flop raise either.

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Can you explain why the flop raise has not earned your fandom? I'm not saying I disagree, I just would like to know.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

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So, a decent player 3-bets preflop from the BB. Even if he also knows that MP1 is "hopeless", MP3 is an unknown, and it's less likely that he thinks you're stealing, so maybe you expand his holdings to JJ+/AK/AQ. When he 3-bets you on the flop, JJ/KK are gone, imo, and you're behind everything else he could be holding.

But, you have the NFD plus other outs and 2 opponents who look like they're not going anywhere. So, I don't hate the cap on the flop.

When the Q falls on the turn, you just pulled ahead of AK, and QQ disappeared. That's all. That leaves you behind 6 combos of AA/AQ and ahead of 12 combos of AK. So, folding isn't an option.

Call or 3-bet?

You just lost MP1's dead money. You're situation isn't going to change, no matter what falls on the river. But, you look like a 2:1 favorite, here, IF IT'S EQUALLY LIKELY THAT HE'S HOLDING AA/AK/AQ. The question is, "Are the 3 hands equally likely?" and I think the answer is: you don't have a good enough read. So, call the turn raise, call any river, and see what he shows you.

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Very nice analysis - I don't do those "X combos of this hand" type analyses enough - and I'm glad to see my "range of hands" question answered so well.

You'd really consider a 3-bet though? Wow - no wonder my aggression numbers are lower than some of y'all fools!

Here's the thing though - even though there are certainly more combos of AK than AA/AQ, I just can't for the life of me imagine someone playing AK like this in a 2/4 online game that plays like a 2/4 B&M game (you all know what that means). Given my read on villain and the game in general, I just saw no way he had AK.

I guess that's kinda the struggle that I'm having - trying to weigh the "don't fold when the pot is huge" school of thought against the ability to read hands and logically deduce when I am obviously beaten.

I know you all hate posting results and such, but I'm sure the subject line can clue you in to what I did and what villain decided to show. Is it absolutely horrible?

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

Were you hoping BB would fold KK? That's the only postive I can find out of it.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

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Were you hoping BB would fold KK? That's the only postive I can find out of it.

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No, but wouldn't the same logic that makes you say that the flop cap is OK be the reason for the initial flop raise?

In fact, I would think that the raise would make more sense than the cap, or maybe I'm really missing something.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

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You'd really consider a 3-bet though?

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Uh, having ruled out folding, what's left? Calling and raising. I didn't suggest it, just going through the thought process.

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I know you all hate posting results and such, but I'm sure the subject line can clue you in to what I did and what villain decided to show. Is it absolutely horrible?

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So you folded and he showed you his AA? Interesting...the first response I wrote to your OP was, "Has anybody introduced you to my friend BBV?", but then I remembered that everybody's gotten all sensitive and I'm not allowed to beat people up anymore so I erased that and wrote something else. I guess that wouldn't have been too far off.

But, seriously, getting 15:2 to showdown, given your read, it's not "horrible". It's not a laydown most people are going to be able to make in the heat of the moment, and I think making it a) routinely, b) against an unknown or c) because you assume that he has AA/AQ (without running through the analysis, even quickly, that I did) is bad. You're going to see AK a lot, here, as even good players aren't going to be able/willing to put you on a queen.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

Heh, this was so interesting to me that I put aside my normal "answer-firstness" and read the whole thread. Terribly naughty of me. So sorry. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] With that taint in mind...

I wouldn't cap the flop. I got the raise, nice. I'd raise there too. Don't get the cap. I understand how that can happen multi though. I was glad to see you put the reason there, as that really baffled me.

If I were BB, likely I'd play AK the same way. Shoot, did this nearly exactly the same way just the other day. Led out the flop, 3 bet when raised. The other two just called my turn c/r, and I ended up in a 3-way split with the other two AK. What were the odds? Neither had the decency to fold, either. Sheesh.

Anyway, while I was reading the initial post, I wondered where your certainty of it being AA or AQ came from. I 3-bet the turn. If he caps it, I'm just plain calling the river. If he doesn't cap, I'm betting the river if he checks, and calling if he bets.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

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I wouldn't cap the flop. I got the raise, nice. I'd raise there too. Don't get the cap. I understand how that can happen multi though. I was glad to see you put the reason there, as that really baffled me.

If I were BB, likely I'd play AK the same way. Shoot, did this nearly exactly the same way just the other day. Led out the flop, 3 bet when raised. The other two just called my turn c/r, and I ended up in a 3-way split with the other two AK. What were the odds? Neither had the decency to fold, either. Sheesh.

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I think you've got this backwards. You want to be more aggressive when there's an extra opponent putting likely-dead money in (the flop, in this case), but once it's HU and you don't have a strong enough read to "know" that the Villan would be playing hard with the weaker of his possible hands you should be more inclined to call down.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

I think I am seeing your point. I don't have a solid read on either of these guys, as I haven't watched how they play. It looks to me like you're saying that the third guy makes this a value bet because the times you win he pads the pot, making up for the times you lose. Without the third guy, you suspect you will lose this enough that you don't want to put in extra bets. And if you knew this player better you might play differently. Am I understanding this correctly?

As for this one:

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Led out the flop, 3 bet when raised. The other two just called my turn c/r, and I ended up in a 3-way split with the other two AK.


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I had stellar reads on these guys. In that hand, board was a K, not an ace, but we all had TPTK. I had put one of the guys on precisely AK, the other on a big K. I was trying to fold AK so I didn't have to split it. It was a scary turn too, but I knew neither of them had the goods, whereas they obviously had no idea where I was.

First guy: pf would only raise AA-TT, AK, AQ, AJ, or KQ. Even though he was first in. Another by-the-book person, sort of. Would have capped flop with anything better than TPTK, would just call with something like KQ if I'd led the flp after 3-betting pf, and would have folded an underpair, so it was easy to put him on AK.

Second guy would raise with an overpair, just call with a pair, and fold an under on the flop. Would not 3-bet pf, only call, without something like AA, maybe KK. Not sure about the KK actually, but I've accounted for all the Ks on the flop, so it's a moot point. Seeing as he called the first pf raise and I'm the one who 3-bet, I could put him on big pp or big faces, but no AA, prolly not KK. Like the first, though a little more cautious. Putting him on a K was easy 'cause the board was otherwise blank and he would have folded an under.

One did pause for a gazillion years on the river, the slightly more aggressive one--I think I nearly folded him, which was my intention. I didn't want to split it. And I knew the other guy would call even with KQ or KJ, so I'd get paid off. I single table, and I tend to get really good reads, except when I'm posting here while I should be watching my table. Like now [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

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I think I am seeing your point. I don't have a solid read on either of these guys, as I haven't watched how they play. It looks to me like you're saying that the third guy makes this a value bet because the times you win he pads the pot, making up for the times you lose. Without the third guy, you suspect you will lose this enough that you don't want to put in extra bets. And if you knew this player better you might play differently. Am I understanding this correctly?

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Right-o.

Re: Dodging bullets?
 

*Grunch*
PF and Flop is fine, call the turn and check/call the river, pot is too big not to consider the possibility of AK or KK. Once again, probably beat, but you should take one off on the turn, and call the river. Pot is too big to fold.