River Bet: Value Bet, or Big Hairy Donkey Bet?

[RadioMike]

Hi Guys,

I've been 3-tabling a lot of $3-6 on Full Tilt, and it's been going well lately. These hand posts have helped greatly. I had this hand tonight and I'm still not sure if I played it right, especially my bet on the river.

The eventual villian is 20/13/1.26 over 80 hands.

I will read your replies and check in Monday afternoon and see if my reasoning was, um, reasonable.



Full Tilt Poker
Limit Holdem Ring game
Limit: $3/$6
9 players
Converter

Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is CO with :6h :6s
2 folds, MP1 calls, MP2 folds, MP3 calls, Hero calls, 2 folds, 2 folds, BB checks.

Flop: :8h :8d :9h (4.5SB, 4 players)
BB checks, MP1 checks, MP3 bets, Hero raises, BB folds, MP1 calls, MP3 folds.

Turn: :5s (4.75BB, 2 players)
MP1 checks, Hero checks.

River: :qd (4.75BB, 2 players)
MP1 checks, Hero bets, MP1 calls.

Results:
Final pot: 6.75BB

[unterfish]

Ummm... ummm?
This is a bluff/value-bet here, not a free-card play.
If you raise the flop, bet the turn. This is just mandatory IMO.
Is there any reason to check this turn?
(Help me out Xhad. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] )

[Allday Everyday]

I think I would usually fold preflop here. Given your late position, I think there are too few limpers to limp along, and too many limpers to raise and take control...

I think I would fold at the flop. I suppose I prefer the raise to a call.

MP1s call of two bets at the flop looks mighty suspicious. If he doesn't have a draw to a straight or a flush I think he has a much better hand than yours. But unless he limped with 88, 99 or AA, etc, I'm not sure what kind of monster this 20/13 guy could have...

Given MP1s flop play I think he will check-raise the turn a decent portion of the time here. So, I actually think your turn check might be okay. You have outs to a full house and 4 outs to a straight that might be good. Of course, you're giving a free card to what might be a worse holding to yours.

When he checks the river to you, I can't see much reason to bet. Again, I think he either has a much better hand than yours or a broken draw. I think I'd check to take the free SD.

[BigBadBabar]

allday, i think (and play) as though this is always a preflop call like 110 percent of the time. am i way off and missing a huge leak in my game??

[Allday Everyday]

[ QUOTE ]
i think (and play) as though this is always a preflop call like 110 percent of the time. am i way off and missing a huge leak in my game??

[/ QUOTE ]
I think this is quite an interesting one. I think the decision is reasonably close.

What I'm saying is low-middle pocket pairs (55, 66) do well in HU pots or large fields. Here we seem to be stuck between the two extremes.

Personally, if I was going to call PF with a low-middle PP with two limpers to me, I would want to be in an earlier position, and would like the knowledge that my call would usually cause around two or three more callers behind me before we get to the blinds.

In this hand, if I knew the button and the SB would call, I think it would be a much better call. I know one or both of them will call some of the time. But as it stands our call leaves us with around a 4-handed pot - not a small nor large field.

I suppose I should also take the postflop skill of our opponents into account too. If we are a much better player than the others I think the call would be slightly more profitable...

[Alex424]

Allday is spot on.

This is a very common leak which i also have only recently rectified.

[unterfish]

Im calling this pre-flop, too. Every day.

[W. Deranged]

[ QUOTE ]
Allday is spot on.

This is a very common leak which i also have only recently rectified.

[/ QUOTE ]

I completely disagree with this line of reasoning. 66 is a profitable hand given the set up and failing to call would be a material error. You will be the third player in, which means the hand will almost always be 5-handed. When it is only 5-handed, it almost always means you play the hand in position, which adds value. Otherwise, you get calls behind you and increase your set value. Even if the hand gets raised behind me I'm not worried.


Fold? Fold! What are you people thinking?

[W. Deranged]

1. Pre-flop: see above.

2. Flop: I like this play quite a bit. You are using position to extract value from a hand that is likely to be good, against a villain who is more likely than average to be making an aggressive play with a non-made hand. This is the type of play that you need to be capable of making to generate profits at higher levels, when more players are tight. It can be dangerous, as you will often get yourself in a frustrating reverse-implied odds situations, where you hold a weak made hand with little chance of improving against multiple drawing hands. But if you feel that you will get folds from the EP players relatively consistently than this play is excellent.

3. Turn: This is where you go awry. What happened on the turn that makes you no longer want to bet? How could your hand have been good enough to raise on the flop if it's not good enough to follow through with on the turn? You didn't get three-bet on the flop. The turn is an undercard to your 6s. You even picked up a draw which your opponent almost certainly didn't. In other words, your equity could only have gone up!

This is a great example of the importance of inter-street consistency, which I've found to be a very helpful concept in my game. On this hand, it may be right to raise the flop and bet the turn, or to call the flop and check the turn, but it really can't make sense to raise the flop and check the turn. The two plays imply contradictory realities about the hand. So be logical! Bet! Don't get scared on the big streets.

4. River: As played, the river is an excellent value bet. When your opponent checks back to you twice, you are winning very often here, and might just get looked up by A high or a hand like 65 or something given that you have shown weakness on the turn.

Had you bet the turn correctly, the decision is much less clear. The Q hits the JT draw, as well as hands like QT or QJ that may have been leading a "widow" flop. So I may well be inclined to check behind had I bet the turn.

Will

[James.]

i would call the flop and consider a FSD raise on a safe turn, i think. folding preflop is atrocious. it's closer to a raise than a fold for me.