Sweet river card

Kayber2 · #1 12-06-2006, 02:14 PM

$100/200 6 handed game on Stars. Villain is good but not as aggressive as most in this game and calls the river with A high a little too often IMHO.

I open UTG w/ KJo and get 3 bet right behind. KQ8 flop with 2 spades I checkraise he calls. Turn is a 7 and puts a heart flush draw out there as well. I bet and he calls.

River is the ace of spades. What should i do?

poker1O1 · #2 12-06-2006, 02:53 PM

c/f, not a whole lot we're ahead of at this point

worm33 · #3 12-06-2006, 05:38 PM

Tough spot. I think check calling is the best play. I think your hand is still best unless he has a softly played AQ. The other parlay for your hand not being good is a 3 bet with AJ or A10 and him not 3 betting the flop with a gutterball and an overcard in posistion. I think he has a pair JJ or lower and wont call with the A spades coming and might try to bluff at that card. Tough spot though I can see an argument for betting too.

Bill King · #4 12-06-2006, 07:03 PM

i was gonna say bet/fold but i suppose thats probably pointless.. it does make you pretty exploitable if you c/f to this river a lot though.

sweetjazz · #5 12-06-2006, 11:14 PM

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i was gonna say bet/fold but i suppose thats probably pointless.. it does make you pretty exploitable if you c/f to this river a lot though.

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Not really. Theoretically your opponent can chase some weak draws that he is not quite getting odds for in order to take advantage of his "bluff equity" on scare cards. But it's pretty hard for him to catch on with what you are doing, while it will be pretty easy to catch on to what he is doing and exploit him if he attempts to make these kind of plays more frequently than very rarely.

siegfriedandroy · #6 12-07-2006, 10:58 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Tough spot. I think check calling is the best play. I think your hand is still best unless he has a softly played AQ. The other parlay for your hand not being good is a 3 bet with AJ or A10 and him not 3 betting the flop with a gutterball and an overcard in posistion. I think he has a pair JJ or lower and wont call with the A spades coming and might try to bluff at that card. Tough spot though I can see an argument for betting too.

[/ QUOTE ]

good response. curious about your comment on 3betting flop w/ aj or a10 here- would most of you guys normally play it this way if villain? if so, then what determines whether or not you fire turn?

as for the actual hand, i think check/calling is clearly better than betting. what arguments do you see, worm, for betting? is (decent) villain really calling here ever once draw comes in along w/ the k q and ace on board after this action? betting here seems pretty bad to me. i think check/fold would be substantially better than betting here, and is perhaps even best if villain will almost never bet a hand worse than yours here. what do you think?

Kayber2 · #7 12-07-2006, 01:28 PM

Mike (Worm33) and I had a quick chat about this hand and we believe that it's really dependent on whether it's more likely that the villain will bluff bet a smaller pair here (99 etc) or call with it.

If it's more likely villain will bluff then we should check/call. If more likely to call then we should bet.

After we talked about it I thought some more and now I think that's half of the answer. I think the other part to think about is how often villain has AQ, AT or AJ here which would make check/folding correct.

My first thought is that check/fold is right because he should have the broadway type hands more often but now I'm not sure since he's calling down with say AK on J98xx boards when I CR and bet all streets. (Granted in that example I'm in a blind defense situation so there's an extra dynamic).

Anyhow I bet he called and had AT MHNG. With about 8 bets in the pot I think it's close.

As for me I'm not 3 betting the flop here. Just never seems to work for me.

biendover · #8 12-07-2006, 03:30 PM

I don't play that high but I wouldn't check fold this hand. However it depends on the player. With this player and your description, I can safely bet/fold this. (you noted he wasn't that aggressive).

I will also check/call if player has bluff-scare card potential or is likely to bet a worse hand.

But its close between bet/fold => check/call > check/fold.