I hate blind battles. Fairly deep stacks.

[crankalicious]

I think you have to call and if villain slow played you after that flop, so be it. That's not good play in my book, offering you the free card. I read it as an attempt to steal your blind and then weakness after the flop indicating he missed. I see his raise as putting you on a draw.

[CincyLady]

I have to ask here, why do a lot of people get their underware in a twist if their blinds get raised a lot?

I mean for me, I used to be one of those. That is, until a friend of mine, someone who's a really good player, pointed out that most times, when someone raises your blind, if you don't have a good hand, they actually keep you out of mischef.

I've found his words to be very true, because I can't count the number of times, I in an unraised blind, flopped top pair, with a horrible kicker (with a hand I'd never play otherwise), with someone slow playing a pair (preflop) that tripped out, either cost me a ton of chips, or the tournament.

So, can anyone tell me, why is it that so many get so steamed about getting their blinds raised, when they don't have a hand anyway?

[crankalicious]

I don't get steamed and my response is only relevant for a blind battle because you have position after the flop.

[KneeCo]

1) Effective stacks aren't that deep here, but yea 99 in the BB to a SB open usually plays itself, stacks dictate that it doesn't here.

2) I don't always raise here pf, when I do I make it a little more.

3) Since there's some confusion, let's do the quick math for this from scratch and show our work.

There is 26,367 in the pot after his push.
And it's 11,192 for us to call.

So
11192/(26367+11192) = 0.297984504
We need to be good here 30% of the time for the call to be +EV.

Now the hard part, putting him on a range. Well, all we know is "Villain has been fairly aggro but hasn't overdone it", it's hard with that little read, no buy-in level and no description of our image to put him on a narrow range, but it is a start.

So we ask ourselves?
1) Can he have QQ+ here or is he not raising them that much when folded to his SB/just calling a PF RR with them?
2) Is he (semi) bluffing here with a straight draw or, more likely, FD? It is a blind battle, some people just go nuts and he is "aggro".
3) Is he going broke with any part of that flop even though we RR pf? Again, it's a blind v blind hand, but we did RR pf so can we count on A7 just going crazy here?

These are just some of the questions we should be asking ourselves as we craft a range, and see if we have our required 30% equity to justify a call. And remember, there's nothing wrong with running multiple ranges when unsure to see how you stack up.

Against this range, we should call:
Board: Js 5s 7d
Hand 0: 36.163% 35.05% 01.11% 14922 472.50 { 9c9d }
Hand 1: 63.837% 62.73% 01.11% 26703 472.50 { JJ-77, 55, AJs, AJo, A7o }

But if we remove A7, we should fold:
Board: Js 5s 7d
Hand 0: 25.156% 23.75% 01.40% 7995 472.50 { 9c9d }
Hand 1: 74.844% 73.44% 01.40% 24720 472.50 { JJ-77, 55, AJs, AJo }

If we keep A7 out but add AK hands (with all the red As and Ks dead) as a conservative bluff/FD catcher, it's a call:

Board: Js 5s 7d
Dead: Kd Ad Kh Ah

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 34.728% 33.25% 01.48% 8725 387.50 { 9c9d }
Hand 1: 65.272% 63.80% 01.48% 16740 387.50 { JJ-77, 55, AKs, AJs, AKo, AJo }


Overall I'm leaning strongly toward a call.

[Jerro]

I think part of your problem with this hand is you didn't have a plan...
Preflop I only like a three bet if you are calling a shove...as his range(unless he's an uber nit) will include underpairs and AJ-AK, which obv you do well against...
I prefer a flat call pre just because it keeps the pot smaller and you have pos with a strong but vunerable hand. It also means you keep in the lower part of his range( a lot of players will raise any two the first time it is folded to them in the SB to test the BB...)
Also your bet sizing was bad and that led to complications postflop...your three bet should be larger forcing him either to shove or fold


On the flop once you continuation bet he has the perfect stack to check raise...he has to figure you will have overcards or an underpair a signifcant amount of time and it is a good play..
Because of this I would call(the board is actually good for 99), but you can expect to be behind a fairly large proportion of the time..but the pot is big now and you're getting good odds so call..

[BlueEcho]

Wow.........I shouldn't be doing this at work. I totally f ed that up sorry guys.

Nice work Knee and thanks for setting me straight.






One more WOW for the road.