NL25: Flopped combo draw

[NIX]

Table is 6max, but two bad players left and then two others followed, leaving me heads up. Villain played 1 hand out of about 20 when the table was full, but has turned up the aggression now that it's heads up. We have played another 15 hands or so. I open raised from the button one time and took it down. Every other hand has been me open-folding, him open-raising and me folding, or him 3-betting me preflop and me folding. I haven't had a playable hand yet.

In retrospect, I'm not sure if calling his 3-bet is a good idea since we're not deep, although with him pushing me around so much, I think I can stack him with a decent flop. Still a bad idea?

Since I did call the 3-bet, is this an ok spot for a flop push? I haven't really done this before, and it's an overbet, but I figure I have FE against a lot of non-Ax hands and have 12 outs I'm pretty happy with. I thought about raising smaller, but a pot raise is like 2/3 of my stack.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (2 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

Hero ($24.50)
BB ($24.90)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
<font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to $0.85</font>, <font color="#CC3333">BB raises to $2.5</font>, Hero calls $1.50.

Flop: ($4.85) J[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">BB bets $3.25</font>, Hero???

[Sykes]

raise to $10.

[WarhammerIIC]

It depends on whether or not you think this guy is a good player. If you do think he's good, you should NOT push, because good players will easily see through this as a semi-bluff. You're not going to fold, so I wouldn't see a problem with raising to something like $12, which basically tells him you're going all in. This would be interpreted as more strength than pushing. You obviously call if he pushes.

If it's a bad player, then it doesn't really matter what you do, although a push is more likely to look like a big hand to them.

[SimonAllan]

I quite like a call here, unless you think he will keep firing without an ace. If he has an ace or a set you need to hit to win, and anything else he probably plans to c/f the turn. Also he'll be expecting you to play back soon and may well call lighter than normal if you shove/ put in a big raise. If you decide he won't give up on the pot if you just call the flop, then I would raise, and make it enough to commit yourself. I don't think it matters much whether it you shove or make it 12-15 to go - if villain is good wh will treat them as being similar as you aren't folding in either case. If you do shove, you should also be shoving sets here.

[Surf]

Hey NIX,

[ QUOTE ]
In retrospect, I'm not sure if calling his 3-bet is a good idea since we're not deep, although with him pushing me around so much, I think I can stack him with a decent flop. Still a bad idea?

[/ QUOTE ]

Calling is okay given that you are 100BB deep, but you will have to pull some shenanigans postflop as an adjustment to his wider pf 3betting range.
The latter part of the above (i think i can stack him with a decent flop) is incorrect. Because he's 3betting so much cheese it is somewhat rare for him to have a hand worth stacking off with postflop.

To adjust to this we do NOT want to play fit-or-fold, we want to be very aggressive on the flop. I'd raise any OESD, any FD, and a bunch of gutshots/backdoors in spots where he likely doesn't have anything, say a 356 flop, or T65, etc.

Playing fit-or-fold lets him buy the pot every time except when you hit something strong enough to proceed. Because we understand his range is wide we need to put pressure on him to show up with a hand in a wide variety of situations on a wide variety of flops.

As played it is imperative that we put a raise in or take some aggressive action. I'd play it however you would play a set / AJ / etc, which probably means raise to 12ish + shove turn.[as another poster mentioned if the player is bad / unobservant you can just shove the flop and save yourself the trouble.]

Surf

[KingOtter]

I like the raise to $10-12 options... this give you the chance to check-through a blank turn to get another card, and maybe get away half-price if you make it to the river and miss.... yet builds a pot just in case you do hit you can push with minimal FE.

I don't think a push on the flop has enough fold-equity to make it a decent play. You're just over 40% to win (PokerStove vs. top 5% of hands), so you'd need about 10% fold-equity here... I don't think he's folding much if he 3-bet. The push is hoping for TT/QQ/KK essentially.. I'm not going to combo it all out but I don't think those make up 10%.

[Surf]

[ QUOTE ]

I don't think a push on the flop has enough fold-equity to make it a decent play. You're just over 40% to win (PokerStove vs. top 5% of hands), so you'd need about 10% fold-equity here... I don't think he's folding much if he 3-bet. The push is hoping for TT/QQ/KK essentially.. I'm not going to combo it all out but I don't think those make up 10%.

[/ QUOTE ]

Villain has a wayyy wider range than the top 5% of hands. He's been reraising hero nearly every other hand, so much of his range is stuff like 86s, 34s, J9o, 55, etc. He's folding to a push much more than 10%(maybe 50 or 60?) just because mathematically he doesn't have a pair of Js or better often enough.

Surf

[Buzz-cp]

[ QUOTE ]
Hey NIX,

[ QUOTE ]
In retrospect, I'm not sure if calling his 3-bet is a good idea since we're not deep, although with him pushing me around so much, I think I can stack him with a decent flop. Still a bad idea?

[/ QUOTE ]

Calling is okay given that you are 100BB deep, but you will have to pull some shenanigans postflop as an adjustment to his wider pf 3betting range.
The latter part of the above (i think i can stack him with a decent flop) is incorrect. Because he's 3betting so much cheese it is somewhat rare for him to have a hand worth stacking off with postflop.

To adjust to this we do NOT want to play fit-or-fold, we want to be very aggressive on the flop. I'd raise any OESD, any FD, and a bunch of gutshots/backdoors in spots where he likely doesn't have anything, say a 356 flop, or T65, etc.

Playing fit-or-fold lets him buy the pot every time except when you hit something strong enough to proceed. Because we understand his range is wide we need to put pressure on him to show up with a hand in a wide variety of situations on a wide variety of flops.

As played it is imperative that we put a raise in or take some aggressive action. I'd play it however you would play a set / AJ / etc, which probably means raise to 12ish + shove turn.[as another poster mentioned if the player is bad / unobservant you can just shove the flop and save yourself the trouble.]

Surf

[/ QUOTE ]

wow i have been struggling with this very thing. thanks!

[NIX]

Surf,

Thanks for the reply. My thinking was that with him successfully pushing me around so far, if I could flop two pair or trips or something, I'd expect him to put a lot of money in trying to get me to fold. But with it being more likely that I'm going to flop a draw, I'll probably need to push back against his wide range. I definitely get what you're saying.

On a related note, if I do get flat called on the flop, pushing the turn seems fine to me with the pot being almost triple my remaining stack. In other spots though, especially when I have more behind, how common is it to bet again on the turn after raising the flop?

For example, say we're still 100BB deep and he raises to 3 PF and I call with 98s again. Same flop and he pots it for 6BB and I raise the pot to around 24BB and he calls. Now the pot is 54BB and I have 73BB left. I realize it would be opponent dependent, but It seems like a lot of my opponents are either pretty loose with WtSD's around 40-45% or some sort of TAG who only goes to showdown 25% or so, but have fold to flop bets stats around 75%+. So it has me thinking that I won't fold the loose passives and the TAG probably has something because he called the raise. I want to check behind on the turn, but it seems to me that I'm just asking to be outplayed.

I figure I can check behind on the turn with a bunch of made hands to balance checking behind with draws, but is this just too passive in general? And if so, does betting a lot of made hands like one pair balance out the times I would bet the turn with a draw?

Thanks.