20/40 - How'd I play K4s?

[Howard Beale]

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Can we not put BB on a jack some of the time, or is top pair the only hand we can give BB credit for? If BB check raised the flop with say JT, how is his play?




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I am wondering this too, seems standard to check/raise JT here if noone has shown any strength and the button bets, not that live players necessarily have the guts to do so. Hopefully someone else will chime in as I don't have much live experience.

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Would a player with JT call a turn raise? I don't think so, in which case the raise has very little value when you're ahead.

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I'm not wondering about raising the turn, I'm wondering about Howard's comments about folding the turn and river UI.

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I think a Jack would almost certainly check/call the river if called on the turn.

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In the CAZ 20 game if you get c/r'd on the flop it is usually because you are behind, or facing a big draw. Most of the players are weak/passive. OP said he doesn't have experience vs. this player. So what could BB have?

1. A better King
2. Flopped 2 pair
3. Mid-pocket pair
4. J-something
5. I don't know...take a guess.

Whatever BB has he didn't bet into the field which means he is either not very pleased w/ his hand, feels comfortable taking the chance to give a free card because he flopped good, or is hoping for the chance to c/r with a decent King. Since it got checked around to the button who bet we can think that sometimes BB has a Jack or that pocket pair that he thinks is good. But he also bet the turn after his c/r was called. What is the likelihood that that is a Jack or pocket pair once his raise was called?

So it turned out that BB folded to OP's turn raise. We still don't know why. He may have folded the best hand because of the raise, we don't know.

My comments were addressed primarily to the way that game generally plays and to the OP who has said he's been losing regularly in it and I don't like the way he played that hand. Just because we have top pair doesn't mean we've got to pay-off with it since our opponents are all a 'bunch of imbeciles'. They are NOT all a 'bunch of imbeciles' all of the time and, as they say, there is no shame in folding.

[that_pope]

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Just because we have top pair doesn't mean we've got to pay-off with it since our opponents are all a 'bunch of imbeciles'. They are NOT all a 'bunch of imbeciles' all of the time and, as they say, there is no shame in folding.

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Very good point, since I have been known to sit in the game, and have never been called a fizzle.

[arh1]

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Then you had the best hand. This is always the case when someone says the ol' "I'll let you have it" line. If you had just called down, you'd make an extra BB from his bluff.

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Ok, I can see your point. But in order for this to be true, you are committed to calling the river UI, and you are counting on him betting the river. If he checks, are you betting or checking behind?

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This is yet another reason the turn raise is bad. Not only do you have flush outs when you're behind, meaning you have to call a 3-bet, but when you're ahead, you lose the opportunity to get him to fire again on the river when he folds to your turn raise.

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Sure, you lose the opportunity for him to fire again when you're ahead, but at the same time you lose the opportunity for him call your raise.

I don't know, is this a complicated math problem?

[Howard Beale]

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Then you had the best hand. This is always the case when someone says the ol' "I'll let you have it" line. If you had just called down, you'd make an extra BB from his bluff.

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Ok, I can see your point. But in order for this to be true, you are committed to calling the river UI, and you are counting on him betting the river. If he checks, are you betting or checking behind?

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This is yet another reason the turn raise is bad. Not only do you have flush outs when you're behind, meaning you have to call a 3-bet, but when you're ahead, you lose the opportunity to get him to fire again on the river when he folds to your turn raise.

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Sure, you lose the opportunity for him to fire again when you're ahead, but at the same time you lose the opportunity for him call your raise.

I don't know, is this a complicated math problem?

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Math, schmath! It's a playing problem. Do you have the best hand? Will BB 'behave' and not 3-bet you so that your turn raise is the same as calling turn and river UI w/ your kings? Will he check the river? Can you make BB lay down a better hand? You've got to know your man, know the situation, got to have some card sense, a feel for the game to 'know' these things and then you still don't know them.

So I don't like the turn raise. That's just my opinion. As you can see others disagree and that's what makes this forum the best learning tool for LHE there is. Incorporate everything you've read here into your thinking next time something like this comes up.

[arh1]

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But he also bet the turn after his c/r was called. What is the likelihood that that is a Jack or pocket pair once his raise was called?

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I would think just as likely as it was on the flop. Checking the turn seems like a strange line to me. How often do people c/r the flop heads up and not bet the turn?

[arh1]

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... and to the OP who has said he's been losing temporarily in it

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FYP

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Math, schmath! It's a playing problem. Do you have the best hand? Will BB 'behave' and not 3-bet you so that your turn raise is the same as calling turn and river UI w/ your kings? Will he check the river? Can you make BB lay down a better hand? You've got to know your man, know the situation, got to have some card sense, a feel for the game to 'know' these things and then you still don't know them.

So I don't like the turn raise. That's just my opinion. As you can see others disagree and that's what makes this forum the best learning tool for LHE there is. Incorporate everything you've read here into your thinking next time something like this comes up.

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word

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[n.s.]

I think that calling the turn and folding the river UI is crazy, unless CAZ really is a different beast than any other game I've played in. I think the bigger of a hand that BB has, the more likely he'd be to just bet the flop, since the lots of limping hands could have straight draws here. The flop c/r looks to me like a made mediocre hand that BB is protecting by raising what looks like a steal bet from the button.

I think the turn raise is pretty much a wash. I doubt we are getting 3-bet very often at all (again, I think BB would have bet the flop with a big hand) so we usually lose the same when behind. The drawback is mostly blowing BB off of a J or lower PP. It'd also be nice to showdown our K4s, because it could do good things for our table image [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[private joker]

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If he checks, are you betting or checking behind?


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Depends on exactly what the river is, but if it's a total brick, like a black 2, then I think it's a pretty easy value bet.

[The DaveR]

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In the CAZ 20 game if you get c/r'd on the flop it is usually because you are behind, or facing a big draw. Most of the players are weak/passive. OP said he doesn't have experience vs. this player.

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So what could BB have?

1. A better King
2. Flopped 2 pair
3. Mid-pocket pair
4. J-something
5. I don't know...take a guess.

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Make up your mind and assign probabilities.

[AragornX151]

I completely disagree with the majority here; I think this is not just fine, but optimal, unless the CAZ game and the player in question are completely maniacal. I'm leaving out preflop, which is slightly too loose for my tastes, but not terrible.

Once you're check-raised on the flop, it might be best to fold the turn if you don't pick up the flush draw. Once you do, though, you obviously can't fold to the turn bet and, since everyone has acknowledged here that a jack is at least possible, if unlikely (also note that many cards can come that will make your K4 split with almost every king that he's likely to have, so your situation isn't as dire as it seems), you're going to pay off the river for one bet. So it's going to cost you two bets regardless.

Since you now have the flush draw, you're gonna hit an essential lock almost 20% of the time. Because of that, your turn raise allows you to pick up an extra bet when you DO hit your flush. Are you going to be 3-bet >15% of the time (rough math, but seems about right, because almost 20% of the time when you do get 3-bet, you'll hit your flush and win anyway. Make it 17% or so since the board pairing flush cards often won't be clean in that instance)? IMO, the answer is almost always no in live games. You get 3-bet here by a set of 6's. Even KJ will almost always just call in a live game, though he might pop it again here with it. KK is basically out of the question, JJ is very unlikely but not impossible. 77 makes no sense. Smaller 2pairs like J6 are almost always just calling the raise.

If you miss your flush, you can then either check it back on the river (my choice), losing the same # of bets if you're no good, or value bet if you think he has a weird jack or something, unlikely if he called your turn raise. If you hit, you get an extra bet, something I think will happen more than the frequency of getting 3-bet. And on top of that, there's always the chance he'll fold a hand like KT or J9, hands that are either ahead or getting almost the right odds to call, which is great for you.

All in all, I think a raise is clearly the best move on the turn, OP. nh.