Live hand

[Michael Davis]

Just messing around, don't know how to play NL at all

$2-5 blinds, my stack is $350 and my opponents is about $350-400.

Five limpers to me on the button, I make it $40 with QQ. I get one caller who had limped second UTG+1.

The flop is K44 rainbow. First, WTF am I supposed to do on a flop like that? I had seen this opponent try two bluffs in the last hour so I checked.

The turn was a 5 and put 2 diamonds. My opponent bets $70. What am I to do?

-Michael

[geormiet]

My guess would be your flop check is good, and you should either call the turn planning on folding to a river bet or to just fold the turn outright.

[DeathDonkey]

Folding the turn is baddddd. I hate it most times but this seems like the ideal spot for a minraise (free SD and your hand looks like a monster). Standard would be to call and make a tough decision on the river though.

-DeathDonkey

[geormiet]

thank you, i officially have no clue [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Grunch]

Dont check the flop if you are going to fold the turn. Holy guacamole.

Edit: 2 streets of value is standard in a WA/WB spot like this.

[Mandor_TFL]

For once I think a minraise might be good. Screams KK to your villain. And lets u off cheap on the river unless he has a monster.

[Grunch]

If a minraise gets 1 hand to fold that we want to fold (AA) it will also get more hands to fold that we don't (JJ-55). When we minraise here for the purpose of folding AA, we're bluffing ourselves with what is often the best hand. We're taking the bluff away from our opponent, and we're only getting called by a hand that beats us. So I dont like the minraise.

[Mandor_TFL]

The guy limped from EP though, so a naked King is a big part of his range. He almost never has AA. So if we can get a naked King to fold that is great as well. Plus we keep the naked King from making a bigger river bet.


Villain's hand range is very wide remember, villain could had a 4 here quite easily. So if we call turn and villain fires a big river bet we are beat very often by a King or a 4. By minraising we keep the King from firing an expected river bet of about 100. Plus we fold a lot of weak kings. 4 is not going anywhere, but might check to us on the river and save us tons from the bet of around 150 it would make. Mid pocket pairs might call anyway hoping to make a set so we still make value on them a lot.


Minraising makes our hand easier to play basically. If villain bets river or 3-bets turn we are beat vast majority of the time. If villain folds we win without having to make a tough river call. If villain calls we can go for a river showdown that cost us 70 instead of 100-150.


If we call turn then we either face a river check to us, which we cannot bet. Or a large river bet which we are unsure is a bluff or a King or 4. Calling the turn hoping to get mid pocket pairs to fire out again thereby gaining value is not a sure thing. Mid pocket pairs fear that King, and you call as it appears to them is now an obvious AK or AA. So I do not think they bet on the river often at all.

[DeathDonkey]

Good post Mandor.

-DeathDonkey

[James.]

i think either the freeminraiseshowdown play or Grunch's reasoning could come into play here. it all depends on our opponent.

how extensive were his bluffs? if he's kind of crazy, we show down. sure he'll have a king and a 4 at times, but we need to figure out how to get the most money in when we're ahead.

if he's willing to fire 70 on the turn and 100-150 on the river with air(or close to it) a good portion of the time, our minraise on the turn will actually cost us a chunk of value from his bluffing range and let him off the hook too easily.