Play a Hand With the Masters #1 Turn

[HoldingFolding]

Caveat: I have no experience of high buy-in B&M tourneys, so I'm looking at this as a high buy-in PP MTT.

Let's review CO's actions. A tight player limps from the CO, to me that means small PP, hoping to flop a set, perhaps suited connectors looking for a cheap flop. He calls the raise which again leans me towards the small PP.

He checks the flop. Would he do this with the T9 out there? He's got to assume either one or both his opponents are holding overcards. However, he may also believe that the preflop aggressor will likely bet into this flop thus giving him the opportunity to check raise. This plan goes amiss when our hero checks. Now the scarey queen arrives and he realises he has to make a move. I don't think he'd do this with a smaller pair that hadn't hit or, say, 98. Nicely weighted bet too.

In other words, despite not betting the flop I think he has a made hand. 33/T9 or possibly JT (99 would raise pre flop). His range for us includes only draws and overpairs the only ones he needs to worry about being QQ, TT & possibly 99. I think if we raise he'll reraise us all in, I also think he'd call our all in bet.

I call, hoping for a scarey card on the river, with which to dislodge him, but if a blank comes, I'll be content to play on with 9,000+ chips.

The problem is MJ; I haven't got a clue what he's got [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] and if he comes over the top, I'm pretty certain I can't call, especially given his solid poker playing profile.

[NoahSD]

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Best card in the deck (or worst) I'd raise to 5000.

a) it looks like you had a set, or maybe KJs, so you have FE.
b) you now got lots of outs for the river, assuming he actually calls you.

If he or MJ pushes, i'd call getting 2.5:1.


edit: if you are 35% to win if your bet is called, then your raise has to take it down only 25% of the time to be profitable.

Not sure if that'll happen, but i think your FE is bigger now than it was on the flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're gonna bet half your stack here? Why not push?

[Exitonly]

I think pushing here looks wierd, and i know you're commited to call a push, but i think i like giving him the opportunit to just call, and then if we brick on the river we dont have to lose the rest, though we could try a bluff on the river, but i dont think i would.

[NoahSD]

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I wouldn't call because the pot it's currently laying me only 2.5-1. With implied odds, I think this call is barely justifiable.

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Please do the math before saying things that can be calculated easily. You have 12 outs to the nuts on the river. You know 6 cards, so there are 34 bad cards and 12 good cards--so you're a 2.83:1 dog. Considering that a K gives many other reasonable hands a good second-best hand, you've probably got implied odds just from that. Factor in that your A and your 8 are pretty likely good, and call.

[Iconoclastic]

I'm happy to see that the original Hero took the same line I would have preflop and on the Flop...anyways

My original range for CO was [JJ-22,A2s+,K9s+,QTs+,JTs,T9s,98s,87s,76s,65s,AQo-A3o,KTo+,QJo,JTo]

After checking the F and betting the T his range has been narrowed to [TT-99, 33, A3s, A9s, ATs, AQs, AJs, AKs, K9s+, QTs+, JTs, T9s, A3o, A9o, ATo, AQo, AJo, AKo, KTo+, QJo, JTo]. He will call/raise a reraise with 20% of that range [TT, 99, KJo/s, T9, 33]) , so equity wise assuming I reraise the pot and MJ is folding:

CO: Fold= +3450 (80% of the time)
Calls/Pushes= -5000 (20% of the time)
Simplified EV= +1760 (very good compared to the nearly neutral EV play of calling) Of course, MJ is far from certainly folding. Now let's deal with MJ...

My original range for MJ was [22+,A2s+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,T9s,98s,87s,76s,65s,54s,AQo +]. After checking the Flop and Turn it has been narrowed to everything except [TT,99,33,T9s,KJo/s]. There's a 10% chance he's utilizing game theory and playing his set/twopair/straight too passively.

If you call there's a chance MJ will take it for weakness and raise as a bluff. But if you reraise the Turn it will be very hard for him to do that and he will probably fold 90% of the time.

Conclusion: Raise to 5000. This is heavily predicated on the Hero's read that CO is Tight which means he will fold a high enough percentage of hands to make a raise the best EV. And there's no reason to call a Push either because you have around 11.5 outs (a few outs are counterfeit when an opponent has a good enough hand to Push) so that's about 25% and after a pot reraise a Push would require you to call 5900 into a pot of 23750 which is about 25%. Being that having 5900 chips with blinds at 100-200 is perfectly comfortable, that neutral EV play should be avoided.

BTW Lloyd: who are the experts and when are they going to chime in? They're already a few streets late

[NoahSD]

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I just don't think we're getting paid off too much if we hit our flush or straight.

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That's why we raise now.

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This is faulty logic.

[NoahSD]

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Do you really think that the CO is going to check/fold his KJ when the 2 falls on the river?

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I think he would fold it to a reasonable value bet. While you may get him to call a half a pot size bet, he isn't giving you too much.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well that's enough to make the call correct.

[kuro]

I'm just curious about what Sossman's image is like here.

I'm not likely to raise KJ here preflop or to slow play a set or an overpair against multiple callers on an even semi-coordinated board so it's hard for me to imagine that someone would believe me if I were to suddenly semi-bluff the turn here. Would it be consistent at all with his play for him to have a set or the straight here? Would CO have seen enough of his play to know if it's consistent or inconsistent?

[Xhad]

MJ probably doesn't have a hand, as he would have bet by now with this draw-heavy board.

CO probably DOES have a hand, because the Qc is a terrible card to bluff into. We raised preflop, then didn't bet the flop shorthanded. The most logical hands to play that way are overcards, meaning:

AK - overcards and gutshot draw
KQ - top pair, gutshot
KJ - made straight
AJ - OESD
QJ - top pair, OESD

The card putting a flush draw on board after it was checked around is also troublesome for a bluff. Assuming CO is a good enough player to realize all of this, of course.

With all that in mind, seems like a semi-bluff won't work, and the only river that's troublesome to play is an A; we bet/raise if one of our nut draws gets there, and I don't think we should feel at all bad about folding if a J hits. Seems to be a call.

[mayesie]

I'm raising the turn to 5000 for the following reasons:

- Number of outs: I have a tremendous number of outs (at least 15, at most 21). If the CO re-raises me all-in, the pot will be 17850, easily giving me the right price to call.

- My hand: Although I have alot of outs, I'm still drawing. I overbet the pot a little, hoping that the CO will fold. At this point, I'm really not worried about the small blind, who has checked twice.


I put the CO on the following holdings:

1) A pair of tens w/ top or decent kicker

2) A pair of nines w/ a straight or flush draw

3) Two-Pair (Queens & Tens, or Tens & Nines)

4) A set of threes


If he has anything in groups 1 or 2, my raise will probably make him fold. If he has anything in groups 3 or 4, he'll most likely put me all-in. By virtue of hand combinations, It's more likely he has a group 1 or 2 hand than a group 3 or 4 hand.