Marginal Situations

[mikeysong]

Hi all. These are some situations that have been bugging me lately and frankly I don't know if it's better to call down or give the villain benefit of the doubt and fold. I appreciate the time spent just reading this long post. Thanks [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Please think of villain as a pretty solid player who will sometimes bluff but for the most part has won when he's gone to showdown.

Short Handed Limit

There are lots of marginal situations which include betting and calling down middle pair, Ace high, semi-bluffing etc.

In these hands when people take the aggression away from you, is it better to give them the benefit of the doubt or call down? It's easy to say well if he's a maniac call down etc, but we're not always going to have those reads and sometimes people don't stick to one extreme. Every once in awhile I'll see a solid player make an out of the line bluff with nothing, so...

Examples

1)
You hold a8 and raise from the button, bb calls

flop a 6 9 bb check/calls
turn: 4 bb check-raises

We assume that these players for the most part tend not to go out of line, but occasionally we have seen them make a play. If he has an ace, we're only beating a2, a3, a5, and a7 here - so is a fold here good or is it still better to call down with top pair and pay off?

next hand
2)
Button raises, you hold 55 in the bb and 3bet, it's heads up

flop: A 10 8
You bet and button raises

i've seen multiple times where people make this play with a pocket pair or QJ, like to test out their hand to see if you have an ace or not. While we're ahead of them when they're bluffing and can possibly push them off a hand, is it worth it? Or is it better to give up these marginal situations where we're either slightly ahead or behind big time?

3
This one worries me the most. Well we know when its heads up, both people tend to miss the flop a pretty good percentage of the time. keeping this in mind, what's to stop villain from floating the flop, and then check-raising you on the turn? It makes it pretty difficult to call down with A-high or small pocketpair. And if you have a 'feeling' that he is making a play, does 3betting the turn and betting the river get a fold? I would think against a smart Lag this would be a big costly error, so is calling down really the only thing u can do?

It becomes so exploitable. You 3bet and he figures you have a good hand, so he folds that one time but continues it. If you 3bet too often, he'll call you down and expose YOUR bluff.

sorry for such a long post

[seitz88]

1. I usually call down
2. Really hard to continue, because even if you are ahead, he has many outs.

3. HU play is very volatile. Depending on the opponent, you may have to call down with A high (or worse), just to keep him honest.

[mikeysong]

1 - why? We're really not beating very many hands here
2 - so even if we had an edge preflop, everytime 3 overcards come we pretty much have to give it up if he shows any resistance?
3 - this is extremely costly. Still the best decision?

[DCWildcat]

1) I usually call down here. Lower ace + [censored] doing a delayed c/r on a lower flop pair (6 or 9) + [censored] checkraising me because it's cool/Phil Hellmuth did it once > me being beat, I think
2) 3 overcards is a lot of overcards, and additionally, every card >6 is potentially scary, even if he is bullshitting.
3) If he's routinely check-raising your turn after calling PF and on the flop with air, you'll just have to mix some 3-bets with air in of your own.

[LImitPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
2 - so even if we had an edge preflop, everytime 3 overcards come we pretty much have to give it up if he shows any resistance?


[/ QUOTE ]

In this hand, yes.

It's not just the overcards you have to worry about here (they are scary enough by themselves) it's also the draws. You may be ahead here at the moment( it's also possible you are way behind already) but re-draws will most likely kill you.

You are also out of position which doesnt help any.

If the board popped up 10106 that would be a different story

[giddyup]

hand 2 - you don't have to fold right away when ANY 3 overcards come on the flop, but we're talking an A and a T here. If he doesn't have you beat right now then he most likely has something like KQ, KJ, or QJ - all of which have a great chance of beating you. I don't see too many people raising flops with nothing after being 3-bet from the BB.