Limit hold em quiz

[jay_shark]

Here is the situation . You are playing against a calling station who calls you down with any two cards. You pick up pocket 5's and decide to raise otb , your opponent calls and the flop comes 9D 10H KS , He checks to you , you bet and he calls . Turn comes 4 H . He checks to you ,what's your play ?

[o0o0o0o]

I don't play a lot of limit holdem but I say this is an easy check. There's 3 over's and he's probably calling you here reguardless. I can't even see you having the best hand. I'd check and play the river accordingly.

[bbbushu]

if we thought we were ahead on the flop, the turn obviously doesn't change anything. if he's calling us "regardless" then we should bet. since he is passive he won't raise when we're beat which means we'll lose the least while behind and win the most while ahead. if he was more aggressive, we'd be able to induce a bluff on the river but he's not so we're just giving him a chance to draw for free and then force us to make a hard river decision. (btw, i have no idea why o0o0o0o0o0o or whatever think we "can't [...] [have] the best hand" since OP said the villain plays any two cards this way.)

that being said, you haven't given us anywhere near enough information to produce the correct answer. has this player delayed a check-raise until the turn before? what has this player check-raised the flop with? does this player check/call with smaller pairs? draws? some notes about how s/he has played so far in similar situations would be very useful.

bbbushu

[jay_shark]

There are several important details that are missing like his propensity to check raise you , or bluff on the river etc .

That being said , the decision is a close and has a lot to do with how he would react to each situation independently . What's interesting is that betting the turn is not a value bet . You should check the turn without any further information because there are more hands that he could have by the river that would be ahead . Another advtange in checking is that your opponents propensity to bluff on the river goes up a notch .

[bbbushu]

what proof do you have (i assume some calculation i am unaware of) that the opponent will have more hands that are ahead of our pair of 5's by the river? without convincing me, this is a value bet bc they will call us down with any two, as per your original post.

checking does not induce bluffs from passive players, which is why it's better to bet into people who don't raise when we're beat. this way we win the most when we're ahead with a small risk of retaliation.

i'm still not convinced we should check,
bbbushu

[BobAllinSki]

I'm assuming that he will call you with anything on the turn? Ignoring all raises/checkraises

I havnt done the maths on this but I think your hand will still be a favourite against random cards on most rivers here, the 4h was a fairly good card for you, a higher flushing drawing card could have been bad for your hand, on the river you will still be likely a favourite if

a) its lower than a 4
b) any board card higher than you pairs
c) any higher non heart(or q/j)

if a heart/q/j comes or the 4 pairs I'd say your fairly close to a coin toss against random cards, its only really Q/J hearts that I'd say could make you a dog against random cards.

This is all guesswork at the mo, you just have to add the slightest bit of rationality to your opponent then this changes a lot, and the tendancy to raise etc changes a lot.