Todays Card Player Daily Poker Quiz

[Ray Of Light]

I am just a little confused about the current Card Player Daily Poker Quiz that is drawn from the book Middle Limit Hold'em Poker by Bob Ciaffone and Jim Brier...

QUESTION:
A $15-$30 game. An early player opens with a raise and you call with the As-Qh. The early player is a decent-playing local who plays several times a week at this level. His opening standards can be a little loose at times, but once the flop comes, his play is good. The big blind calls. There is $100 in the pot and three players. The flop comes down: Ac-Jh-7h, giving you top pair, good kicker. The big blind checks. The preflop raiser bets. Rather than raise, you decide to call. The big blind folds. There is $130 in the pot and two players. The turn is the 7s, giving you aces over sevens with a queen kicker. Your opponent checks. You bet. He raises. What do you do?


I had a good think about this, and went through what I thought would be a reasonable hand range for my opponent. In my head the decision is to either re-raise or call. At first, I decided that the best course would be to reraise, since I felt I'd be ahead in this hand at this stage.

However in hindsight, I probably would call instead, since a re-raise would simply have this decent player fold all the hands that I beat, and call/cap the hands I don't beat; so my revised answer would be to call the turn and the river.


ANSWER:
Fold. The board is now paired, you have no flush or straight draws, and you have gotten check-raised by the preflop raiser. If you call now, you will most likely be calling at the river as well. You should fold, since you don't have enough outs when you are beat to continue. On the actual hand, the player called the raise. The river was a blank and the player called the river bet as well. The player was shown the Kc-7c by the preflop raiser for trip sevens. He was playing two outs. Afterwards, he argued that any guy crazy enough to open with a raise from early position with king-little suited has to be stayed with. But this is an expensive way to view these kinds of players. Many players have horrid preflop playing standards, including the tendency to play any two suited cards, sometimes even raising with them. But that does not mean that once the flop comes they continue to play poorly. On the turn, when these players raise or check-raise, they almost always can beat one pair.

Here is where I become confused. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that folding is the wrong move; but rather that I'm trying to understand why it is the only correct move in this situation.

The only hands you are behind to here are AK, JJ, 7x, AJ and AA; admittedly all of which are a possibility. I would think my opponent would be unlikely to check/raise the JJ, AA or AJ on the turn, prefering to simply bet out since he has been the aggressor throughout every street in the hand (and I had done nothing but call), so I ruled out those hands (a mistake?).

So I felt I was behind to an AK, equal to another AQ and since this player tends to play looser preflop, I was beating a possible AT or a more likely flush draw.

Here are my questions about this hand:

Is there enough in the pot for me to call the turn and river? With the pot size being what it is, if I am definantly calling the river, I am effectively paying 2 BB for 7.3 BB (if he checks to me on the river, I am checking behind making this 1BB for 7.3BB , but a check through seems unlikely).

Is it a stretch for me to assume that I am winning this hand at around 30% or more of the time?

With the pot size now 7BB+, can I safely fold TPGK on a seemingly harmless turn to aggression from a decent postflop player (especially on a drawy board)?

[jba]

'Is it a stretch for me to assume that I am winning this hand at around 30% or more of the time?'

big time. no way he has a flush draw or AT here. his line usually means he knows you have an ace.

btw I hate how these guys played preflop+flop.

[poker1O1]

[ QUOTE ]
The only hands you are behind to here are AK, JJ, 7x, AJ and AA

[/ QUOTE ]
I lol'd

[HOWMANY]

Wow, Cardplayer usually has such insightful stuff, I can't believe they would post something so bad.

[andyfox]

At 15-30, my estimate would be that you are ahead on the turn here approximately zero percent of the time. You get check-raised when the board pairs and one pair is basically never any good. He raises pre-flop, bets the flop and check-raises the turn--that means a very good hand, period.

[dankhank]

i have played these situations badly for years probably, always calling down. online you really can't fold this, because bad preflop play so often correlates to bad postflop play (for example being overzealous). but the more i read about live player experiences and play live some myself, it's clear you have to tailor your decision to the opponent. that a lot of people here always have you drawing slim .

it is taking me years to wrap around in my head the idea that some players are this predictable and never stray from the exact gameplan they left the house with.

[jfk]

[ QUOTE ]
btw I hate how these guys played preflop+flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the hardest thing to take from Brier/Ciaffone's MLHE, the degree of cold calling they do with broadway cards. It makes all the downstream advice a little foreign because the typical 2+2 reader wouldn't usually be in the same spot.

As the hand played, I like to raise the flop and check the turn as we're WA/WB with a hand that would love to see the showdown. Heck, a flop raise may have won this hand.

[CardSharpCook]

jfk, you need to bet the turn for value as well. You get paid off by AT all day.

[Hass]

I thought the cold call PF was the worst mistake of the hand, am I wrong?

[CardSharpCook]

you are correct.