Third-nuts on polarized board

[trevdog]

Hero has been quiet, but is now short after an unsuccessful barrelling expedition against this very Vil (see below). Makes a loose call from the bb with Q-3 's for $7 (MP made it the standard table raise). Players, stack sizes and profiles are as follows:

Hero (big blind) -$175 [Folded around in first 2-3 orbits; noticed that table plays mostly passive; small standard opening ($7), lots of limping; few raises postflop. Only involved hand happened an orbit ago, Vil #1 in this hand called hero's barrel down when Hero bet 6-7 sooted preflop, cbet when paired his 6 OTF, c/c on 4th and made a healthy bet OTR. Vil #1 snap-called him down with A-K (A on the flop).

Vil #1 (UTG +1) - $325 [Young dude with neat beard & ball cap; seems to react a little emotionally at the table. But seems to play reasonably; we haven't seen him out of line. Probably open-raises more than limps; seems positionally aware; but no head to head experience except the above hand.]

Vil #2 (MP) - $225 [Old fishy dude. Called a couple big preflop raises (set-mining, probably. Seen call off $30-50 a couple times and give up on river. =Will chase draws. ]

Vil #3 (LP) - $250 (not involved after flop)

To the flop we go, 4 ways (pot $28)

K 10 6 -- Checks through.

Turn: Q (Pot: $28)

Hero leads $12, Vil #2 & #3 both smooth call. (Logic: Hero has picked up some real equity: second pair & the third-best flush draw. No one has shown an interest; time to build a pot in case hand improves).


River: 4 (Pot: $64)

Hero leads $25, Vil #1 raises to $60, Vil #2 folds. (Pot: $159)
$35 to go for Hero, who has committed 25% of his stack & now has ~ $130 remaining).

Range question (reason for thread): Hero, not normally this nitty, is thinking about the concept of a "protected bet" as fishy Vil #2 shows up w/ a made Flush here pretty often.

Hero only needs immediate odds of 22% to just call with third nuts. Best line ?

[AmazonPrime]

Going to assume that K wasn't when you said that you have 3rd nut in the title. If so unless V1 is super passive, you can safely eliminate Kx.

The fact that he played AK as bluff catcher on A-high flop tells me that he is indeed super passive.

Super passive players are very unlikely to raise with small flush, and therefore I think you're beat a good amount of times, but the odds is good enough to call.

[ThierryHenry]

We know V1 is passive, and based on your description of him playing reasonably I'm guessing he's not super loose preflop. If that's the case I would just call. Villain is going to show up with a flush a ton of the time, and most of those flushes beat yours. There's plenty of AhXh and passively played KhXh hands in his range. Another thing is you have the Qh, so that eliminates close to the bottom of his UTG+1 suited connector range. He can show up with something like 9h8h, so I would make the call. I just don't think it's +ev to 3bet the river.

[Garick]

*Grunch*
I flat river raise. I don't see him calling with a worse flush, even though he may have you tagged as "bluffy," and he obv wasn't afraid of the flush when he raised river with a chasy V yet to act. OTOH, we have some of his range (combo draws that made lower flushes) beat, so we should call.

[eldiesel]

I'm wondering how good/bad it would have been to lead the flop, I don't play these types of hands a lot. I'd reconsider playing Q3s (basically for the purpose of hitting a flush) if you get the draw and are unsure. Don't be unhappy about folding preflop in this spot, it's a great flop you hit with this hand and the pot is small and you have a river spot in which you don't know what to do. Folding is saving you 2.5 bb's, that's significant.

AP, I bet more on the turn, closer to 20.

I'm also discounting he has the Kh in his hand, that'd be really weak to check the flop through, I don't think villain1 can expect someone behind him to take the lead and go for a c/r or something like that. I don't think you can get worse hands to call your all-in though, I call.

[trevdog]

Turn checked through. Assume you mean bet $20 OTF.

Agree that this is a "trouble hand" and a good illustration of bad things that can happen (especially playing short).

So -- good enough to call, but not raise ?

Spoiler:

Hero tanks, asks Vil if he'll show, then folds face up. Vil gives *The Speech* while throwing his cards into the muck: "Good fold. That's what I wanted you to do," as he claps his hands together. A-high flush confirmed, IMHO. Wanted a read on Vil; problem is now table sees Hero as as uber-weak

(Hero, not normally a nit, knows he is playing poorly when he subsequently gets raised by a fish; Opts not to rebuy after a couple orbits, & leaves) KIDS- DO NOT SHOW YOUR CARDS.

[trevdog]

Originally Posted by Garick

*Grunch*
I flat river raise. I don't see him calling with a worse flush, even though he may have you tagged as "bluffy," and he obv wasn't afraid of the flush when he raised river with a chasy V yet to act. OTOH, we have some of his range (combo draws that made lower flushes) beat, so we should call.

This is good stuff. Had I taken this into account, I would have played the hand differently.

[nck5020]

This is brutal. Are you playing with scared money?

This should never be a fold. Villain could be repping a flush with a straight draw that missed or valuebetting a smaller flush (he has no real reason to believe that you have a flush draw as well). Ugh. $35 into $160 YOU HAVE TO CALL.

[trevdog]

Thank you, long-time lurker/ short-time poster, for echoing Garick's ^ analysis. I agree.

How would you weight Vil's range, as between the different probable hands ?

[playertee]

Good show after the fold, get ready to get raised every single pot from now on.

Spoiler:

Nah seriously, terrible habit

[trevdog]

It was palpable. I can remember showing 3 or 4 hands in my last 200 hrs of live play. This was a terrific example of why a single "show"-- whatever the motivation for doing so-- can be a disaster.

[tunkpirate]

hey this is nck on my main account...

I'd imagine that he'd be betting both Ax and Kx on the flop in order to build value. After he calls turn he can certainly have these hands, but I feel like its more likely he either has a smaller flush draw or some sort of pair/straight draw type hand given that he didn't bet the flop. After checking through the flop and then betting the Q turn he can possibly put you just on a bare queen or possibly a weak king. River bet, while looks like it's for value, could be his attempt to push you off what he read you for on the turn (some percentage of the time he can do this... like you said you only need to win ~20% of the time so even if he's only bluffing river 5% of the time it's still contributing to getting you to that magic number). It is indeed possible he's got the higher flush since he's still raising with the drawy villain behind, but given your history he might even just be value betting a two pair hand or something on the river (since he's seen you bomb river before with bottom pair... assuming you had to showdown that hand).

Barring reads that the player is super tight and will ONLY play Ax hands, gotta call river once pot's so big. Checking through flop and leading turn really makes it look like the turn improved your hand (which it did of course, but he's more likely to put you on a Q or J at that point, not the hand you actually have). I'd likely be raising this river with any flush against you for value too given your line (he likely sees you as aggro after that AK hand... no reason to believe you have the flush on the river).

Sorry if that's a little rambling, but your line really doesn't look like a high flush draw (most people bet them on the flop with more cards to come). I think your hand is pretty under repped by the river and that he can raise so many more hands than he beats you with

[IbelieveinChipKelly]

Originally Posted by trevdog

Turn checked through. Assume you mean bet $20 OTF.

Agree that this is a "trouble hand" and a good illustration of bad things that can happen (especially playing short).

So -- good enough to call, but not raise ?

Spoiler:

Hero tanks, asks Vil if he'll show, then folds face up. Vil gives *The Speech* while throwing his cards into the muck: "Good fold. That's what I wanted you to do," as he claps his hands together. A-high flush confirmed, IMHO. Wanted a read on Vil; problem is now table sees Hero as as uber-weak

(Hero, not normally a nit, knows he is playing poorly when he subsequently gets raised by a fish; Opts not to rebuy after a couple orbits, & leaves) KIDS- DO NOT SHOW YOUR CARDS.

lol ... he wanted you to fold when he had the nut flush? i doubt it. he wanted you to fold because you had him beat.

[sauhund]

Originally Posted by playertee

Good show after the fold, get ready to get raised every single pot from now on.

Spoiler:

Nah seriously, terrible habit

do you really think people in LLSNL exploit it that hard if you show a big laydown? it might even be the case that they respect your game (which obv is not good either )
but do you really think you´ll get exploited by showing? personally, i dont show, but i dont think i would get exploited much. i also never muck my hand when caught bluffing to give my opponent the opportunity to muck behind and take the pot without a showdown, cause i think i can gather more information by seeing the hand he called me down with than he can by seeing my random garbage/busted draws etc...
what do you think?

[trevdog]

I only occasionally show if group has been playing tight as a drum & I am trying to stimulate some gambool ("good for the game"). This time i did it for a read vs this specific Vil. However I (apparently) sacrificed my table image. Hero laydown = weak tight nit.

Kolb- "The Speech" = the well-documented psychological tendency that when a player does a bunch of talking after a hand, he was really strong. Vil's show was transparent here.