I get a little confused sometimes as to whether it is an immediate fold or I should play on with counterfeited hands.

Here are three counterfeited hands I would like your opinion on.

The circumstances are the same in each hand. It is early in a micro LO8 tournament, stacks are about equal, preflop UTG (LAG) called, MP1 (no info) called, Hero OTB called, SB (no info) called, BB (no info) checked.

After the flop UTG bets and MP1 calls…

Hero OTB has A27T

Flop #1. A23

Flop #2. 24K

Flop #3. A3Q

Your thoughts as to which should be played or folded please.

I'm folding them all, as described. I've hit flop #1 too many times and paid off mini-flushes and wheels. I'm not chasing a boat (non-nut at that) just to chop any more.

1st....you have the exact same hand in each of these situations in the exact same position?
if so, your in a five way pot with a someone leading out and two players left to act behind you so flop #1 and #2 are instafolds IMO. I tend toward tight aggressive play early in mtt's especially in a micro buy-in where you're bound to find many better positions later on.

Now flop #3 I may peal a turn card but any further flop action would be an easy fold, and more calls from the blinds after would make me like my hand even less. You have half the table in the pot and ZERO nut draws. Proceed with caution if you choose to proceed at all.

1st: raibnow I fold, so monotone is not even tiny bit close.

2nd: bad flop. fold.

3rd: probably not a great idea to peel your tp+T-high fd+bad ld. Bettor is a LAG, so I guess it's close. Fold without hesitation against decent/passive players leading...

I'd be folding hand #1 if the flop were a rainbow board, if someone even sneezes at the pot. Even if your hand is good at the moment, oftentimes you're getting freerolled by a made low.

"1st....you have the exact same hand in each of these situations in the exact same position?"

I just did this to make things easier rather than describe different scenarios for each flop.

I would fold 1 & 2. Hand 3 however has possibilities. Because it is limit we are nearly always priced in to see more cards. Therefore I do not raise but want everyone to come along. We have chips to play with at early levels so even if the flush misses there may be other cards that help you. That is they may be counterfeited too.

Fold. you have only a poor chance at a good low and an opponent may already have a straight flush, a flush, or a straight (wheel) for high. Your two pairs will probably not hold up for high and thus you're drawing primarily to make a full house but with just 4 outs the odds are about ten to one against. Fold.

Fold. You have a poor chance for low and a poor chance for high. Fold.

[/quote]Flop #3. A3Q[/quote]Fold. This one is a bit tougher than #1 because Hero has the spade draw. But fourth nut is not a good spade draw. Fold.

Buzz

being counterfeit is a straight out gang bang...
id be folding all 3...

could have a little sniff around with #3 but any heat, and throw away that meat...

.^sc

#3 is the interesting one. In isolation you certainly shouldn't be drawing at a 4th-nut flush without anything else. But you do have a bunch of weak draws. Here's a generous evaluation:

• count about 2 full pot outs for the flush, since it could easily lose and even more easily could get chopped by a low.
• an A might win high (call this 0.75 full pot out, since trips isn't guaranteed to win and you could still only win half; but it would also give you a ten-out redraw, with only one of them to the nuts)
• a T or 7 could win high (0.75 fpo)
• running cards 6 or less would give you a second nut low (live deuce) which wins when no one has a wheel (0.5 fpo)

Note that your implied odds on all of these are terrible -- it's hard to get worse hands to pay off, and it's easy for someone to bet a better hand one direction or the other and leave you in a guessing game. I've tried to price that into the estimates.

So, generously you have about 4 fpo which suggests that even getting 9:1 you should make a marginal fold (since you don't have the IO that you'd have with a nut gutshot, where you might call getting 9:1). It's even a clearer fold if you expect that the two players yet to act are somewhat likely to XR.

flop 1: run away, snap fold
flop 2: pause a moment, fold
flop 3: think about it, realize that on a wet board, with 4 opponents, you have 4th NFD, a really bad LD and top pair with a worse kicker than the second highest card on the board... then fold

OK I'll bite!

Wet board = ???

example of a wet (or drawy) board: 54K

example of a dry board: K92
paired boards are usually very dry boards.

FOLD