8-16. Seven ways to the flop you hold KdTh in the cutoff.

Flop is Ts2s2c. UTG bets, you raise and all others fold, UTG 3-bets.

UTG had been pretty loose but not aggressive unless he had a real hand.

Do you fold or call? You're getting a little more than 3/1 to call and call him down.

fold??? what did you play the hand for then?


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Just sigh call down. Don't let top pair good kicker go heads up unless the board is straight awful.

If you hate calling down once 3-bet then just don't raise.

How many "real hands" have you seen him be aggressive with? And how many "not real hands" have you seen him be passive with? Also, how long have you been playing with him?

My initial hunch is that you're over-weighting the read. Call down and act surprised when he shows you top pair and you still win the pot.

Sort of depends on the preflop action

Also: if you raise flop then fold turn for one more heads up anyone with a pulse will notice and might start taking stabs at you if they see you do it often. I always notice that kind of play.

Looks like they all limped.

Flop raise is probably ok, but I do want to know whether button is in the hand, one blind or both, etc.

The standard play is to call down. A good read can override a standard play. How good is your read that he is passive?

Exactly. I may have raised pre, I may just call flop etc.

Folding here would be pure lol. Like okay maybe if the queen or jack of spades bangs off and he's still firing we can consider hero folding.

But here, in order to be beat he would need a 2, AT, JJ+, TT or 22. That's not a lot of stuff.

And people tend to lolplay TT/22 and even passive fish tend to raise QQ+ (some of them like to limp JJ, and sometimes limp AA to be "tricky", but these are small portions of their range).

So not a lot of stuff beats you. And he has worse value hands like JT. So no don't fold.

Also the preflop limp is bad.

Agree with all of this except I think the PF limp is fine

Agree with all of holmfries.

It's not like KTo is a multiway monster. It's on the edge. I'm obviously playing, but bloating up a pot in a big field with it doesn't sound all that appetizing.

A hand like KTo in a multiway pot is tricky. It is profitable under caveats.

If they are the type players to meekly pay off with worse.
If they are they type players to meekly call down when barely ahead (AT etc).
If they are the type to raise when ahead and ONLY when ahead (IE: not tricky)
If you play quite well post flop in general, have excellent judgement and good reads on your villains.

So, if they are at all tricky or are likely to limp a strong hand early or are going to punish you for making a second best hand then you should be asking yourself, 'where is KTo getting value postflop?' Because you are certainly in the class of hands that is laying implied odds for pairs and suited hands. You are also in the class of hands that is as likely to make a second best hand as best hand. It is not the type hand to make a 5 card hand that beats a large field.

A PF raise makes sense if the limpers are not tricky, not likely to limp strong hands, the blinds are tight (likely to fold) and you think there is an excellent chance to fold out everyone behind and gain the button. If any of this is not true I send this hand to the muck.

Here's another thing to think about: A given villain makes a PAIR on the flop about 1 time in 3. Now think about how hard it is to make TOP pair, ESPECIALLY top pair with a good kicker.

Now Google the probability of flopping an overpair, trips or a boat on a paired board.

If your opponent figures out that he can get you to fold a hand as strong as top pair just by 3-betting you, he'll start 3-betting you all day.

You might feel a little silly calling down and having to muck a second-best hand, or you may feel like "the good players" can figure out when they're beat and "save a bet or two". If you feel either of those things, you need to de-program yourself.

Once you gain more experience, you will realize that when you flop top pair heads up and someone makes something better it's just very bad luck and that's part of poker.

Hero folds are VASTLY overrated in limit poker.

HTH.

EDIT: Make sure you're not experiencing memory bias too. Make sure you remember all the times you call down and have the villain beat along with all the times you call him down and he made a lucky monster. Make sure you remember all the times you sucked out on him in the process of calling him down. Make sure you remember all the times you raised him and he DIDN'T 3-bet you and then called YOU down with a second-best hand. Lastly (well, probably not lastly, I'll have more thoughts later I'm sure!), remember that when you call down with a second-best hand you lose a couple bets but when you call down with the best hand (or get HIM to call down with a best hand) you usually win more than a couple bets. Sorry if I'm belaboring the point, I'm just trying to make it clear how overrated hero folds are.

Great post. A+.

Yup basically. Returns to my principle of "if you're playing the same way as the population, then how do you intend to beat it?"

call down

i honestly might just call down from the flop, its not like you have to protect against players behind

limp or fold pre probably both ok

i used to make expert folds. now i call down and sleep better at night.

There were players left to act so raising is the play on the flop. You can't let players with an A,Q, or J get a cheap look. I think against most players this would be a raise if it were just HU given the strength of our hand. I would consider just calling down if this guy was bluffy or could get away from a worse hand.