Hero: 20s/30s white male. I sat down a couple min before villain and I've only been at the table for maybe 5 min. Raised his SB and cbet a K23r flop and he c/f. Stack $400

Villain: 30s/40s black male. He knew the guy on his left and they had a convo that basically confirmed to me he was some sort of reg. He limp/called a hand or two and he straddled his UTG. Won a hand by donking flop. Don't have a good read on him yet. Stack $260

One limp in EP, Hero raises to 13 in HJ with QJ, folds to Villain in SB who calls, BB & limper call.

Flop: Q73 (pot=$50)

Checks to hero who bets 32, villain calls, rest fold.

Turn Q738 (pot=$112)

Villain checks, hero...?

Take the free card or bet, and how much?

I bet here 100% of the time for value. ~$65-75. Even if the turn was an 8 rainbow board, I'd be barreling almost always. I think we can go for 2 streets for sure with TPGK here & I'd rather those be flop and turn. Makes it that much easier to get the check we want OTR.

I think it's problematic that he called a large flop bet with two players behind. The board is dry and the stack size is awkward. We're repping a Q, our hand is practically face up.

Do we ever get action from worse? Do we expect him to peel with AK? Does that make sense given PF? Maybe exactly K J ??

TBH, I think I check back and bluff catch.

One limp in EP, Hero raises to 13 in HJ with QJ, folds to Villain in SB who calls, BB & limper call.

Flop: Q73 (pot=$50)

Checks to hero who bets 32, villain calls, rest fold.

Turn: Q738 (pot=$112)

Villain checks, hero bets 60, villain calls.

River: Q7382 (pot=$232)

Villain donk bets 100, hero..?

Obvious call seems obvious, I'm more interested if people see value in raising him AI since he left 55 behind.

On Turn: Bet about $90 and call a shove. If you're ahead with your queen, you're giving the A-high flush draw bad odds to call, if you're drawing against a hand like AQ, you still have 12 outs once, so not terrible equity. You're not even that bad against a set. So you're either way ahead or *slightly* behind, which is a good spot to bet for value.

On River: Raising is obvious. You have the third nuts, it's far more likely you're ahead rather than behind. And yes, you do get called by worse. If the stacks were deeper, this is a flat-call, but considering the stacks, all-in is fine.

You got more then TP+FD = 14 outs.
all the remaining nine cards of + all QQJJJ (for tip-Queens or 2Pair)
I would bet the turn 100% just because you got a monster TP+FD+big-redraw. Yes, definitely got to move chips in the middle. I would have bet even bigger on the flop like $50. I don't know details about the villain. You must know those details. Would $50 flop bet would have scare him away? - You must know these things. I wasn't there because I was busy on The Strip here in 109F outside heat ... Wow! .. wtf day .., good day but lots of work.

I sat down 5 min ago, so I don't know those details yet. I think a pot sized bet for value on the flop is pretty ambitious and overplaying my hand anyways. I agree my hand is pretty strong on the turn, probably should've bet more around 75+

If we're not going to narrow the field with a raise, then I don't see the point of it. I mean, it certainly is tempting with only 1 limper to us, but we're still only in the HJ with 2 people still behind in position and 4 in total (half our opponents) that haven't even looked at their cards yet. But, I'm guessing result might also be a little unexpected as well, so fine.

I don't mind betting this flop cuz there is a decent chance our hand is best and we don't want to give the world free cards. Board is bone dry, so there is no reason to bet so much. I'd probably bet $20.

I'm done with the hand when Villain calls and just hoping I can get to showdown cheap. Thankfully we picked up some flush outs, so I think this makes the turn check back even easier (as bet/folding would be a disaster now).

ETA: How can he have a better hand on the river? AKss that didn't reraise preflop to an obvious looking LP steal and floated this flop multiway with 2 behind to react? A3ss is like literally the only better hand he could have. I ship the rest in since it's so little and I doubt he'll be able to fold hardly anything worse for this price.

GcluelessNLnoobG

How strong do you think your hand is on the turn once you get called?

Gokchancewegotinourmoneyontheturnasa5:1dog,imoG

Against a competent player, I'd expect to need to hit a flush or a J to have a better hand once they call the turn bet. I almost did check it back, hence why I posted the hand, but I've only been playing with this guy for less than 5 min and he seems kinda loose so I thought I could get value from QT, Q9 and other weaker hands. Plus I did turn a FD and wanted to be able to get stacks in, which I couldn't do if I checked back turn. If I missed river and he checked I'm checking it back 100%. I regret saying 75+ on turn, too results oriented. I like my sizing as played and maybe even smaller, say 50.

As far as the river goes, I'm just not used to players c/c till river then donking when the obvious flush comes in. I have a hard time creating a range of Kxss or Axss that gets the river to beat me but it was just such an odd line by villain I wanted to know if anyone just flats instead of putting him all in.

Since most players at this level rarely 3bet, we likely run into almost as many Qx that beat us by the turn (AQ/KQ) that we beat (unless we think he's loose enough to being the first and possibly only caller OOP with a monster such as Q8). If he has a random 7 or 3 in his hand he has 4 outs, and a pocket pair has 1 out; he's almost never going to catch up, or pay off a bet on the turn, but a check back might get him to bluff / bluffcatch the river. If we get check/raised it's a disaster (we'll have to fold drawing to a ~nuttish hand). And yeah, we probably won't be able to get stacks in if we hit our 4:1 shot by checking back, but how many hands are going to payoff for stacks that just check/call the turn?

GjustmytwocentsG

I like the hand as played, and I raise river. He can't fold now, and if he's ahead, he's ahead.

Thanks for the replies

Results:

Did he show?

GcuriousastoourstateontheturnG

He didn't show, but when he mucked his hand he raised it really high and I was sitting across from him in seat 10 and I saw 78 both red.

I might be being a bit results oriented here, but we got money in on the turn as a ~2:1 dog.

Gthat'snotgoodG

I think you are being results oriented. If he's calling 78 on the flop he's calling Q9 QT JJ-99 and probably continuing with all those on the turn save maybe TT-99. Obviously there are times he turns 2 pair like here or he has AQ KQ and has us dominated but based on his actual holding and later play I saw of him the turn bet seems good because this guy was mostly just calling. If he has a better K then we check behind when we miss river and get his stack when we hit. If he has two pair or better and we miss river and he donks out we safely fold.

I felt the crux of the decision of this hand was the turn, but it didn't get a ton of replies. I still feel torn between two decisions but I went with my read that he was on the looser side and decided to bet.

I think overall the turn play is between two different camps. One camp thinks we likely have a bunch of equity should therefore bet. The other camp thinks because we have so much equity we can actually check (especially to make sure we realize that equity).

In many ways, this is similar to how we would play a pot we raised HU in position on a A72r flop with KK vs 83. KK clearly has far more equity than 83. But that doesn't mean we should be betting KK more than 83 here (in fact, the opposite).

I'd be more comfortable bet/folding the turn if we didn't have the flush draw. With the flush draw, more reason to check it back, imo.

Gbutthat'sthecampI'min,otherswilldisagreeG

OP, this hand was played well. Bet on the turn was fine (and worked out great!). Would have been fine regardless of results.

How would you feel about the play if he got check/raised on the turn?

Gfacingacheck/raiseontheturnwouldbeadisasterG

Trump is a disaster.
getting c/raised in this spot isn´t.

That would not be great, but it's so unlikely and I like getting money in when I'm ahead and the turn did help me.

What on earth do you think he's check/calling the flop with and check/raising the turn with? A set (77/33 and maybe 88 -- QQ is so discounted) or two pair, and he shouldn't have many two pair here (although he did have the one two pair hand that he could/should have -- and he still didn't raise).

I can understand why you want to check behind, but I prefer to bet for value and to get more money in the pot if I hit river.

+ as many as I'm allowed.

Getting check/raised would absolutely be a disaster. We are mostly always way behind and are either (a) forced to fold a hand that likely had huge IO (as shown here) or (b) having to call it off as a big dog.

Of course, we're not going to get check/raised every single time, but it's just one of the things to consider.

GcluelessNLnoobG

It's a bone dry flop. How well are we doing against a range of hands that are the first to call a preflop raise and call a cbet 4ways?

He happens to have like one of the few hands that go to the turn that we're doing well against. On the turn if he had of remained UI, it would be drawing to just 4 or 5 outs (we're a huge 90%+ favourite). How often does that hand call a turn bet compared to how often would it call a river bet if we let the turn check thru? Nothing in the read suggests he's a mega calling station fish calling down to the river with any pair.

GcluelessNLnoobG