I hit a major downswing in a game and lost about 6BI's. Moved to another casino and I've worked up a stack of about $2K. That was my goal for the evening and I've already picked up my racks and cut out my tips and have my stack all neat and tidy, which is unusual for me.

Villain has just come to the table and he's a fat slob of a mess, asking the dealer to put him on the wait list for any 2/5 or 5/10 game. He's dressed poorly and looks like a total degen reg early 40s and won't live much past 50. Probably a great player.

I'm planning on leaving as soon as the blinds hit me, since I'm tired and hit my goal of making back half my earlier losses.

Villain takes the min BI of 300 and straddles instead of waiting for his btn. Folds to me in MP A J

I raise to $20, everyone but villain folds.

Flop ($40)

2 4 9

check, bet $27, call

Turn (~$90)

K

wug?

Pretty dry board.. Cbet $65/75 and hope to bink your flush and no paired river. Take him to value town.
If you miss just fold, he isnt going to fold his pair, 2pair..
What is wug? Sorry for not searchn.

Positions? Who bet flop?
In position: good scarecard, bet turn, river depends.

Out of position: you should have bet flop. As played, bet turn, barrel river.

Definitely barreling this turn about $50-$60. That king hits our perceived range very well and if villain doesn't fold we have the flush draw (maybe even the overcard) as backup.

I'm assuming Villain is UTG if he's straddling?

the saying is they always put you on AK - take advantage and barrel A or K turns.

Fair enough. I bet $60 and villain shoves

turn is a super standard bet/fold assuming villain has a normal amount behind

that's ok, doesn't make the barrel a bad play.

Bet/fold with backdoor nut draw IP?

Nice level.

yes lol

...indeed

this thread is about b/c vs check behind

barreling the turn is probably the right move. The King will scare some players out. Many players will call one bet with middle or bottom pair, but not two. Plus you have outs if he calls. This time it appears the fish wakes up with a hand. Since you are not getting the odds to make the call to hit the flush, it's a fold as played.

A check is ok on the turn if you were planning to stick around for a while and want to see how this guy plays. You may get a look at his cards if he gets to showdown by the river.

I'm getting we have to call 140 to win 354, need 28%, we're not getting it with 9 flush outs (even adding the 3 ace overcards doesn't get us there, and I wouldn't add those as outs.

In order to justify calling, we need to have the best hand some of the time already w ace high.

Your math is a bit off here. Pot is $90 on the turn, we bet $60, and villain shoves his remaining $253. So we're calling $193 to win $403 and need a little over 32% to call. Same difference though, this is definitely a b/f.

Guys, I'm kinda joking about the intro. He's definitely a pro and seems to know what he's doing. I wouldn't call him a fish.

I don't think bet/fold is a good play at all and there are 2 options, b/f or check back, and this is something I've been pondering for a long time in poker. There actually seems to be no ev difference, but a huge variance difference, so which play is technically the correct one?

If he's a good aggressive pro and you have real evidence of this, you should check back. He knows you should be barreling that King on the turn so you don't really gain any fold equity.

Agree with this 100%

yeah I meant to convey in the intro that he was a good player, or at least I sensed he was good

think this hand is pretty interesting because the total ev of checking back and bet/calling is roughly the same at exactly 100BBs effective if villain has a float flop/bluff turn range, and I figure that any player who straddles the first hand at a table and is playing a lower BI than usual is very capable of having a pure bluff here

if you don't bet you miss value and it's hard to get paid off on rivers that make your hand, if you do bet you can get blown off the hand when that's kind of a disaster with the NFD and an over

I think this spot is really close and not sure which one is the most correct play, the only play that is totally incorrect is bet/folding

Of course no matter how good I profess to be, I still make terrible plays

Result: I folded, villain shows QJo for a pure bluff and remarks how I looked like I was happy with my winnings and was packing up and didn't want to lose more, so he read me like a book. My instincts said instasnap but my bankroll vetoed

I would have probably called 30 minutes earlier. So that's that but the line is still pretty interesting to me

Check behind the turn.

Betting the K here is screaming (to a competent player as you describe V) FLUSH DRAW FLUSH DRAW.

Check behind, get value OTR if you can.

it's easy to say that now but the K is a huge scare card to value hands he calls the flop with (hits my range hard), and we have enough showdown equity vs his entire range that betting the turn has to be close to correct. We fold out better and always have equity vs hands that flat call

honestly this is a situation I've encountered online when std starting stacks are 100BB as in this hand. When it's even money to check back or bet/call, what do you do? If he has 200BB it's a snap check back, vs 50BB it's a snap b/c. At 100BB, these two plays have equal expectation

not sure what your assumptions are to say they are equal expectation. Doesn't it depend on opponent range/type?

Out of curiosity, you lost 1800 earlier in the day? And moved casinos to play more and are now up to 2K stack? Are these normal swings?

These shouldn't be normal swings.

Also if you lose 3 straight BIs at 1/2 or 2/5, you are doing something seriously wrong.

no definitely not

I think it took me 12 hours to lose the 6BI's, and I'm not sure how long I was at the second session but it was already dark and I've been playing more than 24 hours straight at this point and am obviously a walking tell but that's not the point

Assuming villain folds 1/3 of the time, calls 1/3 and re-raises 1/3, then the two plays of checking back and bet/call have equal ev (I think!)