10 RING game

HERO: $500
Villain : COVER (unknown)

HERO(UTG) : KQraised to $20
3 people called $20

BOARD: K T 6 ( POT $87 )

HERO Checked
2 people Checked
V(BTN) bet $60
HERO raised to 180$

V(BTN) pushed AI ( POT $327 )

HERO ???

After V's shove, it's 300 to call with 747 in the pot (87 + 180 + 480), so you're getting more than 2:1 on a call.

OTOH, you have TP2K and your hand isn't disguised at all. V might be pushing a big combo draw, in which case you're a small favorite. Or he might have you crushed with 2P or a set.

The x/r was a mistake. It overplays your hand and gets you to a stack decision with a hand that doesn't really want to get all in. A standard cbet of $60 or so would have been a better line. The board is wet enough and there are enough callers that this isn't a good spot to check, risking a free card. But you certainly shouldn't be trying to get stacks in against 3 V's.

If V will do this with either 2P or a combo draw, you're getting just about the right price to call -- which means that folding and calling have about the same EV. That's a crappy spot to end up in with a hand like this. Easy to make a mistake.

Since the EV of calling and of folding are about the same, soul read and pick one.

$300 to call a pot of $627. You are usually way behind here. What kind of villain shoves after a x/r with less than top two pair? It's likely TT/66 here. Bluffing hands would be QJ, and we have a Q.

If we assign V a range of AJs+, AA, AK, QJs, TT and 66 we have 32.3% equity. However, I don't think villain is ever shoving with AQ or AJ, which drops our equity to below 20%. Gotta fold here.

I strongly dislike the x/r OTF. I don't see the merit in turning top pair with 2nd kicker into a bluff. Either x/c or lead.

EDIT: I left out KT in V's range, which marginally decreases our equity.

I thought pot was 627. Whose math is wrong here?

EDIT: Pot was 87+60+180+300, no?

87+60+180(h)+180(v)+300

Actually 87(pot) + 60(v) + 180(h x/r) + 120(v calls x/r) + 300(v add'l to jam) = 747.

I think it's easier to start with 87 in the pot. H has put in 180. V has put in all of his chips, 480 (effective).

Mccoy, you're not including the 120 V had to put in to call the 180 from H. Kaiji, you're double-counting the 60 V already put in the pot.

Ahh, thanks. Makes sense now. In the end it doesn't justify a call yet in my opinion, but it is closer now.

Spew. Lead or ck-c. AP no idea.

Ya, if your raising here.

Have to have a plan going forward. As we are way past any type of commitment threshold.

At these stack depths, don't see raising being our best option.

Folding seems foolish at this point though.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

I don't understand our c/r here. We're trying to over rep our hand imo by c/r. AP vs an unknown ill lean folding than calling to his aggressive action. I doubt he's taking this line wth KJ/K9 or even KQ.

You open up your stack by taking this line... I'd make a standard bet and go from there.

AP, I'm still leaning fold over calling


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The decision to call or fold here is almost irrelevant compared to how you got here. You did a bunch of things to tie yourself to the pot and if you are thinking of folding then you shouldn't have tied yourself to the pot.

The KQo open is too loose imo but whatever. As others note, just lead instead of x/r on the flop. If you do x/r, have a plan as even if villain doesn't push here there are 2 more rounds of betting and more cards that scare you than help you.

This spot was so interesting to me that I bothered to put it into equilab.

Versus a range of Kxs (minus AKs) + QJs + 98/87/97s + 66 + 1010 + K10.

We have 31.79% equity vs this range, and that's being pretty generous imo with hands that hero is actually ahead of. Initially glancing at it I thought it was MAYBE a very very thin +EV call but it's a clear cut fold.

Opening KQo is fine utg, worst hand I'll open from this spot but still fine.

C/r here is flat out terrible and put you in a tough spot that frankly I'd never be in. I c/r rarely in the first place but on my board I'm not check raising any of my range, you're either very slightly ahead (or behind some combo draws) or wayyyy behind 2p or sets and these are really the only hands you're getting action from.

32% would be a thin call (calling 300 to win 747 we need 29% equity). If our equity is a bit less than that, we're indifferent to calling or folding. If it's a lot less, then it's a fold.

MikeStarr wouldn't even x/r this flop

V covers, pot is going to be 927 when we call, 300 to win 927 is a fold here even giving v a semi-generous range.

Pot is 747 before our call (not 627), 1047 with our call. The 327 in OP isn't right (it doesn't include the 120 V had to put in to call H's x/r before V can shove the remaining 300 effective).

Opening KQo utg is fine; folding is also fine. I prefer to open it in games where people will call preflop with worse kings and queens, which is every ssnl game on Earth.

The checkraise is overplaying this hand. Flopping TP2K on a 2-tone board 4-ways is slightly better than a marginal holding...leading or c/c'ing a bet is better.

As for whether to fold or call vs opponent's jam. It's $300 to win a total pot of $1047. We need 28.7% equity to break even, so we need to give opponent a logical range and see how KQo holds up against that range. Some people are assigning hands like 98ss and 97ss to villain; I think it's overly optimistic to assume random 2-5 players are jamming over checkraises with 9-high flush draws in single raised pots. Someone even assigned villain a range that included AA? Not sure what's going on here.

Realistically we can expect villain to have all combos of KT, sets of TT/66, and big combo draws(AQss/AJss/QJss). He may also jam with some Kxs and bare nut flush draws, but how many? Surely only a handful at best.

Versus a range of KTs/KTo,TT,66,AQss,AJss,QJss,KQss,KJss,K9ss,A5ss/A4ss we have 26% equity.

I think you have to fold here.

Assuming OP led out with this hand (instead of check-raising) and got raised - what would be a good way to evaluate if to continue? And on turn? River?

As played, I think it's a fold. I know you have no info on villain, but I would need to stereotype somewhat. If villain is older than 40, I'm insta-mucking. If villain is 20-30's/hoodie, then it's a bit closer, but still probably a fold.

You're UTG raise + check raise looks incredibly strong.

You think he's not jamming a gutshot straight flush draw, but would jam a random bare nfd? I gave a generous range for villain, but forgot to include AQ/Js which is there as well, but 98/97s is a good jam here imo.

I've always found in llsnl AA can flip over when you least expect it, maybe not at 2/5 though. I've seen the most horrible lines taken with that hand and imo it's always in v range if they're bad players.

This question is for everyone... I've been away from the game awhile and was more of a 6max online player than live full ring player so maybe I've never thought enough about full ring UTG raising standards, but I am confused by the following:

At least 2 people are OK with opening this pre-flop and then folding it HU on the flop. SPR about 5.5 here btw.

And I realize this hand could play out different ways w/o the x/r, but with that SPR and a pretty good flop (not totally dry but we can't have everything), I don't see how we open with this hand, get a pretty good flop, and then fold it HU? Even when it plays differently, you're often going to be pushing or calling a push by river.

Please advise.

Like, for example (again note SPR about 5.5):
* hero bets 1/2 to 2/3 pot on flop, 2 folds, villain calls
* turn blank, hero bets 1/2 to 2/3 pot, villain calls
* river whatever, hero checks, villain pushes for something < pot

(or alternatively villain x/r turn all in)

If hero is not committed here, what was the plan following the open from UTG and about as good of a flop as you can reasonably expect? We're OOP the vast majority of the time due to raising UTG, so ability to control pot is harder which I'd think would be the main argument against opening this UTG in the first place at this stack size.

KQo UTG is not an easy hand to play. You have to be a very good post flop player - size your bets correctly (villain dependent/bespoke sizing), hand read well, know when to b/f vs. when to b/c or b/jam, occasionally give free cards (disguise your hand), etc.

The more I play the more I've come around to just folding KQo UTG (and sometimes UTG+1) at tough full-ring tables. Give me KJs/KTs/QJs/JTs instead and you can keep the KQo. There's just too many combos available which means too many opportunities to make costly mistakes with a generally static equity hand that rarely improves beyond TP2K. 12 combos of KQo vs. 16 combos of KJs/KTs/QJs/JTs (20 if you add QTs; I'm ignoring ATs cuz that should be in there by default) that let you double barrel more effectively or x/eval (call, raise, fold) depending on the action behind.

If the table is super soft and playing ABC/face-up you don't have anything to worry about, but at a tougher 2/5 game with multiple 200 BB+ stacks you are just asking for trouble. At this point I am way more likely to raise KQo out of the BB facing 1-3 limpers (very general statement) than to open raise UTG. You really need some bad players out there who will call multiple streets with TPworseK or call draws with poor direct odds to show a profit.

I'm not an online player and don't have access to a large database (paging mpethy), but a term I've seen tossed around is "loss leader" and I could see KQo fitting the bill. Some nights you win with it (likely when you flop top pair and all the draws brick), some nights you lose with it (likely when you whiff multiway pots or get outdrawn) and you're never really sure if you are +++$$$ lifetime with the hand because of how whimsical the outcomes are. But the added combos likely boost the EV of other hands that win more often (TPTK, PP's flopping sets).

Maybe I'm a nit but I don't think there is a huge skill edge with KQo UTG, or said differently, I think two equally skilled players will have nearly identical expectations if one were to always open raise KQo UTG and the other open fold it (the open folder will likely experience lower variance with the same expected return which is a very important concept in the financial world (Sharpe ratio) which carries its own intrinsic value.

I'm with Johnny and have moved KQo (and AJo) to my usually fold category UTG & UTG+1, opening when either the table is soft or when I have specific reads on enough players to be more comfortable playing a marginal hand OOP.

Although SPR is 5.5, I'm not comfortable committing here. IMO we're not going to be ahead most of the time if all the money goes in. That means, we're usually going to need to play to control the pot and get to showdown.

With three other players and some draws, I'm not in love with checking the flop, but it definitely deserves consideration. Yes, we give free cards, but we also keep V's ranges wide and work to keep the pot a reasonable size.

Unfortunately, the moderately coordinated nature of the board suggests a larger cbet (if we cbet), because draws can call (so we get more value) and because we would like to charge draws. But a large cbet gets us to commitment territory very quickly.

So we can consider temporizing with a small bet, which would get value from worse hands and at least charge draws a little something.

I think there are reasonable arguments for all three lines: ~2/3 pot cbet, check, or ~half-pot cbet.

To some extent the most profitable line will depend on your general style of play. At the extremes, someone with a laggy, trash image might well be able to play to get all in and very often get called by worse. If you have a nitty image, playing to get all in would be a significant mistake.

I think I would be inclined to cbet normally (for me), about 2/3 the pot (I tend to have a laggy image). If I get raised, I'm usually folding. In my games, there aren't many people that will raise a draw. (When they do, it's often a small raise, so I might call one of those and eval the turn.) Also, I play a lot of regs who know I won't be shy to cram it in if I think the circumstances are right; that tends to limit how frisky they want to be with light raises.

OTT, if something like a spade, an A, 9, T, or 6 comes -- cards that either improve reasonable draws or are scare cards for hands I'd like to have call me -- I'm very likely to x/eval. If the turn is a blank, I may check (probably my default) or bet half the pot (against passive V's). Turn play will depend very heavily on who called the flop and what the turn card is.

There really isn't a formula for playing a marginal hand OOP. And I'm sure better players than I will disagree with parts or all of what I've said. But the overall goal is to win something when we're ahead while avoiding getting stacked when we're behind. In some cases, that means we're going to have to lay down the best hand to pressure. Hand reading and knowledge of opponents tendencies are the keys to negotiating the various minefields.

Preach.