Hi guys I played an interesting hand at a 2/5 table yesterday and would like some feedback on the way I approached the hand.

Hero: $630
Villain: $800

3 players limp including villain in MP2. Hero opens on the BTN for $30. SB folds, BB calls and the other 3 limpers call.

The flop comes: 3 4 Q $152 in pot

It's checked around to me. I bet $100. It's folded around to villain in MP2 who raises to $300. Hero???

Hero has been on the DL since I sat down. He would limp on a straddled button then fold to a standard 3x open from the BTN. I haven't seen him call a raise with a marginal drawing hand and play spewy overall. Against a range of 33 and 44 I am in really bad shape. Even if I incorporate 34s,A2s,56s, and A6s I am still a 40 % underdog. Now even though I have not seen villain play any draws aggressively let's suppose he is in this spot. I could opt to call his raise and shove the turn on any non-spade and non straight card.

Thanks in advance for the feedback guys!

I am assuming you have red cards?

I think I am folding here unless I have some serious history/soul read on villain.

Stacking off with TP here isn't optimal.

Are we thinking about folding here? You'd need to have a real lock-on read to do that.

33 and 44 represent 6 hand combos.

KQ represents 8 hand combos.

If you think he can only raise his sets and will not play KQ this way, then you have to fold. But I think KQ is going to be in most Villain's ranges here.

And if you do put KQ in his range, the move is to shove, not call. If you call, any spade would scare KQ into not betting; this may be true of sets, but is more likely to be true of KQ.

QQ-AA are also in villains range...with no history, we can't say for sure he definitely 3bets these pre.

Almost seems like you are defaulting to the only hand we beat, to make this appear to be a raise/call.

It isn't that simple.

Bet smaller... As played fold

Sent from my D6502 using 2+2 Forums

Why? At the time of the bet, Hero has reason to believe his hand is best. However, being against 4 opponents, he also has reason to believe at least one opponent has 8+ outs, and that all his opponents have even more outs collectively.

You are right to be wary that we might "put him on something we can beat."

However, my intention was to point out that sets have relatively few hand combo possibilities, while one-pair hands have more.

I ran an Equilab on a range which I believe to be reasonable given our limited read. If Hero has a narrower read on Villain, he might be able to use that to find a fold.

http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Board: 3s4sQc
Equity Win Tie
MP2 61.18% 56.48% 4.70% { AdQd }
MP3 38.82% 34.12% 4.70% { KK+, 44-33, A2s+, QJs, 76s, AQo, KQo }

i play all my chips

Without reads I'm rarely giving credit for limp/flatting QQ+ OOP at a 2/5 table with no agro history at the table to make him think he can get paid off with an OP post flop.

It isn't just abou7t finding the one hand that we are beating and assume that villain is playing that hand.

It's about realizing that if v play 33/44/KQ/AQ here all in the same way, then we can't fold because we are ahead of his range. And we are getting nice equity from the pot.

limonade is saying that there are a lot more combos of KQ than there are of 33 and 44.


Regardless, this seems like a shove or fold. There's $552 in the pot and we only have $500 behind. If we call we will have $300 left into $752 and we will be getting over 3:1 to call the turn. We can't really ever fold the turn except on the 5 maybe.

Shove if we think that he will play KQ/AQ this way, and if we think that he will call it off with those. Or if you you think that he is can some flush draws in his range.

Fold if you don't think those are correct.

If we think he takes this line with all those combos then yes, the next action for hero is probably a shove, but I don't know many of this type of villain are bloating pots out of position with a draw.

I agree with what you are saying - my point was more towards making sure the range we were considering was wide enough and not defaulting to hands we beat when considering the next action.

I just tend to be careful discounting combos - I have seen more and more players limp/calling with QQ+ lately and perking up on favorable flops.

Pretty trivial call and GII on a non- turn.

Almost certainly puke/fold on a turn.

What if Villain can only have 33,44,KQ?



http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Board: 3s4sQc
Equity Win Tie
MP2 47.80% 47.45% 0.35% { AdQd }
MP3 52.20% 51.86% 0.35% { 44-33, KQs, KQo }



Our equity is better if Villain has some draws in his range. But even if he doesn't, we still shove.

Shove, really? We only have 47% equity!

Yes, we are behind against the range. But we have the pot odds to continue, so folding is out.

That means we call or we shove. If we call the flop, we will have to call all future bets from Villain. Villain is likely to get all-in with a set, but if he has KQ he might find a way to check down or even fold subsequent streets.

Do we really want to give Villain the opportunity to save his money when behind? Of course not! So let's shove to cut off those evil reverse implied odds: those evil ways for Villain to make more money when ahead and lose less money when behind.

Interested to see the results here...

Now that we have established the math, the other aspect we have to consider is if the type of villain described is raising here with QJ, KQ and the draws...I'm not sure they are.

Villain is described as tight player. Are tight players looking to play for stacks on that board with KQ?

Completely agree with limonade's point that there are fewer combos of sets than KQ, and we shouldn't autofold vs a raise here.

But given that he is a relatively tight player at LLSNL, without further reads I would think we need to risk his weighting of KQ here. i.e. 25% of villains will raise KQ here (to protect vs draw), while 75% will play it passively and hope two more spades don't fall. After probability-weighting his hand range, I would think it's a fold.

Even if he is just as likely raising with KQ as a set, taking into consideration the very marginal edge we have here, I would personally fold and wait for a better spot. Losing a stack with top pair 53% of the time would impact my table image and probably make me tilt a bit as well, which is -EV for the rest of the session.

That's just me personally. If that stuff doesn't bother you then take the small edge all day.

OOPs sorry I was holding A Q

Just to clarify here guys there is no way villain is doing this with KQo. The only hand that he might be doing this with and this is a big maybe is KQ of spades. Villain perceives me as TAG and has only seen me get involved with the best of it. He knows that I will not bet into 4 players without a hand. I assigned villain that range based on our history and his image at the table.

I totally agree with this. We are flipping here and I can pick better spots to stack off. My question here would be can I possibly just call the flop raise then play the turn since I am getting a better price to shove turn on a safe card compared to shoving the flop?

Fold otf. Given description he's almost never spazzing with KQ here, unless its KQss. We're crushed by OPs/sets/2p, flipping with combo draws, and chopping with AQ.

V limp/folds often preflop and now wants to gii? No thanks.

Against a villain with said description I fold flop to his raise.
We haven't shown any weakness, so there's no reason to assume villain is raising with the intention of shutting down afterwards

better question is what to do with KK.

Meh... then we don't block any Qx hands. Not a tough spot.