1-3

H - button - covers - been playing a few hours and only shown down strong hands, but V is new to table so won't know this.

V - cutoff - $300 - new to table so not many reads.

Folds to V who makes it $15, H looks down at 910 and makes the call.

Flop ($31) - KJ4

V leads $15, we raise to $60 (thoughts?), V makes it $130, H?


Benefits of shoving vs flatting (vs folding)? Obv it's 1-3 so a flop 3b is pretty damn strong, but also we have a GSFD!

Just call the flop bet. No need to raise here (and you could easily have gone smaller). Now it's either shove and pray or fold, and for that amount of money with really only one nut card, I just fold.

I prefer to flat the flop most of the time here too. As played I prefer a shove to a fold.

Not convinced preflop is going to be profitable due to us not being sure of our FE postflop against an unknown.

Think I'm cool with the flop raise due to it really does look like a light LP open and lol cbet, so we should have decent FE here on top of our good hand equity. I'd raise smaller to like $45 cuz that should get the same job done plus leave us better IO if we do get raised.

At this point I might just ship and live with results. But against a preflop raiser / flop 3better I'm guessing we don't have much FE (although we always have some non-zero FE).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Surely 20-1 is enough IO to call with T9s?

We're going to make 20x every time against this guy when we make our hand?

If anything, it's probably less about actually making money against him when we make our hand (it's folded to him in LP, most of the time he'll have nothing worth paying off with the rare time we make a hand), and more about stealing the pot when he doesn't make a hand (and yet we're both unknown to each other, so our FE is really unknown).

ETA#1: Here we flopped one of the nuttish flops we could flop, and even still got ourselves into a situation where's it's now debatable if any move at this point is profitable.

ETA#2: Also can't ignore the affect of rake the times we steal a small pot (such as by flatting this flop and then stealing it with a bet on the turn if checked to); it's massive (over 25% of our winnings in that case will be raked). Not convinced we're *that* much better than our opponent where preflop is profitable.

GcluelessNLnoobG

call 15 i think

I feel like I would lose a small part of my soul if I start folding 910s OTB to an open.

V is very unlikely to have AT, so non-spade Q's give us the effective nuts.

He's also very unlikely to have a better flush draw. AsQs and As4s are the only real candidates, and many won't raise As4s pre. I don't think many V's would 3b (but not jam) a naked FD.

V can have sets, 2P, or TPTK. He could conceivably be getting frisky with QTs, though that's not common I think.

Overall, our outs look pretty solid.

With 12 outs twice, we're about 45% to make the hand. V will often have a redraw, either to a boat or to a higher flush (with AsKx, for example). Let's say we've got around 40% equity, maybe a bit less.

It's $70 to call and another $155 to jam, so we're putting in $225 to win $221 in the pot and another $155 behind -- $225 to win $376.

40% of $376 is around $150. 60% of $225 is around $135 so we're ahead bout $15 on a jam (with error bars that could mean we're actually negative).

We're about 3:1 to bink on the turn and getting juuuuust a tad more than 3:1 on a call, with money behind. If we bink, we'll probably be an 80% favorite most of the time (and dead every once in a while). If we're ahead, we should win $155 80% and lose $155 20% for an expectation of about $90 on the 25% we hit. Call it about $23 total. Reduce that for the times he does have a higher FD. (The money in the pot makes calling only breakeven, so it's all about the implied odds.)

So calling just one card is probably worth a bit less than $20 (for the times we're actually dead when we hit the spade).

There's always some FE and there's always some chance V checks the turn when we miss. Both are small likelihoods IMO.

I think either are reasonable. Against an aggro opponent (who is more likely to find some spazz bluff and who won't check the turn) jamming may be better. Against a timid opponent (who's more likely to give us a free card), calling might be better.

You guys are all acting as if this is a shove/fold spot. Did you even consider calling?

We're getting about direct odds to peel one street against such a small 3-bet. Folding would be silly.

It's irrelevant that our outs aren't to the nuts if V doesn't play dominating draws this way. AsQs is the only one, and only one combo. This is almost always a made hand like KJ/KK/JJ/AA/AK/44

Going to guess neither of you knows the odds of hitting a 2 pair+ hand on the flop with T9s.

We don't call because of IO, we call because we have position with a hand which has decent equity and plays well post-flop. We're not just looking for 2P+ or a good draw. Middle/Top pair can win. We can have profitable bluffs when the flop/turn checks to us.

I would have considered 3 betting preflop but probably just called. On the flop, it is an easy call. By raising the flop, you eliminate a lot of your perceived range. As played, I wouldn't fold now. You're getting around 3 to 1 on a call and have 13 outs twice.

Fold pre. You don't have a soul, you're grinding 1/3. Or 3bet but I prefer that against someone I know will fold to my nittish image.

Raising flop I might not but ok since we could call a jam if we had to. Once he min 3's, my immediate thought was with browni, why can't we just call? No need to shove, as there is a non-zero chance he slows down ott and we should have zero FE.

Odds of flopping 2P+ are approximately 5% (they're exactly 5.6%). However, there's about a 20% (exactly 19.3%) chance to flop either a flush draw or an OESD in addition to that. About 6% of the time we'll flop a big combo draw (OESD+pair, FD+pair, OESD+FD, FD+GS). That 6% is included in the 19.3%.

The hand plays well multi-way, so we don't mind other callers and we're OTB, minimizing chances of a RR behind us.

I don't mind the call; I'd make the same play. We don't have to make 20X because of the additional draws.

Obviously, flopping a draw isn't as good as flopping 2P+ and the point isn't that we're going to flop a draw, hit it, and get paid off (necessarily). The draws give us some equity, but mostly they give us many more chances to play aggressively and use our position and relatively high SPR to get V to fold the best hand.

If there were more money behind, I think it would be bad not to call.

If we're not comfortable being able to steal post, the play gets much more marginal. We need to be able to duck when we're beat and at least occasionally steal.

If we do get another caller in the SB or BB, it hurts our steal chances, but helps our draw profitability.

I'd snap fold this OOP without solid, exploitable reads on V. But position is huge. IP, with likely SPR of 9, I think calling is profitable.

I think RR might also be profitable, but I'd like some reads that V expands his raising range in LP to really consider that.

I'm fine with recommending a fold if we're just beginning our poker journey, but with even basic postflop skills, I think it's at least somewhat profitable to call.

@givinaway: OTF, we have 12 outs twice: 3 non-spade Q's and 9 spades. We also should discount that slightly because the 4s is tainted. It pairs the board and will give us an expensive second-best hand against KK or JJ (or 44 if he plays that this way).

Flat vs 5x pre is fine. I don't mind a fold either, esp if you think he's more nuttish when he 5x pre. Don't like a 3b pre at all without good reads/exploitations. You're not making much money flatting T high here, but it can't be too bad.

You have to raise this flop with T high. Advocating a call id just results oriented. He's cbetting here a lot and you get to fold out a ton of hands. WP, op.

Dont have a choice but to rip it in now

I'd assume raising flop vs most live opponents is fine. Would you advocate raising vs someone you considered decent to good? We really only have KJ and 44 for value raises OTF.

Agreed, raise the flop. We can get better hands to fold. Really, most of the hands in his range are ahead of us so anything that folds is good. We also may set up a good bluff on the turn, or we can check behind for a free card if that makes the most sense.

Flatting gets him closer to showdown, gives him a cheap card to improve his hand to something we can't move him off, and tends to reduce the impact of our turn bet if he checks to us.

When we called this pre, it should have been with the implicit plan that we were going to play post aggressively and take it down a noticeable fraction of the time that we miss. Raising the flop is the natural continuation of that.

I'd flat if we hit something like a 9 or a T and wanted to get to showdown against his full raising range or if we had a just a FD or OESD, where we didn't want to get blown off it and wanted to keep implied odds high.

pre 3b>>call>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>lol fold

I'm calling this almost always pre. (I honestly can't imagine folding T9s OTB in most situations.) I would have flatted the cbet because I don't want to gii here, although I don't mind the raise too much because we could have some FE on the flop. If I were to raise, I'd make it $45. I think $60 was overkill.

I think calling the flop now is a mistake. We need to see both cards. Putting in $145 and having to fold if we miss the turn is terrible. If your plan is to gii on any turn, calling is whatever, but I think gii is much better, and just folding is better than calling.

If we have any FE, I'd be very surprised. Players rarely put in half their stacks just to fold, especially with only 100bb.

I'm not following you here. Our decision is for $70 on a $221 pot, not $145. (I understand it's $145 total since the beginning of flop action, but obviously we didn't know the future when we made our initial decision.)

Can you give some more color about why flatting the raise as played has negative EV?

It's putting $145 total against an effective stack of $300 when we need to see two cards. Putting in $145 just to see the turn and fold if we miss is a mistake, especially if there is any chance he'll fold if the flush hits.

I do, we also have position and it's a cutoff open (albeit from an unknown). I don't think we need 2p+ to win.

There is negative EV, and then there is worse EV than the other play.

Raising gets a few folds which take down all the pot right away. Nice.
Assuming our outs are all live (which both call and raise kind of assume), raising and being called is betting 225 to win 671 with slightly over 50% odds. Nice.


Calling the flop commits you to calling the turn anyway. You will have express odds again. You don't get extra money from bluff catching, because you still need to hit your outs to beat bluffs. But hitting your draws, especially the flush, could kill your action. The weaker value hands and the bluffs for the villain saw you call a 3 bet and then saw a draw get home. They could rightfully conclude they can't beat anything anymore, and somehow tank fold.

So you are still paying those hands when you don't hit, but they sometimes don't pay you when you do. And you lose the chance to just take the whole pot and not even run the draw.

I'm not seeing any point where we're putting in $145. I may well be missing something, but the AP choice is $70 (perhaps followed by $155 if we hit). The only way I see to get to $145 is to add the $15 preflop to the $130 post, but that combines three separate decisions into one, which isn't really the right way to think about it. What am I not seeing here?