NWIndiana NL 1/2
Hero is at $250 an hour into play. Only 1 table is going but it's full. Hero has JJ UTG+1.
UTG folds. UTG+1 Hero makes it 15.
It folds around to Small Blind who calls 15. BB folds.
I know most of the players at the table but not SB villain. He sat down 5 hands ago and played 4 of them. He's a 40 yo BG who bought in for $200. He has about that now. I have never seen him before. I have no reads.
POT $32
Flop
578
SB checks.
Hero bets $20.
SB hesitates. Plays with chips and makes it $60.
HERO???????????

I don’t love it but i’m Not layin it down quite yet. I probably flat and try to get to show down cheaply. Willing to fold to further clear aggression but also willing to play for stacks here with any reasonable live read.

I think I'm comfortable stacking off here to this guy on this board with an SPR of 5:1.

If effective stacks were 260 or more, I start to think more about letting it go.

I don't see any need to get cute with a flat call. Our equity vs his range seems good now. Let's just ship it in and let him decide if he wants to stack off with Q4, 99, 66 or whatever other random hand he might have.

If we just call, we're potentially ceding any fold equity we might have had. The pot will be 150, he'll have 125 and he will often just ship it in with the entirety of his range whether he hits his draw on the turn or not.

I'm happy to put him all in on the flop
No way I'm folding and think he can call off with a lot worse

OK, I'll stake out the fold camp.

I very much doubt an unknown is x/r with a draw. I think we're almost always looking at 2P+ here, with the occasional 99 or TT (and the rare QQ+; I've seen people that don't ever 3b pre, not even with AA).

I don't think there's anything really wrong with stacking off here, but without any reads I'm going to assume that the population of half-pot x/r on the flop contains very few draws and lots of strong hands.

I think we have very little fold equity. x/r/f is one of those lines I've heard of, but can't recall actually seeing in the wild.

If we're going to stack off, I'd call here and jam non-heart turns. If a heart comes, it's very hard to find many hands in our opponent's x/r range that we beat. If a heart doesn't come, we can at least make any of his draws unprofitable.

But if we get to showdown, I think we're mostly going to have an opportunity to model gracious losing behavior.

Check flop

Agree with all of this. It's probably perfectly fine to stack off with JJ here, but at these stakes when an unknown takes this type of a line and I'm read-less on him, I lean towards giving him credit for 2p+ until I see enough from him to make me believe otherwise. I guess it could be argued that folding JJ here is -EV in a vacuum, but we all know that what's "correct" play isn't always what's best in your run of the mill 1-2/1-3 games.

Someone else mentioned checking back flop, and I like that line sometimes as well. With medium over-pairs on low-mid coordinated boards that are much better for our V's range than our opening range, I often elect to pot control by checking flop and evaluating turn. Yes we sometimes let hands catch up, but I don't feel like JJ on a board like this is a hand that we can often expect to get 3 streets of fat value from lesser hands. In this situation I probably check back about as often as I bet this flop.

As played, I just shrug and fold. If you feel like you have good equity against his perceived range, then I'd rather GII here as opposed to flatting and evaluating. I think V is almost always going to be continuing on the turn, and there's so many bad turn cards for our hand that it's not even funny. If I'm not folding then I'm sticking it in right here.

That would have helped me in this hand no doubt, but honestly JJ on a board like that needs to be bet out as all sorts of draws are available to villain but not to us.

That's the thing. I just didn't know the guy and had no info. About 5 hands later he stacked an OMC with a 7/5 offsuit rivered gutshot and then I had new perceptions on the JJ hand lol.

Chicago, you play in the Midwest, you gotta stack off here. This is TP or a heart draw way too often. Just rip it in.

Yeah, you'll feel stupid when he has a str8 or 2 pair, but those times are far outweighed by the times he has 89, 8T, etc.

PS. Don't check flop.

100% this.

People play really bad in all of the Chicago area casinos. There must be high concentrations of lead in the water or something.

I'm not laying down JJ to a black guy who's played 5 of his 6 first hands. Get it in.

QUOTE OF THE YEAR! LOL

You know it's a mix of regs and bad regs usually. For a long time I had respect for a guy if he's a reg and then i realized a lot of these guys have dark demons that cause them to gamble habitually and spew chips. The last 2 years have definitely been a learning experience.

You're right. I laid down the hand like a sissy because I felt that I would have to stack off here. He may have had a straight already or he may have had top pair. I don't know. Most of my actions are player dependent. I'm in an environment where i know 70% or more of the players and at the other casino it's more like 40%. In general, I don't like to stack off with JJ when I have more than 100BBs. When I know 0 about the guy it causes mistakes in terms of ranges. I think I fell back into what kind of hands should you reraise with there rather than what kind of hands people unlike me would reraise there. I think i fffed up this hand and am glad for the feedback. I have to improve.

It was not an easy spot. And yes, had you called you would have needed to stack off on a non-heart turn.

Would you have stacked off if effective stacks were 100? What about 150?

You're being way to hard on yourself. There is absolutely nothing wrong with folding here. In fact, I would've folded also. The best way to win a lot of money playing poker is to not lose a lot of money. Let that sink in for a minute.

Checking flop is also very good advice. Not every time, but a lot of times especially when you dont know villain.

You're thinking about this backwards. When there are tons of draws available to villains we want to check more.

AA on 789hh wants to check
AA on K72 wants to bet

Put another way, if you check back JJ in your actual hand, and the 6 rolls off and villain bets, you played your hand perfectly. His turn donking range on a 6 is never folding to a flop bet, and most of the time its x/raising.

Said another way, you cant "charge draws" on a 578hh board. Unless you like 2x or whatever (which would also be bad). When villains have a range advangtage over you (better board coverage on particular textures) you want to try to let blank turns roll off and/or get to showdown more cheaply.

I disagree. This sounds like you're essentially saying we should be more likely to give a free card with a made hand when the board is wet and deny a free card with a made hand when it's dry. I think that's backwards.

When the board is dry and K-high, we should be more likely to cbet with whiffs and more likely to check back a made hand.

* The flop hits our stereotypical pfr range, making loose calls somewhat less likely.

* A free card is less likely to hurt us (i.e. we're in good shape against his x/f range).

* Flop is less likely to hit V, so he's more likely to fold. That's good if we whiffed, not so good if we have a hand that wants to get paid.

When the board is wet, all of these points get inverted and we should be more likely to bet our made hands and less likely to cbet.
* Flop doesn't appear to hit the stereotypical pfr range.

* A free card is more likely to hurt us.

* The flop is more likely to have hit V and he's more likely to call.


Any money the draw puts in is a "charge". We may not get all the way to making the draw unprofitable, but we can make it less profitable than it would be with a free card.

With respect to range advantage:
I gave V a 29% CC range.

On this flop, he's probably ahead about 10 - 12% of the time (QQ+, 2P, sets, straights).

He'll have a draw (7 outs or better) around 35% - 40% of the time. He'll have two overs about 15% of the time.

We have more equity in the pot than he does (around 67/33).

He may have a range v. range advantage, but I don't think it's necessary to resort to playing RvR. I very much doubt he is.

There are certainly situations where I'd check back a made hand on a wet board, but I think it's going too far to say that we should tend to do that.

Disclaimer: I'm intentionally ignoring balance here in order to keep the discussion more manageable and to focus on the key point. As usual, there are a lot of "it depends" factors; Ava and I are both talking about tendencies and increased or decreased frequencies, not hard and fast rules.

+1. I just don't see this move that often (anymore) with TPTK. If he is not doing this w/ TPTK (or 99/TT) then we are in a way behind/slightly ahead situation which isn't +EV.

No. JJ only has to bet this flop IF it is willing to play a big pot. Otherwise it can play pot control the whole way. Thinking that this is an auto bet no matter what is IMHO the wrong way to think. We have a stack size that is in a range where it feels slightly uncomfy to stack off (hence, likely why you posted the hand in the first place). I like a bet on this board much more if we are short stacked (and can easily respond to any raise with a shove) or very deep where we can call a raise on the flop and play poker on the turn. In the first case, we have a "big pot hand" because of our small stack....in the second we are still playing a small hand because our stack is so large.

AP, I would have checked this flop too and likely bet any non-heart turns if checked too or called a small bet. This way, we keep the pot small and protect the value of our position by making V come to us. With one pair hands on unfavorable boards, it can avoid the tricky decisions that many of the hands posted here are all about.

I think there was a similar hand posted in the last couple weeks where you also advocated for this line (this situation-- overpair facing c/r-- is a tough one forsure).

I think your advice could be right, but really depends on what range the Villains in your games are taking this c/r line with. As was the case with the hand posted a couple of weeks ago, we have minimal info on the Villain here.

In your games, what range would you give for an arbitrary villain you know little about making this move? Your line makes sense to me if there is a reasonable chance that by taking the b/f line, we are folding the best hand (and by best hand, I mean a solid favorite, not a slight favorite / coin flip situation).

In my games, I just think the frequency of a random villain check-raising with a hand that we have crushed is very rare, so I am comfortable folding, but perhaps you are seeing this play enough with TPTK type hands so that checking and taking passive line makes sense.

If we interpret his raise as a shove (committing to the pot) then our pot odds are 165/402 = 41%.

Here is a possible range but he's played 4 out of 5 hands so far so its hard to know if his range is wider and whether he could do it with any hand including a 6:

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

99,990 trials (Exhaustive)

board: 875

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
JcJd	46.58%	45,646	1,852
88,77,55,99,TT,66,9x6x,6x4x,8x7x,7x5x,hh,8x6x,7x6x,6x5x	53.42%	52,492	1,852

It is a good point and perhaps will maybe make my point even more (to some...some will always say you lose too much value in checking). I would range V with all two card heart draws, all sets, all 2p, all str8s, 66, 44, 99, TT. From that list above, the only hands that we are really far ahead of are TT and 99 (2-6 out hands). Given the V is unknown, I suppose you can also include some random spaz crap for 5% of the range too since u never know.

I guess my larger point though is that we really don't have a hand that we should be comfortable getting a ton of $$ involved. Even the most aggro of us on this board probably wouldn't advocate trying for three streets from JJ on this board, so we are going to check one street. As another poster said, V is not folding any of his big draws to a bet and could also check-raise us and put us in a bind. So while betting does make him "pay" to get there, I am not really sure it adds to our long term EV in this spot (especially given we are IP). So checking this flop avoids this awkward spot and gives us better info on the turn since V will have acted twice.

TBH, I might be happy checking this hand all the way unimproved as I just don't think playing big pots on boards like this with one pair are where we actually realize most of our profit long-term.

I'm so confused here. I'm betting OP's board for value from draws AND made hands, and there are lots of both on this board. Checking here seems like giving up entirely too much value and being results-oriented.

^^ That's the way I see it in the games I play. Against an unknown, presumably "typical" villain, I expect to get check-raised <5% of the time. The other times we get value from worse hands and happily get hands that missed but have an A/K/Q to fold. But maybe in other people's games they are getting check-raised a lot more frequently, with both better and worse hands, which would make a check/call line more understandable.