2-3-5 NL 500 Max

Hero just sat down a few hands ago and Villain sat down around the same time as well, so no reads except that Villain has quickly built up his stack from an initial 100BBs to approx 200BBs with no showdowns.

Hero has $620 villain covers

Hero is UTG with JcJd and raises to 20. MP calls. Villain calls.

QdTd2s Pot $60ish

Hero bets $40. MP folds. Villain thinks and calls.

Turn 9d Hero?

This is the epitome of playing OOP, and the difficulties it causes. If hero had position then this hand is so much easier.

Preflop is ok, in a 3 blind game I might increase my raise sizing by 1BB here to 25 but 20 is not bad.

Flop seems standard.

So on this turn I would play my hand very villain dependent, if villain were aggressive I take a b/f line to prevent having to decide if his bet behind our check really means anything or if he's just trying to move us off our hand. If villain were known to be passive, I'd check/fold if he bets. Except... We have no reads here. Add in that the turn card is about the nut worst card for us and I think I'm going to have to take the nitty approach and check/fold. We are still behind Qx, the FD got there, KJ (somewhat less likely) just got there, and s ton of hands that we might be beating just picked up a lot of equity such as JT, AK/AJ w/1 diamond.

So I check here and evaluate based on sizing, if he checks behind I'm value betting blank rivers, but again on a B/F line.

The flop pretty much sucked donkey balls, but the turn makes our hand altogether playable.

I'm discounting AA, KK and sets based on the betting pattern, and I'm willing to take my chances with them anyway. Prior probability of a made flush is really low, something like 4%. If he turns up AdKd, oh well.

So I vote for a half-pot-sized bet. KQ and similar hands make a face and slam their cards to the table, saying something like, "the worst players always win." A good part of his range is AKo. Those call, especially AdKx, and we rejoice.

TBC I don't think a flush wins very often here, so we want to price out flush draws. In fact, any river that doesn't make your straight without a diamond is probably a c/f, I think.

It gets tricky if he comes over the top. That could mean AA/KK/set, however I think these raise pre or on the flop, most likely. A bluff-raise seems a little unlikely this early in the game. I think this is a b/f on the turn.

I could be wrong, usually am in fact, but this line kinda makes sense to me.

c/c and re-evaluate river

It's one of the best cards we could have hoped for...

I agree with everything u said but this... Betting this turn vs an aggro player is bad imo. I mean we know he's aggressive and he sees this as a scare card for us, so use this information and let him do his thing. Betting into him might prevent him from doing his thing.

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seems like a really trivial c/c to me. we probably won´t get better to fold, betting unnecessarily bloats the pot while being oop, we have showdownvalue + there are not really much rivers we hate. i don´t see much reasons to bet here.

The bigger problem with this hand is that you have no reads other than he doubled up in a "few hands." How did he do that? Is he mostly raising pf and cbetting? Is he limping and c/r the flop. Was it one hand and he's been quiet the rest of the time, or is it over most of the hands you've seen?

Is the villain male or female? Are his chips stacked neatly in 20s, one or two big stacks or just a mess? Does he know how to cut out the chips for his bet, or is he counting them out? Does he look at his cards once only, or is looking at them several times during the hand. Well dressed or sloppy? What is he wearing? Talkative or quiet? Focused on the game or watching the TV a lot?

You can't pay attention to everyone in the first orbit of play, but if someone has doubled up in that time, they should be your #1 priority to figure out. You need these answers to develop a picture of a player that hasn't shown anything yet.

When you have posters giving you multiple lines, it means you haven't provided enough information to be of any help. A default line would be to check the turn because when you have no clue about your opponent when they call, they either have TP or a draw. The draw got there, so the chances of you being ahead decreased dramatically.

Now if you had seen that he won 2 pots with a line of calling the flop bet and betting the turn when the pfr checked, I'm betting. But you didn't pay attention so we don't know.

The epitome of playing OOP. I couldn't have put it better myself and it was what I was thinking when I was playing the hand. My thought was to b/f the turn. If he's able to hand read (wbich he really shouldnt be able to do since he has no idea what i'd PFR in that spot) then more power to him.

So I fired out $70 on the turn. Villain thinks and calls. River is 3c i.e. mother of all bricks. Hero?

C-C turns my hand absolutely face up. It's like lighting money on fire and telling Villain, here take my money on all brick rivers.

Kinda sucks because I have no idea if he's an aggro player or if he's a calling station who was a card rack in the last 20 minutes. I was having a stupid conversation with the other side of the table. Lesson learnt huh? Pay ****ing attention.

I may be able to get a weak or even a semi-strong Q to fold, but what about protecting myself from being blown off the hand by a Tx type of hand.

Is there any value to betting just so Villain doesnt know *exactly* what you have? In his mind it would be AK but not always.

I would c/c for sure. If you dont improve on river throw it away.

You just turned a royal flush draw and have been aggressive. I am betting out the turn, with a bet that looks like I am protecting a made hand. Opp may fold, or at least be nervous enough to not bet when you check on the river, which you want as your hand has showdown value. Make your opponent make the tough decision here. One way to look at is if you would call a turn or river bet anyways, why not keep the initiative, beat him to the punch and make him make the tough call. If he is willing to raise to your aggression your probably beat anyways and can easily fold.

Awesome post. All pertinent questions. Your first set of questions. Ashamed to admit I did not pay attention.

Villain was male, probably late 30s, well dressed Indian guy like he just got off work. This was in the Bay area, so I'm guessing he's probably a senior technology guy. Neatly stacked. Cut chips perfectly. Looked at his cards once. Pretty quiet. Seemed like he was really tuned into what I was doing and I can't say I was doing the same with him.

I also looked at my hand before firing the turn which may have been a mistake. It would have prompted a double float from him putting me solely on a high diamond that couldn't take heat on a missed river.

I may have been beat, but I think I was outplayed as well which is why this hand was troubling me.

Further play in the hand: I bet 70 (half-pot) on turn and river is 3c. I check which villain doesnt notice and then after 30 seconds he looks at me and asks if I had done anything.

This is one of my pet peeves because my checking is already weak and I'm going to have to go through the same action twice without appearing weak. While it isn't an angle shoot generally it tilts the F out of me.

So I say "Yes, check" and there may have been some annoyance in my voice. He takes his time >45 secs and slowly cuts out a $145 bet on the river and I'm too tilted to think about anything so my hand instahits the muck.

I agree completely. However, what does hero do if villian raises? It would put hero in a sticky situation. Do you call and bluff on the river if a blank comes? That is why I feel a check call is ideal here and see how you imrpove on the river.

I was going to fold to a turn raise. While there may be higher stakes players that slum it out at the lower levels whilst waiting for a table and would be capable of a turn raise as a bluff, it is so rare at the lower levels that it can't be a mistake to just fold in those spots and not give it too much thought.

He called on the turn which leads me to believe Q with medium kicker. I didn't think a huge bet on the river was necessarily going to work so I gave up on river and C/Folded

Edit: I don't think C/C is best on turn because even the most recreational of players knows how to bluff a flush card and I don't want my hand to be face up. I also got this vibe that you sometimes get playing Live that he did not have a flush and I didn't want to give him the opportunity to put me to the test on turn and then river and I wanted to see if I could get a QJ type of hand to fold, and I have outs (possibly) if I improve on river.

I just feel that if you check call, you see a card for the same price you would as if you bet. Also, you risk the chance that when you bet he raises so you wont even make it to the river. And the only way you are winning this hand is if you are improved on the river unless you were to check raise turn (which he still might call).

I figure just about any raise here is a made flush and you should just fold. And your turn bet is likely less than the bet you would have called anyways, so your ahead of the game here and pretty confident opp has the best hand. Doing the turn bet or check call, are really just two ways of hopefully reaching a showdown on the river. Depending on the opps and your image, either one may be the best choice. I like the Turn bet as it will often get the better hand to fold and you get to set the price. With the check, you likely end up in showdown against the better hand.

Fair enough, glad we can look at it from two different perspectives.

What does this mean? I don't understand the 4% number. Is this the chances of any two random cards having a flush on the turn?

Also, when people talk of a b/f line, does that mean bet out and then fold to a raise?

Sorry for the rookie questions. I'll catch up quickly.

If we run this through Flopzilla, assuming villain is playing top 20% of hands, the prior probability of him having top pair otf is 17%, and of having a flush draw otf is 3%.

I think we have good fold equity on the turn, quite a bit less, if any, on the river. Getting checked through by a passive player costs us a little money, I think, in terms of lost fold equity.

If he is willing to bet air on the turn, that's a disaster for us. We pretty much have to fold, even though we are ahead 56% of the time, and have draws that beat many of the remaining hands. I don't think we can safely ignore this possibility.

It would be nice to have more info, but I think we have to consider betting the turn regardless