2/5 NL cash game

Effective stacks of 500

Utg opens for 15. I can see that one of utg's cards is the Kc. HJ and button call. I call in BB with Ks, Qh. (62 in the pot)

Flop is Qs, 7s, 3s. I bet 35, and only HJ calls. (132)

Turn is Jh. I bet 100, and he calls. (332)

River is 4h. I check, and he bets 200. Hero? Comments on other streets also welcome.

The only bad card that can come is an offsuit ace so we dont mind giving free cards. For this reason, I prefer check calling flop. If flop checks through, then lead turn. The problem with taking the lead otf is that we dont really know where we are at right now, and we dont know where were at once a spade comes either.

Given the action, your hand is nowhere near as strong as you make it to me. Call preflop is fine, but I am definitely not check-calling that flop.

As played, hero folds. Looks like a decent value bet.

Do you mean to say that you are leading this flop? Or that you are check folding? That would be pretty bad. We really cant fold on this flop unless we're facing some serious heat.

I am checking to the initial raiser. Leading is not ideal. Turn bet is also sub optimal. Jh is not a great card as now you are losing to QJ and JsJx which is in there range.

As played it looks like a fold but you are getting a decent price.

It's hard to tell if this is a call or fold because there are no descriptions of villain. Also squeezing here would of been really good.

I called, and he won with As, 9s.

Check the flop. If anyone is remotely paying attention to you, there gonna be able to cbet you extremely profitably. AP, check the turn, but if you do decide to bet this thin you need to bet smaller. AP, fold the river.


This hand would have functioned much better as a call flop, call turn, fold river hand, rather than a bet flop, bet turn, check-call river hand. You narrowed his range down way too much to the point he's valubetting basically flushes OTR, which means your relying on him turning enough of his one spade ace hands (which should be rare given his HJ Flat of UTG), into bluffs to overcome all the suited spade combos that are much more likely in his range.

If you saw one of UTGs cards was a K, why would you even call preflop? Its a lot more likely he has AK than KJ. I guess your intention was to call for the purpose of taking the pot away because you have an edge knowing one of his cards? That's a little sleezy in the first place but this isnt the time to try it anyway. If it was heads up it would be different. Now you most likely have to fold if a K flops (but I bet you wont) and you cant win the pot with nothing, which is the only reason to make the sleezy move of calling with the intention of taking it away when youre pretty sure UTG misses (because there are other guys in the hand).

Dumb move all around.

Call pre is standard. He's getting almost 5:1. Its very unlikely his call is losing more than 100bb/100 in this spot with KQo, even with a K missing from the deck.

Calling an UTG raise preflop with KQ is not standard. You may think it is, but its not profitable. Knowing UTG has a K before hand, his call is terrible.

Your right that its probably not "profitable". But its not as costly as folding every time. Go in equilab, plug in reasonable ranges for this exact spot, reduce the equity by whatever realization factor you want, and I'll bet you a pretty penny that you change your mind

That makes no sense. You say calling probably isnt profitable....then you say its not as costly as folding every time. If calling probably isnt profitable, then folding every time HAS to be better.

When you say "plug in reasonable ranges"...what do you think is a reasonable range for an UTG raiser when you know one card is a K?

KK/AK/KQ/KJ. You think you can call pre OOP with KQ for a profit against that range?

When your in the BB, if you folded every time you would lose at a loss rate of 100bb/100 hands. Thus, any decision that loses less than 100bb/100 is a better decision, even if it still generates a negative winrate. Were getting 4.7:1, we need 17.5% equity to continue, in a standard live passive 2/5 game realizing your equity isn't that tough, although admittedly you suffer a bit being OOP and moreso multiway. If this was a larger open you could make a case for folding, but given you have a ton of information on your opponent, and your presumably up against two fairly well defined calling ranges, this is a mandatory call imo. Your making it sound like you'd fold even if you didn't know the K wasn't in the deck, which is extremely nitty. If this was HU and you didn't know the Kc was missing, folding would be a mistake, even if you were up against say a super nitty 6% UTG Open range

Player dependent, but I fold a lot more than I call in that spot and Im anything but a nit.

Trying to calculate preflop equity like this is a waste of time. There are way too many variables during the hand for that to be of any use at all.

You referred to live passive 2/5 games. If this is a live passive 2/5 game and someone still raised UTG, they are very strong. Calling with KQ OOP sucks.

This isn't a waste of time nor is it something you'd calculate at the table. Finding how wide you can call in the BB by yourself off the table is one of the best adjustments you can make to improve your winrate, because being in the BB sucks for your winrate. There's also not that many variables to account for, just assume the tightest ranges possible and you'll be fine. Your last statement is true, my point is that you can call pretty wide in the BB even vs very tight ranges and its more correct than folding. Calling in the BB is about pot odds and equity realization. Yes calling KQo OOP sucks, but it turns out it doesn't suck as much as folding it 100%. If you look at one of the biggest differences between online and live regs right now, you'll see that online players are playing quite loose from the BB. Tourney players play even wider cause of antes. I'm not trying to be confrontational, I just think this one of the biggest leaks of all LLSNL regs.

If I were to call pre, I would 1st protect the integrity of the game by announcing that I had seen UTG's card. Therefore, I would have just folded without saying anything.

Most online players raise a lot wider than live players and most online games are 6 max, not full ring, so it makes sense that you can call wider out of the BB online. A lot of online players also get killed playing live until they adjust. Calling wide out of the BB doesnt work playing live.

You are just wrong everywhere. The other guy pretty much nailed it.

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he flopped the nut flush, easy fold you value owned yourself turn and flop already.

you called out of position with offsuit KQ after seeing one of your 6 cards dead. fold pre. even if you didnt see your card gone you should just be folding this pre.

edit:just read thru comments and saw he did have the nut flush! gj me!

Lol at folding pre assuming cards unknown. People really fail at math.

That said, postflop is butchered and should be checked everywhere.

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its on the players at the table to protect their cards. after telling people over and over to protect their hands and getting dirty looks like im doing it on purpose lol now i just straight up try to sit in the 3 seat or 7 seat just so i can maybe catch a glimpse of 4,5,or6's hand. No scruples about it. It is the players responsibility to protect their own hand. Should i tell them not to bluff so much in bad spots etc too???

ok read thru the mikestarr and straighfloosh comments and it's obvious who has more time playing live poker: mikestarr. calling an UTG raise from the BB in a multiway pot is just lighting money on fire. you can talk about equilab all you want but guys like me and mike we run the streets. we can tell you from experience not from math is idiotic that folding is better than calling.

anyone who thinks calling this from the BB is good seriously UNDERESTIMATES POSITION. you guys just don't understand the power of position. run the streets, not equilab and tell me how KQos fares calling raises in the blinds at full ring. you call and miss a bunch and have to give up. so 70% of the time you call pre give up on flop. sometimes you flop it and still lose. obvious a losing play to call.

whats the math on playing a hand OOP without the lead smart guy???

Lol run the streets what are you 12?

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lol come on dude thats the lingo. poker streets, aka the flop turn and river. fourth street and fifth street are synonymous with turn and river.

so whats the math on playing OOP? does equilab have a positional calculation??

The math is that you need to realize 17% equity preflop to make calling better than folding. So in your hypothetical example of folding 70% of the time on the flop, that would usually make calling better than folding, unless you play extremely badly postflop like routinely stacking off with one pair. In four way pots people tend to play fairly honestly, as anyone getting out of line tends to get punished by the high likelyhood of someone else having a playable hand multi-way on most boards.

Most people with online experience tend to play well enough to not lose 100bb/100 hands when they call with this hand. If you feel that calling loses more than 100bb/100 hands, perhaps you could improve your game by playing online until you feel comfortable with making calls like this.

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