EP($300 ish) limps, probably 4-5 callers after that, SB folds, hero($1.1k ish) raises AA to $20 from BB, EP calls, rest fold.

flop($50ish): J9Q

hero bets $40, EP raises to $100, hero?

villan is female, probably late 30's. she bought in for full $200. she was down to $100 or so, i come back from lunch and she's sitting with $300ish. she's been limp/calling pre and pretty straight forward so far. no history with villan.

never folding getting 3 to 1 with a possible 11 outs.

This. And a raise seems rather bad to me vs a straightforward player unless you think they would go nuts with top pair only on that board. They are not folding much they would raise flop with.

yeah im never folding but just debating if its a call or a shove. im pretty sure im behind at this point, and its not like im way behind unless she has a flush herself. problem with calling is if i bink a spade, ill have a hard time extracting value and kills action. so its a jam or call right?

jamming is bad bc a straightforward opponent is never raising your lead with anything less than 2pr+ on this board

if you shove you are very likely to get it in as a dog. take advantage of her mistake of raising to small and giving you decent immediate and implied odds

^ so on blank turns like 2d/3h/5c/etc, how much are you c/c'ing if she bets? and if she shoves?

if you flat pot will be 250 and she will have another 180 behind. if she jams you would have to call 180 to win 430 and would be getting a little more than 2 to 1 on a call, not good enough to draw to your possible 11 outs.

but if she makes another sizing mistake and bets 100, your immediate odds will be 3.5 to 1 on a call, and assuming you get the rest of her stack, you will be getting 4.3 to 1 in implied odds which will allow you to profitably draw.

^Could be 16 outs if she's holding two pair

Then again could be only 7 if she has a made flush, or less if she has SF redraw.

So, yeah I don't see how you can call a shove on a blank turn.

If she only bets $100 ott, the difficulty is folding AA when she bets that awkward $80 into $630 on the river and you have to call hoping she has QT/JT/9T with T of spades or something wonky

good point. it is a tricky spot all around i guess. jamming flop is no good, and you can't fold, so that leaves calling.

turn is a fold if she jams, but you cant really fold if she bets something like 100 with the odds op would be receiving.

but i do think you can confidently c/f the river even though the price you are getting is ridiculously good bc i don't think she shoves with the hands we are ahead of if she is straightforward.

if i planned on calling turn and river unimproved, then i would just go ahead and jam flop

c/c all streets is better than jamming flop as you have close to zero fold equity against hands that beat you. You beat all pair+FDs.

Well, I think you need to put her on a range first.

What are the type of hands that she limps with? Does she limp/call JJ and QQ at early position? What are the possible hands that she has preflop?

Scenario 1:

The picture below shows all the possible range of cards she had and is raising you at flop:



Assumption made:
1) She is raising with top pair hands
2) She do not raise with middle pair no draw
3) She raises with sets and two pairs+
4) She has a straight draw and play it aggressively.

As can be seen, you are way ahead of her range in this case, making a re-raise for value mandatory.

We look at the second scenario (villain also had a tighter preflop range):

Scenario 2

Assumption:
1) She does not raise top pair hands
2) She play straight draws passively
3) She will not raise with middle pair and below
4) She only raise overpair, two pairs and sets+
5) She raise with flush draw+pair / straight + flush draw



In this case, you are about 50% vs 50%. This is more or less the worst case scenario for you.

Given that we can't be 100% sure of her ranges, I would make re-raising my default whenever I face this scenario.

Hope it helps...

Why such a 'large' bet on the Flop? Don't you want to price in any 1pr-flush draw type of hands AND doesn't this size bet scream 'I dont have a flush'? Not quite sure what your opponent is putting you on here in order to raise like this ...

What is she going to call your PF raise with that lands her a flush here? I like 1010s for this type of raise from a 'reg' ... it is certainly possible that you are behind to a set as well. What KsXs hand does she have ... not happening. Would she flat QQ/JJ PF? She probably would flat 99/1010

I like the idea of a flat here, but dont rule out shoving the Turn before she gets the chance to do so even if it's a blank. Can she have a flush with a $20 PF limp/call? Problem with this is that she is priced into a call if she has a set, not sure she can call a Turn shove with 2-pr or a strt.

Math aside, what your opponent puts you on in these spots is a huge factor ... which in a sense creates the math components for you!! No one shoves the nuts, right? What would we be protecting if we shoved Flop or Turn that an opponent would fold to? If 'not much' is the answer, then flat calling will limit our exposure going into the Turn and we can evaluate from OOP.

I like flatting the Flop and would consider shoving most Turns sometimes but would look to evaluate a Turn bet against most ABC/unknown opponnents and probably act in accordance as suggested above ... but not happily!! You are only behind QJ or sets here IMO and it comes down to how wide of a range you can put her on as to shoving the Turn or not. GL

I do not understand your logic behind betting smaller at flop.

Do you not have a value hand at flop? Surely you want to bet larger for value? Do you think a 2/3 pot size bet will deter villain from calling compared to a 1/2 pot size bet here?

Please clarify.

We are betting 40 into 50, which at 80% is more of a 'go away' bet IMO. I dont mind 30or 35 here which might keep more ppl interested. IMO I just think we narrow the range of hands that will call this bet AND the larger our cbet the larger a raise will be as well. That may seem a bit nit-picky but any bet in the 30s seems more 'callable' than in the 40s.

I dont make a habit of betting 2x or more of my PF raise when HU, especially on this type of board where we want the Ks hanging around. The larger the bet the smaller the range of hands that will call or raise. Although I do play with some regs who would bet large here with an AK whiff.

If we dont plan on playing for stacks here on Flop or Turn (as is suggested) then why open the door up to increasing math until we know top pair is a 'good' hand?

I do not agree that villain will view a $30 bet differently from $40 bet especially at $2/$5 limit and below.

If villain is willing to call a $30 bet, why wouldn't she do so if the bet size is $40? From my experiences, most villain do not think in terms of relative bet size but instead they look at it in terms of absolute bet size. And in this case, $30 is no different to $40.

Well, I guess you agree that the naked Ks flush draw wont be sticking around for long, and most likely will fold turn or river?

Well then won't you want to extract more at flop and turn? Bet bigger for value!

From my analysis above using flopzilla, we seldom have less than 50% equity here. Why aren't we not happy to go all in at flop?

1-2 and 2-5 are VERY different animals from my (limited?) experience. This is a 1-2 game and 'relative' applies way more than 'absolute' IMO. I want to get a $30 Flop bet and a $40 Turn bet here. If I go with $40 on the Flop I will rarely get a Turn call as my bet will need to be $55+. I make $70 instead of $40 ...

In order to play for stacks we have to have a willing partner AND we have to WANT to flip. In 1-2 I have found that its very rare that ppl want to flip (with me anyway) without being in a dominating position for their stacks, but they dont mind being milked dry by 'reasonable' bets.

I draw a little bit here from tournament play (and pro blogs) that you dont need to put in any more chips than necessary to get the information you want (while still getting value). You have to decide what you are going to do with a raise before the raise comes, right? If you don't want to flip for your stack, then show a bit of pot control. Certainly we proceed with our hand way more often here in cash than we would in a similar tournament situation, correct?

I tend to agree with your thoughts, I just can't apply them to the majority of players I find at my 1-2 tables ... 2-5 is WAY diferent in my area. Thanks for the banter .. GL

I'm cool with preflop.

I might just check the flop, mainly cuz of what happens if we're raised. There's some straight draws to worry about, but obviously no flush ones, so we're not terribly worried about draws. If she bets, we have an easy call. If she checks behind, we can possibly get two streets later. The problem is what happens if she raises our bet. She's stuck in 1/3rd of her stack, she's probably never folding so our FE = 0. And our implied odds suck due to 4-spades on board; we're not getting paid off unless she already has a high flush. I think by betting, we risk getting blown off a hand that has decent equity in this pot too much.

ETA: Am I the only one who considers checking the flop, or am I totally out-to-lunch?

Gpossiblyout-to-lunchG