1/2NL at planet Hollywood in Vegas. There are some deep stacks on the table. Hero has 600 and is covered by two players. Most have 400 and villain just sat down with 200.

Villain is Asian, male, about 40.

Hero has a good image. I just coolered a guy with 53 on a 356 flop. He had 47 and I filled up on the turn.

Two limps and I raise in the hijack seat to 15 with Q-10 suited. Villain calls OTB, both limpers call.

Flop J73 two diamonds.

I c-bet 50, villain calls, limpers check-fold.

Turn is a 10.

I thought he had either a flush draw or a jack, leaning more toward a jack.

I checked and he checked behind.

River was a black 4.

I checked again and he shoved.

Sorry. Phone is having issues.

So here's my thought process. A diamond draw now seems very likely. If he had a jack he would have checked behind. If he had J10 then he probably would have bet the turn. Plus I have a blocker to that hand. If he has a set then whatever, nh.

I couldn't put him on anything that was actually beating me.

In before OP says he called and V showed 9d8d for a straight.

Did you have QT? Rather important.

If you did, then playing it how you did is fine.

If you didn't then cbetting is not so hot.

Never putting another cent in after missing.

I didn't have diamonds and villains hand was far, far from 89dd.

Hand is pure spew all around. QTo is too weak to try and iso 2 limpers from the HJ. C-betting this wet flop that smacks their speculative ranges is pretty awful too.

I will go with my gut on the river, but I agree that it looks like a whiffed draw trying to push you off AK.

If he made a quick and agressive all-in I would be pretty confident he was bluffing and snap him off here.

After you cbet the flop I think your best bet is to shove the turn and rep an overpair. But your best bet is to either fold or limp pre.

agree with the past posters. Pre flop is bad, the cbet on the flop was even worse. Villain also just sat down. What are the chances he shoves worse than second pair?

Agree overlimp with QTs might be better than raise, without reads. But if we know villains are weak or passive post-flop there are a lot of cbet/double barrel opportunities for us while picking up equity in position.

But I don't see why the cbet is so bad. If we had KQ (no diamonds) for instance, are we really so scared of the flush draw so as not to cbet a J73 flop? Again, this sucks 4-handed without reads, but I think against the right villains this is a perfectly fine cbet, and heads up I would barrel all day.

cbet is bad for a number of reasons, mainly
1: wet flop. We want to be cbetting dry boards where its hard to continue without a made hand

2: Hero only has one over to the board and a very weak draw. If we do get called on such a wet board what then? Too many sticky spots you can get into.

3: In this case the cards we can draw to actually complete straight draws and if a diamond hits its a scare card as well

You are discussing something very standard as if it is interesting or complicated.

1) Cbetting into mutiple callers doesnt work enough times to be successful expecially on a J high 2 suit flop. You are getting called and are behind. A 223 type flop might be a bit more successful but again you are betting into 3 people you think they have nothing?

2) While hitting your 10 on the turn does give you showdown value and might put you ahead of a flush draw, it still completes a straight and really doesnt change much.

3) Unless villian is the biggest spaz bluffer ever, we are never calling the river here unless we enjoy burning money. Yes, making hero calls are fun, but winning (and saving money) are even more fun. At least for me.

I have him on miracle two pair of J4 or 56. If i had to guess, 56 no diamonds,

I think he's thinking you'll put him on a flush draw and is making it look like a bluff.....im thinking he has a big hand here, tough to tell without knowing much about the villian.....


.If you think he had a jack or a flush draw on the turn...why not fire a 2nd barrel???

:grunch:

Seems spewy all around.

I like raising QTss IP when the table conditions warrant, but I'm not a fan of c-betting this board here. With three callers I expect to get called by a J pretty damn often, and occasionally a 7. Either way we're getting called often and we're behind.

The shove looks a little odd after he checks behind on the turn. I'd expect a J to fire after we check. I guess it could be a bluff but I have a hard time putting a total random without history on a bluff.

Fold.

The raise PF is fine. But at that point, he has 185 and the pot on flop is 60 (~3 SPR). He is not deep and the pot is a bit bloated from 4 players. You need to decide whether you are getting it in on your initial raise if you hit your hand. Id say no as your most likely hand (TPMK or MPGK) is no good out of position. At that point you need to start thinking pot control, if you hit...and try to get a cheap showdown.

But you didn't hit. And from what I surmise (you were vague as to the suits of your cards) you don't have a draw. So betting this into 3 other players, 2 of which are deep seems questionable. Why are you betting here? I think up to this point you could have played this better and not gotten to the spot you are in.

That said...you are in the spot. And there is $160 in the pot. Villain has put a 3rd of his stack in. He has less than a pot size bet left. His calling your bet shows that he is committed to the hand and will likely get it in, given the SPR. So you are in a spot where you have to make a tough decision. And its a matter of ranging him and deciding if you beat him more than the roughly 30% that the pot i offering. As played, I am probably folding here. Sure you may have him beat but there are a lot of Jacks he could have. TJ is a possibility. Its tight I would suspect though - he could also have like 88,99, 66; or a combo diamond draw like A7 or A3 r something. I think I fold though.

Couple things,

FWIW, you say your image is good because you just coolered a guy with 53. You are in the HJ right now, so I'm guessing that means you won that 53 hand from EP or MP. Therefore, your image might not be as good as you think it is. If you were in the blind, then this is irrelevant, but if I saw someone play 53 from EP or MP, they would become my target. Seeing someone hit a 4 outer on the turn to beat a flopped straight doesn't give someone a good image IMO

As for the hand, I don't really like anything about how this was played. I'm not thrilled about raising this hand pre, I really don't like the cbet with complete air into 3 v's on the flop, and I really don't like checking the turn after the cbet. You were trying to sell an overpair, but gave up on the turn. AP, I think this is an easy fold, 56dd just got there (as crazy as that sounds) , and without any reads on v, the last thing I want to do is bluff catch for half my stack with 2nd pair good kicker.

Just my thoughts

I probably call. New to the table + asian + line doesn't make sense for Jx + ppl are more likely to make spewy bluffs not repping anything at 1/2 vs. other limits.

I can't believe that some people dislike the PF raise that much. It looks like a pretty solid raise to me. Why is that a bad play?

The only mistake I might see here is the flop. I think that's a questionable place to bet, but I don't think it's a major error either, especially if you check the turn. As played, without any good reads I'm folding the river. After the previous hand you played, your opponent will be less likely to bluff you. Of course, he could be bluffing anyway, but I'm not confident enough to call here.

I personally think the raise either needs to be more, like in the $20 range,or just a over limp.... With 2 limpers already in the pot and 4 people left to act, $15 just isn't enough to thin the field... And now we are oop with a mediocre hand 4 ways.


I play 1/3 mainly, and $15 usually gets me 2-3 callers. But that number almost always drops to 0-1 callers anytime I bump it to $20

What does a "good" image mean? And if it means not spewy, not loose, then playing 53 contradicts that.

QTs plays decent MW, so I'd prefer a limp. It's such an RIO hand, even if you have the initiative. When you flop strong and get action you're going to have the losing end of it a lot. And if you're hellbent on raising pf, raise to get HU, not to bloat things without position MW.



56 makes a ton of sense.

Seems like a snap fold to me. Maybe I'm missing something.

If he had a flush draw, and wanted to bluff with it he would probably raise the flop, no? (Especially since he's asian). A lot of suited connector combos picked up a pair that would check it down, so the only hands that make sense are some weird two pair that he made on the river or a bricked flush draw? Villian would have to be really bad to call with a gutshot on that board. Nothing really makes sense but you don't see people pure bluff shoving very often, certainly not enough to justify calling vs. an unknown.

Now that I'm back from Vegas and in front of an actual computer, let me elaborate/clarify a few things.

- I felt that a c-bet was justified because both limp-callers were extremely loose-passive and one of them was capable of calling with literally any two cards. He limp/called a raise with 2-6 offsuit earlier in the session. Sorry for not including that in the OP but all I had was my phone.

- I am not 100% sure of the low cards. It may have been J73 and it might have been J72. I was perhaps being a little bit results-oriented and didn't do a good job of communicating all the details to you guys. Sorry about that too.

- My hand was Q 10.

- I'm going to stand by my iso-raise with Q-10 suited at this table. The dynamic at this table was very non-standard, even for a 1/2 game in Vegas. It was a wide mix of loose-passive chasers and lagfish. It's certainly not a hand I would always play this way, but given what I had seen at the first 30 minutes at this table I was happy to try and get all three players two of which have a VERY, VERY wide range of hands.

- For similar reasons, I'm going to stand by my c-bet on this sorta-wet flop. I'd seen several c-bets take down multi-way raised pots at this table and I felt I had a decent chance of picking up the pot right there.

- I agree that I should have bet the turn. I probably would have folded out both flush draws and weak jacks with another 3/4 pot size barrel, especially given villain's short stack.

Another point I'd like to make is that cash games can play vastly different depending on where you are. I have put in a lot of hours playing 1/2 at a local cardroom in Sacramento, and I've gotten "used to" the play there. There are no tourists, only locals, and they tend to not be very aggressive.

In Vegas, there is just a different player base. There are some local regs, and some tourists. The regs are much more aggressive and a some of the tourists are too.

I'll give you an example. In a 1/2 game at the MGM Grand yesterday, I flopped a set of 6's on a very wet flop. I bet the flop and turn hard, and villain was pretty aggressive and I thought he would try to represent a draw if it came in. A third spade hit the river, and I checked. He fired a pot size bet like I thought he might and I called. He had top pair, no redraw.

This type of move is unheard of where I play. You will almost never see a villain represent a draw like this and turn top pair into a bluff. This hand would go check-check OTR. If I bet the river and got called I knew I was beat. Only the absolute nuts would bet the river.

So when people say "this hand is pure spew", that may very well be true where you play. At a different table, it may be a perfectly +EV play to make.

Okay, that makes sense. And you're right that $15 is a small raise in that spot, and it should be $20 or more.

Fold pre and as played c betting pot is lighting money on fire. Your bet sizing is way larger than it needs to be. If you didn't have a draw our any real equity how you played flop is even worse. In order to ca river I need some sort of read or physical tell. You should be more focused on improving the way you payed the hand over all though.