first couple of nights playing the 1/2-500 in a new room. definitely challenging my deeper-stacked skills and pushing my poker learning, so i'm enjoying it.

Reads and History

hero image: hero has been running bad with starting hands for several hours and generally has been inactive. all villains here would consider me tight. however, in the last 20 minutes i have had a few premium starting hands and have raised 3 or 4 times and have been getting several calls each time, so villains are apparently still happy to see flops with me. one of these recent hands i stacked a guy for ~$200 with QQ on a low flop.

Villain: early 30s white guy. tight player with some ability to hand read. has not been active. don't have very well developed reads due to the small number of showdowns seen from this player.

v2: decent rec player. tight, ABC.

v3: aware TAG post-flop, but likes to call with a wide range pre and see the flop. has a bluffing range and good hand reading ability.

The Hand

v3 (BB) ~$700
Hero (UTG+1) $730
Villain (UTG+2) ~$550
v2 (MP) ~$350

Pre Flop: ($3) Hero is UTG+1 with A K
Hero (UTG+1) raises to $15, Villain (UGT+2) calls $15, v2 (MP) calls $15, v3 (BB) calls $15

Flop: ($60) A T 4 (4 players)
checks to hero, Hero bets $40, Villain calls $40, folds

Turn: ($140) Q (2 players)
Hero bets $70, Villain min-raises $140, Hero ? (as Hero counts out chips as if to insta-call, fishing for a physical/verbal tell, Villain says "you're chasing?")

Questions:

1. thoughts on my turn play? (leading for $70)
2. thoughts on decision point (Hero ?)

i will post my analysis for both with stove work, etc., after some responses

That turn sucks, I would consider a check/call. I never like being blown off my hand when I have a re-draw to suck out on a better hand and cannot call a raise, and a K or a J likely gives me what I need to win. Given the dry flop, I think everything that calls the flop at least calls the turn,or now has a hand worthy of a raise.

You did the next-best thing and fired a block-sized bet, now you can fold. The range you are up against consists of {AT, AQ, QT, TT, and 44}

and KJ

Eh, but he is a tight player...a tight player can fold a gutterball on the flop to a 2/3 pot size bet.

ok but then we remove QT also

either way, my read was "tight" but not to the point that he would never call this flop with KJ or QT. and again, my reads were not super reliable yet on this player.

he seemed aware enough that he might think i slow down on the turn and he gets to see all 5 if he calls flop. my c-bet percentage in the last 3 or 4 pots i raised was 100% so he may very well think i'm c-betting with less than TP here.

based on my reads i would include both QT and KJ in his range.

I'd fold against all but the very loosest, spewiest players. I think the turn bet is alright, but a pot sized turn bet is bad. Postflop, you dont want to put $535 into a $60 pot w/ just TPTK, so either pot control somewhere or bet small (which you did).

call getting 5-1 reevaluate river. c/c or c/f depending on new info gathered. I don't think I fold tptk to a min raise ott here for this price.

I know the math on this sounds right but... I will say in these kinds of live games you are not 5-1 to win - Maybe more like 10-1. As played I would fold.

In these games you can expect a pair with a straight draw to call you. Two pair and above raise the turn very often. If you call here for $70 more you are way behind - more than 5-1 and what do you do to a $50 to $100 dollar river bet? If you call here you can expect to lose your $70 and another 50-100 9 times out of ten.

He has a set

All in. AINEC, you have TPTK with a straight draw and he could be bluffing.

Leading turn for $70

my thinking here was:

1. i can't afford to give up the betting lead here
2. i need to bet an amount large enough that he doesn't bluff or semi-bluff raise me with his combo draws like KQ or AJ (remember, he's tight, but my reads aren't very reliable. he may very well have bluffs/semi-bluffs in his arsenal here.)
3. i need to bet enough to deny him drawing odds with a gutshot or combo draw (basically any bet accomplishes this)
4. we're bet/folding, so we want to risk the minimum that still accomplishes the above goals

leading 1/2-pot seemed like the optimal solution.

Decision point

normally this is an easy fold, but he gave me such good pot odds, i only need 16.7% equity for a break-even call. (at the same time though, it's so difficult to play so many river cards that improve our hand.)

anyway, i decided i have about the right odds to call. i actually thought AQ is by far the most likely hand for him to have given how he played this hand. QT and KJ i think he folds flop a fair bit. 44, TT, and AT i think he raises flop with 4 players in. it would be a weird line for him to flat flop then min-raise turn with those hands, although obviously very possible, again with my reads not being that great.

according to stove i'm a bit short on equity for a profitable call against his likely range:

Board: A T 4 Q

Hand 0: 14.685% 13.64% 01.05% 234 18.00 { A K }
Hand 1: 85.315% 84.27% 01.05% 1446 18.00 { TT, 44, AQs, ATs, KJs, QTs, AQo, ATo, KJo, QTo }

I think you should play live a bit more buddy, and figure out the difference between cash games and tournaments.

808,

As played, I'd much rather fold then call and be lost on the river which more likely than not does not improve our hand. Sure I've seen morons min-raise in that spot with like AJ "to see where they're at" + it buys them cheaper showdown cuz they're showdown monkeys".

Against a tighter player though, who you said is not a complete drooler I think you are behind his range (like almost always) and I would fold.

ya. i mean, i was pretty sure i was dominated but the pot odds were so good, i decided i may have close to the required equity. the problem is, even if we did in fact have odds to calls, i think it's hard to extract value OTR from anything that improves us, and he can end up betting some rivers that actually give us the best hand (e.g. if he has QT and an A comes) and we will probably have to fold. (i wasn't planning on putting more money in unless a J peeled).

so like you say, the river is just a mess almost 100% of the time. so in retrospect, this is a fold. i mostly posted this as a line check...

what do you guys think about leading turn for 1/2 pot?

Against most 1/2 players I actually check the turn since its such a terrible card for us. Most players will take this opportunity to barrel us off the hand if they have anything since they're such showdown monkeys. (aka if they have like A7s here they will be happy to get to showdown, they won't have thoughts like "ooh he wants to keep the pot small, i'm gonna turn my hand into a bluff and make this pot HUGE")

therefore, this is a bet/fold imo. I think I bet more though close to 90. that way, if he raises you can be 100% confident he is not monkeying around.

I'd probably bet a bit more on the turn, but as soon as he raises, I'm folding. Donks raise on the flop with Ax, hoping you don't have an ace, but not on the turn. Mr. Baluga Whale is pretty confident you're crushed.

beluga whale? like the DC coach/online grinder?

Yup read up on his theory, etc. These min raises on the turn in live poker is pretty much going to be top of his range almost all the time (unless they're just clueless fish that bluff at any point a bet/check seems weak to them regardless of board texture or player tendencies).

Yes. Read his explanation here.

http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/show...t=1&PHPSESSID=

oic

ya, i mean i think my mistake was not how i ranged him but the fact that i decided to call anyway. this comes back to the whole concept of having the discipline to bet/fold properly, and actually fold when we get raised. i got sucked in by the min-raise, where really there are virtually no good river cards for us. (ftr, he raises any more than minimum and i'm folding.)

anyway, results:

v3 (BB) ~$700
Hero (UTG+1) $730
Villain (UTG+2) ~$550
v2 (MP) ~$350

Pre Flop: ($3) Hero is UTG+1 with A K
Hero (UTG+1) raises to $15, Villain (UGT+2) calls $15, v2 (MP) calls $15, v3 (BB) calls $15

Flop: ($60) A T 4 (4 players)
checks to hero, Hero bets $40, Villain calls $40, folds

Turn: ($140) Q (2 players)
Hero bets $70, Villain min-raises $140, Hero fails at b/f and calls $70 more

River: ($420) A (2 players)
Hero checks, Villain fidgets uncomfortably and checks back

Hero shows AK, villain mucks, Hero wins $420

i made the mistake of showing first, but he ended up mucking, so i guess he had QT? based on his comments and mood afterwards it did seem as though i sucked out on him. pretty lucky he had the bottom of his range and i hit an A. ran pretty g00t that night

He had AJ. When i first saw the range posts in the thread, my mind was screaming "and AJ" How could AT and AQ be in the range and not AJ? If he really thought you were chasing, his turn bet made sense.

ya, i considered this a possibility too after the hand. just because it seemed so unlikely that i would have him beat OTR and QT doesn't seem all that likely of a hand for him to call preflop and even flop with.

i can't see him min-raising with AJ though. i mean i dunno, my reads weren't great on him so it's entirely possible, but i can't say i included AJ in his range a the time when i got raised.

villain seemed pretty mad about it, claiming i "2-outered" him. which is impossible. but i didn't comment.

It is impossible, but if he didn't know that, he coulda had a set. And when he saw the 3 aces, he forgot about the boat and folded his 3 queens. I did that once the first week I played in vegas while I was learning the game, and I have seen other noobies and drunkards do it.

no way. he double checked his hand for a while before mucking. i mean unless he just had a total brain fart, but i think we can pretty much discount that.