I'm looking to improve my game and want to post at least one hand that gave me pause for every session I play. I've been browsing the forums for a bit but want to take a more active role in getting better. I hope I can inspire some discussion with interesting spots.

The hand:

1/2, I'm on 230 and villians cover. I've been at the table for about an hour and have not really been involved. Cbet a few flops after raising pre and won small pots. My image is probably super-tight since I haven't had many playable hands.

V1: Mid 20s, white. Sat down about 2 orbits ago, directly to my left. Has only played one hand where he raised pre in LP and won on the flop with a cbet. Seems to be paying attention. Has not called a raise yet.

V2: Mid-late 40s, middle eastern. Sat down about the same time as V1. Have played with this villian before, but it's been a long while. As I remember, he liked to call with any piece of the board or any draw regardless of odds, especially on the flop. Not sure about later streets.

Two limps to me in CO and I raise to 15 with AJ.

V1 calls on button, V2 calls in BB, limpers fold.

Flop Q24 (Pot $46). V2 checks, I cbet 30, V1 calls fairly quickly, V2 calls.

Good board to cbet considering my image. I planned to "one and done" this, just hoping to win the pot on the flop. I feel pretty bad about my hand considering the two calls, though. I think it's likely at least one V has a queen.

Turn Q24K (Pot $136). V2 checks, Hero??

This seems like a great turn card to bet, but, I wouldn't know what to do if everything bricked out on the river. Basically, I don't know what sort of turn/river plan to develop here. Bet/fold, bet/fold? Also, I don't know how much to bet if I do. $60-70?

Grunch.

Check or shove IMO... your nitty image could easily be AK, AA-QQ "trying not to get sucked out on". Short on time now though...

Awesome double barrel card on the turn. But that should have been your plan anyway.

If he flats a turn bet, it's unlikely he'll call a river shove. Big hands get busy on the turn, draws and Qs flat. Even if you miss a river shove folds out everything that beats you except slow played 2pair+ hand

You can check, bet or shove in this situation. Check the cheap option but if you miss you will have to check/fold river. You are never good against two villains who called a dry flop and won't have enough FE to bluff. A bet of $80 is the most value looking option and sets up a river shove if you hit. It leaves you with an awkward size if you miss though, because you probably don't have enough to bluff river. Shoving now should have a lot of FE and avoids any question of how to play river but how much more FE it has then a smaller bet is questionable.

Which option is best will depend on how much FE you have and how likely V1 is to bet if you check. Against generic unknown villains I think check > shove > bet but not hugely and I wouldn't object to any option.

I don't know if I will get flamed for this but I have come across this situation all the time and have changed my philosophy.


If I c bet a missed flop and get flatted, I will usually barrel the turn. If a card came that gave me even more equity, like it does here for you, I used to light up and shove or bet harder.

I tend to check these cards now. If it's check to me, I take the free card and hope for the straight. Checking a turn card that gives me more equity has been profitable. Too often I found myself barreling these cards, and either getting shoved on and having to call, or fold depending on stacks. Or Bricking the river and having to barrel a third time on the river.

Absent reads and table dynamics, I like checking back these turns.

Pokersevil is saying that sometimes (or maybe even a majority of the time) when we are offered a free card it's good to take the free card, unless for some reason we think we are being offered free money (stealing the pot).

Nine flush cards and three more straight cards makes "twelve outs once". At least one of our Villains have a Q, it is safe to assume. Twelve outs once is only about 24% handequity, our fold equity has to be pretty high to make shoving a +EV play.

Taking the free card can't be that bad IMO.

Usually I like barreling this card. Bet $80, watch their reactions to decide whether there's fold equity on a bricked river.

Your stack size is a little tricky for barreling, though. If you bet $80 and get one caller, the pot will be ~$300 and you'll only have ~$100 left. If you bet $80 and get two callers, river will be offering them around 3.75:1 on a call. And if either of them shove, you're basically stuck calling because you've backed yourself into a corner and created the correct odds to call. If you had $300+, I'd argue for barreling this turn card.

Check/call is an option. Jamming is an option, but that's a little extreme. I would jam if we were shorter (~1 PSB left), but the overbet jam feels a little too spewy for my taste.

I think I lean towards check/calling.

Would be nice if we could bet $60 [2x our flop bet] as a blocking bet & also gives us ~4:1 on our draw to flush. Maybe even $70 since any ten gives us Broadway.

If I'm confident that V1 isn't going to jam, I check.

I go smaller otf. Like $20 making the pot ~$100 instead of ~$135. This is as good a barrel card as you're gonna get so bet $50 ott. Assuming one caller you shove $160 into ~$200 on any non-queen river. That looks super strong. If you don't get raised ott the Ace outs are likely good too so you have ~32% equity plus FE on such a strong line.

I think your bet sizing otf is what made the decision tough because you created a small SPR situation. As played, idk, V1 prob bets if you check but at least you can see the odds you'll get, know you aren't getting raised, and see V2's decision first. I think this is the best option. Next best is a shove. Betting 70-80 just commits you pretty much and a raise from V1 will suck.

Check. You have pretty odd SPR. If they have any piece of board, they are not going anywhere with your 60-70 bet. If You bet more and they call, you both are pot committed.
Your starting stack ~180, shove on turn; >300, cbet 100 (don't think 60-70 have FE ); with your current stack of 230, just call.

Before we decide whether to barrel or not, what hands call a raise preflop then call a 2/3 pot size bet on Q high flop with no draws? AQ, KQ, and sets. Would either call flop w JJ-? V1 might but once V1 called, V2 probably isn't calling w an underpair, right?

Next question is, based on their likely holdings, should we barrel that Kd?

I think if we bet, pretty good chance one of the players shove on us. Since V2 checked, I'd check behind and hope V1 checks too. If V1 bets, hope V2 calls to improve our odds and go from there.

I would have done it the opposite way. Instead of c-bet and shut down I would have not c-bet but bet ott.

This happens to me a lot because I have a pretty tight opening range, so even when I miss flops I have the nut no pair or the second nut no pair, so I don't see a lot of hands in V's range that are worse that will call, on this board probably none, maybe some wheel draws. And better isn't folding, except a couple of low pp's maybe. So I prefer to check, and hope V is in an RIO spot, if they have worse Ax and worse Jx, let them hit ott and we both pair but Hero wins with kicker and gets 2 streets of value. So I wouldn't c-bet this flop. If that were the case, def bet the turn though, FE, real equity, position, initiative, etc., many reasons to bet ott.

Given the way you played it though, I would check back the turn. What is V calling otf with and c/f'ing ott? Maybe some low pp's, not much else. QJ isn't c/f'ing here just because an overcard hit. So I'd just take my ton of equity to the river and either card that gives you the nuts will be disguised. He won't put you on backdoor diamonds or backdoor broadway so you can bet the river and expect to get called.

FWIW we can't just "take a free card" here since V1 is on the BTN right?

It seems there is more than one correct way I could have chosen to continue in the hand. I could justify staying aggressive to try to take down the pot, or I could check and evaluate. I honestly never considered overbet shoving, but that seems like it would be the best chance to get a fold with still ~24% to hit on the river. What I didn't want to do was bet, whiff river, then feel compelled to punt off my ~105 stack into 280-355 pot on the river then someone gets stubborn with a Q or turned K. I honestly didn't know what to do, so checked (i.e., took the low variance approach ).

Turn Q24K (Pot $136). V2 checks, Hero checks, V1 bets 45?!?, V2 calls, Hero calls.

If someone turned a flush or straight draw, I guess they would be making a mistake by calling getting ~4:1 (is this right? 136+45=181/45 =~4?), but I was getting direct odds and have the bonus of V2's call. I briefly considered shoving over this weaksauce bet but wussed out again.
Thought process: "Do I look strong or weak with that? If I was in either V's shoes, I think I would be scared of a raise all-in on the turn. V2 seems very weak: a draw, or QGK or JJ-99(?). I think he folds. Could V1 just have 1 pair and let it go??? V1 seems uncertain/probing with that betsize...I wish I had more reads! More importantly, do I even have enough money behind to get a fold? Probably not."

River Q24K4 (Pot $301).

Great.

V2 checks, Hero checks, V1 bets 100, V2 folds, Hero folds.

Thoughts on check/call, check/fold line? Critique of thought process?

How do you not cbet such a bone dry flop? And do you really expect your opponents to give you credit for a turn bet if you showed weakness on the flop? Not too sure.

Hmm...I like this. I used to auto-fire on every flop regardless of texture but eventually learned that I lost way too much cbetting. I'm experimenting with checking more on the flop after raising pre but I still have a hard time passing up on Big card-little card-little card rainbow. It just seems to scream weakness, like, "Hey, I had a good starting hand but missed everything. Please, bet and I'll probably fold." Against 3 others I'm nearly always checking, though.
If checked around and turn bricks, just check/fold? If I get the same K or improving turn, bet turn and every river? Or one and done the turn? Too many choices!!!

I like betting smaller on ultra-dry flops but add a few chips when I want a fold. If I had AA here, I would bet 20-25 to encourage calls. Is this wrong/backwards? I do like the triple barrel much better with your sizing though.

I hate having V1 on Btn behind me here. That skews action a lot.

I like Eldiesel's line to check this flop some of the time. Depending on Vs, I c bet half the time, check/fold half the time.
If I check flop and get free card on turn and it is the Kd on this board, I bet that card 100%. It looks just like I caught up w AK and should take down the pot a lot of the time and if called I have sneaky equity.

As played, on turn, bet or check is fine. Prefer check bc as played, no one believes you hit the king. But obvi calling for 45 with pot size and pot odds and easy check fold river. No reason to raise turn, probably have no fold equity. Take your equity and cash when you hit, fold when miss.

What worse hands are calling?
What better hands are folding?
That's why I check, because I can't answer those questions.



They're level 0 thinkers. When they check otf and ott they're not in the "picking off delayed c-bet bluffs" business. And we only need a little bit of FE with all the real equity we picked up.

I might bet on a brick turn to protect my equity. I don't do that otf because there's that RIO possibility and we need to keep worse hands in to be able to get 2 streets. But with 1 card to come I don't think it's worth keeping RIO hands in to get 1 street when we can just protect our pot and get a bunch of worse hands that have 2 live cards to just fold. I don't have hard evidence on that, but it feels right.

If checked to ott, Kd, I'm betting to price myself in. 12 outs to the nuts, not even counting the A or J which might be good, is ~25% so if you bet 1/2 pot, then if guys fold it's good, if 1 guy calls, you gave yourself 25% equity, which is enough direct odds, and that's not even including the implied odds. I'm not betting brick rivers though.

I remember the day when, on the turn, I would think "one check, one to go & I get to draw for free!" not giving any credence to FE. I also would fail to realize that I would be given less credit for runner diamonds, when I bet the turn, in the event I was called.

Finally, if V1 wasn't walking a set, in an effort to get max value [I doubt V2 would ck ott with one] or caught 2 pair with KQ, I would think I would have the best hand if an ace came otr, since I fully discount either limping with AK/AQ.

So, I'm discounting 1 ace & 1 diamond [in the hand of a V, or being against 2 pair,set] & assuming I have 10 outs. I think you would be up against a set <50% of the time, so I only discount 1 diamond that pairs the board.

That's plenty of equity to play the turn as eldiesel recommends. I think the hand would be fairly rich in IO if a diamond comes.