Hi everyone,

Played this hand tonight and wanted thoughts about postflop sizing and whether to just b/f 3x or check a street (likely turn)? Villain is middle 30s white guy wearing a baseball cap, sat down about a half hour ago with about 280, lost a couple small pots, seems probably a bit too loose/passive overall, but again, only half an hour worth of read.

2/3 blinds. I have KQ.

Hero (covers) is MP 8 handed, two folds, I raise to 15, one fold, V (CO, $230) calls, rest fold.

FLOP ($29 after rake): KJ4

I bet $20, Villain says, "Just you and me?" so I say, "Yep." He calls.

TURN ($69): [KJ4] 6

Hero? If you're choosing to bet here, $45 sound about right? If you're checking, presumably calling turn bets, betting checked through turns?

Probably difficult to get 3 streets of value from a worse K.

With the straight as the only draw out there I believe checking the turn might get you a call on the river. If V bets turn when checked to I'll be likely to call and see what happens on the river. Seems pretty standard.

Middle 30's white guy who only seems a bit loose/passive and a pretty dry board? I'd pretty much always take the turn off if we were in position.

OOP, I'll probably also pot control this blank turn, but I don't hate a b/f. If I check and I'm bet into, it depends on sizing and read. I probably call $40 and under, and c/f river if he barrels and we didn't improve. Greater than $40, I generally fold. If he checks turn back, I b/f river for about half pot.

Bet/fold $40 on the turn, check/call reasonable bets on the river if he calls turn would be my default.

With no realistic draw, I'll play it like Garick and check the turn. People are floating more junk then ever before on the flop and they are usually good for a call on the river with SP.

Wouldn't you rather pull the value forward one street? With a broadway straight draw, backdoor flush draw out there, I'd rather get the value now than the river when he may just check/fold the draw part of his range which could be heavy.

If I were planning on checking a street and going for only two streets of value, I'd consider checking the flop sometimes instead of the turn. I probably wouldn't check the flop against someone I see as passive because he is not going to bet worse hands for me on later streets.

As played, I'd probably bet $35 on the turn and use his reaction to plan my river action if he just calls.

I would check the flop and be deceiving. A check is so weak and there is only one open-ended draw out there. He is folding most hands on this board. I am not trying to build this pot large OOP. It's very hard to double-barrel this board with nothing. It's very hard to bet the flop and turn with the flop and turn with KQ. Any raise here puts you in a tough spot. A spot where you are either right or wrong. I think a flop check controls this pot and is very deceiving. If the flop went check/check, 4 on the turn like so, a turn bet would grab value from flush draws, mid-pocket pairs, a 6, maybe a 4, etc. The only card you really need to worry about on the turn is an A. That's just me, though.

I find KQ a dicey hand, but after 2 folds at a 8 handed table I'm probably opening it too (I'm typically folding it in EP).

SPR on the flop is 7. Which means we can easily play for stacks by betting all 3 streets. Do we want to play for stacks against someone willing to call all 3 streets? My guess would be no, so I'd pot control. Pot control is difficult OOP, so I'd typically attempt that on the first street by checking and hope it checks thru; although the problem with us checking is he might bet what he thinks is the best hand (but isn't) and inadvertently put extreme pressure on us by betting the turn again (where we might have to make up our mind whether we should continue or not, unless we're confident he won't put in a 3rd bet on the river unless we're beat).

As played, I'd again go for pot control on the turn. If he bets, we're going to be in a difficult spot since we're probably only going to have a ~PSB left for the river and might consider ourselves committed, although against someone who hasn't done any bluffing I'm guessing we could call 2 more small bets that aren't for stacks (but it is kinda gross, especially since KJ is ahead now).

GcluelessNLnoobG

^ Why do we have to play for stacks? Just bet/fold turn and check/call most rivers. If we bet $40 on the turn we'll have put in just slightly over 25% of effective stacks. We can "pot control" on the river by checking. Villain will often check behind hands we are beating (worse K's, missed draws), may sometimes check behind hands we are behind (AK) and will occasionally bet hands we beat (missed draws, worse K's) and hands we are behind (AK, KJ) which we can reasonably call since the pot will only be $150.

Boom, we made it to showdown OOP with potentially 3 streets of value.

The read is villain is loose and passive. If I am in a hand with the described villain with TP2K you can be assured I am bet/folding the flop and turn.

It's almost lost in OPs description, but Villain started the hand with $230. If we bet the turn, we'll be left with just a PSB left. Villain has no reason to raise if we keep donking into his monster and can just slowplay us for stacks by the river. Villain can also easily make us play for stacks by betting any street we check.

GstacksaretriviallyeasytoplayforinaSPR7pot;noraise sarerequiredG

Fair enough, I'm fine betting turn here with TP2K only 75 BB's deep.

MUBsy. Queue wj94, "it's hard to make a pair." Further, there are draws to worry about (broadway, flush).

If a loose passive V bombs the river AI for a PSB when checked to then I can comfortably fold KQ knowing it's no good. He might do something stupid like bluff 1/3 PSB on the river (which we call) but V's like this are too scared to bluff the river for a PSB.

Plenty of hands to get value from right now. KX, A4, AQ, AT, QT (even more so if they are 's).

jHaven'tHeardAGoodReasonToCheckTurnB

The reason to check turn is that you are more likely to get 2 streets of value without opening up to the possibility of being blown out by a c/r.

Vs, particularly loose passive ones, often will c/c any pair on the flop "putting you on missed overs" but could easily fold Jx or the like to a second barrel here. Those hands will then call most rivers, or might even bet for us, if we check the turn. This line also lets us balance when we hold something like AQ here and don't want to barrel the turn. Finally, the only real draw to get value from is QT. Backdoor diamonds just aren't a big enough part of his range to worry about.

tl;dr: When we are going for 2 streets of value, his river calling range is wider than his turn calling range.

How can we get check raised when we are OOP?

The only "missed overs" would be AA, so that doesn't really apply.

It sounds like you are only targeting Jx here. I've laid out plenty of reasonable drawing hands V could have in addition to Kx or Jx. Add it all up, combined with a passive V that won't be raising us with less than 2 pair, and turn is a slam dunk bet.

You shouldn't have a "I'm going to get x# of streets of value with this hand" mentality. Play the hand in a way that maximizes +EV vs. that particular villain. Against this described villain, I am b/f the flop and turn.

checking the turn is an attempt to optimize against Jx, 4x, weaker Kx, and TT-77. V's of this profile with these hands will sometimes call on the flop because lol c-bet, and reluctantly fold to a turn bet because you must have it, and they suspect the river bomb is coming. When we check the turn, we now appear weaker, making our river bet more bluffy in their eyes, and, they don't have to worry about another barrel after, and thus we get 2 streets of value instead of 1.

further, the argument for checking the turn is the range above is larger than V's draw hand range.

obviously, things can go wrong either way, such is the nature of "minimal read, TP2K, OOP, SPR7"

in practice, for me, it would be all about the read and my image, I can see checking the flop or checking the turn or b/f the turn or b/c the turn.

rereading what i wrote makes it look like I'm claiming that is the complete story on checking the turn. not true. there can be other reasons. just one example, it may minimize losses when we're crushed (depending on V betsizing and our response)

+1 to this and all that followed regarding bet turn

who needs a forum, we just need a quick little HU app:

fields: V-type, POS, initiative, Hand, Texture, SPR

inputs: LP, OOP, Y, TP2K, medium, 7

beep:
FLOP 70%pot/f
TURN x/c
RIVER if turn x/x then 50%pot/f else x/f

ez game

hmmm, need to add a hero image field into my app

.... I think we can keep the output count under 100,000 as long as we limit SPR field to: <3, 3-6, 7-20,>20 or something like that

output could be Dan Harrington style:
70% of the time
FLOP 70%pot/f
TURN x/c
RIVER if turn x/x then 50%pot/f else x/f

30% of the time
FLOP 70%pot/f
TURN 50%pot/f
RIVER x/c up to 50%pot, x/f above 50%pot

I think I need more sleep...

I'm bet folding turn and river for 1/2 pot bets

I'd bet ott the most KT will call. And otr I'm betting a similar amount, worse hands will know they're behind, the sizing can't increase too much imo.