1/2

UTG is middle aged white lady. Loose, chronic slowplayer. bet sizing tells. Seems to always check to the better/raiser regardless. Saw her call down with middle set on the wettest board in history, raise big on river after she filled up. Been eyeing a seat on her left.

UTG(covers) straddles, 2 callers, hero ($570) makes it $30 with KK, fish ($140ish calls), straddler (covers) calls, limper shoves for $8 more, other limper folds, hero calls, UTG calls, 4 way to flop

($151)Flop: Q86

Checked to hero who bets $110, fish calls (all in), UTG calls.

($481)Turn: 9

UTG check, Hero??? ($400ish behind)

How about with $700 behind?

Assuming that utg has you covered, I'm probably shoving the $400. If I have $700 I'm making it about $300. If you try to do that with $400 behind even a bad player will think twice about why you have $100 behind and assume you have a monster. Only way I'm not shoving the river with $700 behind is if a spade or Q falls, or villain donk shoves.

I don't think you necessarily have to shove here, you're only getting called by a few hands that you beat. There are a ton of flush and Pair+GS draws out there to be charged profitably, so I probably bet around 300 and then you're left enough for a top/middle pair hand to call your last bet with good odds.

Just because UTG likes to slowplay, doesn't increase the probability that she has a monster here, just that monsters are in her range. just shove and you'll be surprised at how often she'll call with Qx.

The fact that you're uncomfortable with holding an overpair in a pot with lots of action does not justify checking back the turn while convincing yourself that you're employing pot control. It's a draw heavy board and it's likely UTG will call with TP or a FD/combo draw.

If you have 700 behind, betting 280-300 and then checking back most rivers sounds like a better idea than checking back turn and betting river since you're charging draws while they are still draws.

I don't like pot controlling on such a wet board with already a quarter of our stack invested, where I would hate to give a free card. We are going to be hating ourselves when a A, Q, J, T, 7 or any spade comes in on the river. Basically, that is half the deck for us. You said V is a habitual slow player, however has she called down with one pair hands before in substantial pots? If she can't let go of KQ or AQ or even QT I like a shove here OTT. If she can fold these hands to a shove, I would probably go more towards $220 OTT(and shove the river for $200) which still denies her proper odds to call with a flush draw but might be easier to commit her to the pot; since if she calls the turn and we shove the river on a safe card she would be getting more than 4:1 on a call.

Not shoving loses so much value. If we bet 300 here (leaving 100 behind), we're priced in to call all rivers, but V gets to fold all rivers she misses. So effectively V gets to freeroll us for 100 bucks

^

Also lots of villain's range is combo draws so hero won't know if a river card is safe or not.

Qh8s6s 9c

AQss AJss ATss A9ss A7ss A5ss
KQdd KJss KTss
QJss QTss
J9ss
97ss

River danger cards: A Q J T 9 7 5 & any spade.

You can't bet 220 on turn and fold for 200 more on river on all of these cards!

Just gii on turn. SPR is already tiny so time for pot control is long past.

And pot control is better suited to WA/WB situations which this is definitely not.

lol at pot controlling in a 250 bb pot.

I don't know that pot control has anything to do with it, it's the same question it always is: what does she call with, that you beat. This whole thing of passively calling with big hands -- letting the aggro players beat their own brains out -- doesn't work if she's out there chasing draws or calling big bets with one-pair hands. Does she chase, or not? Does she overvalue top pair, or not? If she does, bet. If she doesn't, don't beat your own brains out.

Against multiple players, you absolutely want to get money from draws. Heads up, it's not that big a deal, and an argument can be made for checking the turn to improve the likelihood of getting called by a bluffcatcher on the river. Given villain's tendency to check/call strong hands, and assuming she doesn't make it a habit to chase, I think it's a check. Especially since she has a bet-sizing tell, she should be letting you know how much she likes her hand otr.

Boils down to whether you're more likely to get value from this lady OTT or OTR.

There could be one other option, a way of splitting the difference. There's no law that says you have to bet big enough OTT to deny odds. If you would be willing to check this turn, would you be willing to slide out a little $75 value bet? Value is value. Same basic concept as slipping out a thin value bet OTR, get villain thinking "well normally I wouldn't dig in that deep with a draw but shoot, I gotta call that." Or, another way of looking at it is, don't bet so big you chase out the hands you beat.

Never mind, that's a crazy idea.

$75 doesn't even make sense though. V already called $110.

Pot control is likely not possible given the size of the pot. If you check behind, are you calling any river bet? Bc by checking, you may induce a bluff. I prefer betting turn because I don't want to embolden my opponent.

Different thing though: pre flop: a short stack with $38 calls the straddle, and you make it $30. Did you have any sense that this player would ship? Because if you raise to $20, when the short stack ships, the action is re opened and you can put in another raise with your KK, getting a ton of equity from the potential dead money.

When there is a shortie in the hand, I always consider raising an amount such that if they shove, the action is re opened.

In this case, if you make it $20, that's a $16 raise. If he shoves, that's $18 more and the action is re opened.

Results:

Agreed with shove before reading results (still agree). Unlucky cooler, but at least good data on UTG--will call huge PF raises with junk like JTo and will call large bets with any draw even on wet boards (gutshot in this case).

Anyone like betting half of short stacks stack on the flop here so he can raise allin and reopen the betting and we can get it allin on the flop?

I'm gonna get killed in this thread because 99% of my other posts on this forum suggest a larger raise size pre-flop, often as large as possible.

Here you bet 15 BB's and got called with a favorable SPR for your hand. That's great. Villain made a desperate play and it hit. That's life.

However, consider this for a minute.

You KNEW that a player with less than 20BB's just limped in. You should have expected him to shove if you raised. So you should have raised to an amount that would re-open the action when it got back to you.

If you raise to $20, and he raises to $38, you can then 4-bet to $100 or more.

Damn, I'm too long winded, you beat me in by two minutes.

I think what needs to be addressed is the plan on the flop and the corresponding bet size. If your plan was to get all in in the turn you should have bet slightly more. If your plan was to spread it over 3 streets and possibly avoid bad run outs then you should bet a little less.

As far as shoving, you need to think about if she calls $400 with one pair. If so then fine. If not, then it's a pretty bad shove. So if she calls $200 but not $400 with Qx or draws then that's what you should bet.

Yes, good idea.

A comment on the old nostrum, "giving a free card is a disaster." It is, if the plan is to fold out those pesky flush draws so they won't suck out on you. Otherwise, it's nothing more or less than a lost opportunity to get value, assuming there is value to be had.

Still question whether a polarizing bet OTT is called for. As a general rule, this kind of bet goes down best with the very top and very bottom of your playable range. KK isn't anywhere near the top, in fact on this board it's a third tier hand. Question remains, what she calls with. Inasmuch as she has one or more tells that let you gauge her strength, there's an opportunity to play defense here.

But, you obviously have a better read than I did, and I'll admit the stack size was kind of awkward by this point.

Yep, agree with this. Always be cognizant of the size of the short stacks.

Turn is definitely a jam, we can't pot control when the size of the pot is already bigger than the remaining stacks, especially on a board this wet. If stacks were $700 OTT, I'd bet/fold ~$250.

Agree with the short stack philosophy but only if you know there's a really good chance they shove. If they don't you're missing a fortune due to pot size on later streets.