My question here is, "From where does the value come in this hand?"
I haven't done any real math to make most of my poker moves easier, but from the basic math I use, flopping a pair with a flush draw gathers most of its value in getting players to fold since you are about 50:50 against an over pair. So here's the situation I faced.

Table... typical passive preflop 1/2. I have to invent the concept of 3-betting, like usual.

Villain 1 UTG (200): Called pre flop raise from UTG+1 while holding A-8o. He was UTG+2. UTG +1 had A-9... I folded in that hand AJ pre flop while UTG!!! He called 2 streets of betting when flop came with A.

Villain 2 MP (200): A non intimidating rec player whose main play was to stab at orphan pots. Loved to limp and stab, or stab on the turn after hand involving a pre flop raise checked through on the flop. He and I have chatted a bit from across the table, he's a friendly guy.

Hero Button (400): Fairly new to the table at this point. Tries to play TAG, but really struggles to be patient at times. (Had major success early on in poker 'career' and things are too slow now!! lol)

Villain 1 raises to 12, Villain 2 calls, one other caller, Hero calls (KQ), SB calls

Flop (60): KJ7
V1 Checks, V2 bets 85... I tell him that I should fold, but.... all in.

I considered folding because of my reasoning presented in the beginning. He basically committed himself to the pot on the flop... and simply calling seems terrible to me. At this point Im in for 12... should I just fold or ride the variance train?

I don´t think we have much in the way of fold equity here. No need to raise and chase out V1. Just call. We are not so bad against V2´s range. If you add some more clubs it gets even better.


Board: KsJc7c
Equity Win Tie
MP2 50.05% 44.41% 5.64% { KK, JJ, 77, AKs, KJs+, AcJc, AcTc, Ac9c, Ac8c, Ac7c, Ac6c, Ac5c, Ac4c, Ac3c, Ac2c, AKo, KJo+ }
MP3 49.95% 44.32% 5.64% { KcQc }

Jamming here is folding everything out except for hands that you're losing to - you're only getting called by TPTK+. Best case scenario is getting called by the nut flush draw.

you've flopped the whole world here. what has v2's sizing been like when he's been stabbing at orphan pots? i don't think he's stabbing here, but would be interesting to compare.

Don't fold. What are you afraid of here? you still have 30% equity vs a set of 7s, 45% vs. KJo, better than a coin flip against ATcc. once you include some random junk like TPTK, dominated flush draws, etc, you will see you have the equity vs. the pot odds you need to justify a call here.

simply calling *seems* terrible because you know you'll have to make a crying call if he pushes the rest in on the turn. if it helps you sleep at night, you can shove your whole stack on the flop here, but I don't think he's folding often. more than likely you'll fold out the stuff you are crushing and isolate yourself vs. the best part of his range. so i actually like a call with the plan of never folding, and shoving the turn if he doesn't.

So raising in this spot really only is appropriate when you have some fold equity.

Or when you can get value from worse. Thing is given the pot size, villain is unlikely to fold any turn regardless and neither are we so there is no value in raising here and we might as well just call and hope the other villain calls as well with a range we crush.

Flat and fold unimproved ott, he's giving you ~$100 in IO. When a guy with no attachment to a pot suddenly becomes this attached, it's strength not a bluff. You're getting ~25% with just the clubs given the IO, you can turn a Q and have 14 outs going to the river against sets, V1 can flat and really give you good odds to turn the flush, can't fold, raising accomplishes nothing good.

This is not great as it looks when facing an overbet. Vs hand looks like 77/KJ that wants to price out all the draws so our TP means nothing, we only really have a flush draw, that too the non-nuts. K and Q aren't even outs often. That's how I look at it.

If V is the type to get away when the turn brings the flush card, I hate calling even more. I mean, what else can he put us on?

If he didn't overbet, I like raising but here, I might just let it go since he just announced his hand very clearly. And we have no fold equity given stack sizes.

Sorry El, but calling $85 on flop and folding turn for the last $100 seems really weak.

Very hard to get away in real time though.

Smash the flop? I'm thinking a full house to at least a straight lol.

+1.

I think we are overvaluing a non-nut FD where our TP probably means nothing given action.

I would consider QTcc a far better hand in this spot.

It's not though.

The struggles are real.


So you're trying to play TAG? Fold. The preponderance of the evidence says you are behind, only equity might be FD, not enough implied odds.

If you are playing poker to make money, fold. It was only $12. You don't have nearly as many outs as it looks like.

If you don't care about the money, and you are playing poker because you like to gamble (lots of players like that at $1/2, albeit rare for any of those to be posting at 2+2), then go ahead and gamble. Great flop, no need to worry about V's range, etc.

In absolute terms, yeah obviously. But if our K (and possibly Q) outs are dirty which is very likely, I'm happier taking the clean straight outs in addition to our FD outs.

I'm saying that KQ is in much better shape vs villain's entire range than QT is.

And what is villain's entire range for you? For me, it's KJ/77 and some J7s 80%+ of the time for anyone with half a brain. I'm not into math but I prefer to hold QTcc especially if he has KJ/77. Add in AK/AA or some spazz there and KQ is definitely better.

I don't understand why you would assign such a narrow range to someone betting on this flop, especially when he has shown a propensity to stab at flops with air. In addition to two pairs and sets, villain should have a lot of Kx in his range as well as flush draws and could possibly even have some QT and air.

I would agree if he had bet <PSB. But until we have a handle on what his overbets mean, I'm going to default to 2p+ 80%+ of the time. It could also mean a slowplayed AA/AK, but again, it depends on V's tendencies.

raise pre

Best part of any HH is to know the result right?
So, Turn comes A, river comes Club.

Villain Shows AK
I take the hand, and yet again suck out...

Good news is that today I played at Rivers in Pitt, was dealt pre flop beauties only to get blasted by the board... Kept my composure and built my stack back to make a good profit.

Finally a night I actually played some decent TAG!! Fold more pre baby lol.

Don't say that next time or you lose your marginal fold equity however small it is.

Edge is edge no matter how small.

It's not really a suck out though. He was 52% to win and you were 46% to win. If he were to open shove this flop and show you that he had AK it would be more profitable for you to call his shove than it would be to fold given that there was $60 of dead money already in the pot.