4th hand in the match.

Villain limped 1st button and he didn't bet turn + river on 3JJ97 (no flush draw) with Q9o. So after that I assumed villain was a bit weak/ passive. The other button he raise/folded.

Now based on this information that we have so far, should this be an easy call or puke fold?

I see no value in shoving. Also what about turn sizing? Should we bet bigger to get value from draws, 9x and maybe 10x?

Since he called turn would it be best to bet 120 (or more) on river because I assumed if he calls turn, he probably calls a river bet.



PokerStars - $6.85+$0.15|10/20 NL (2 max) - Holdem - 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 460
Hero (SB): 540

Hero posts SB 10, BB posts BB 20

Pre Flop: (pot: 30) Hero has A T

Hero raises to 40, BB calls 20

Flop: (80, 2 players) A 3 T
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (80, 2 players) 9
BB checks, Hero bets 50, BB calls 50

River: (180, 2 players) J
BB checks, Hero bets 90, BB raises to 180, Hero ?

With that flop, your thought process should be about getting as much value as possible. This involves betting, to set yourself up for a rvr shove. So I would def bet flop. By checking you give hands like KQ, Tx and 3x a free chance to realise their equity against you and make no value off them.

As played, call river. Look at your pot odds - we only need to be right 25% of the time and when we put random spew and worse 2P into his range, it's an easy call.

Best line with this hand would be cbet 1/2 pot, bet 1/2 to 2/3 pot OTT and shove river if x'd to imo.

With the flop I don't always bet it as I don't think we get a ton of value. I only really get value from 3x and QJ. Sure I do get value from 10x but that's unlikely due to card removal. With KQo villains usually 3 bet this pre flop.

Also with your line on the flop are you betting 1/2 pot cbet with all your bluffs? wouldn't 35 or maybe 30 be better? Also should we have any checking range here?

With the river - I just wonder How often are they turning their weaker 2 pair into a bluff on this board texture. yeah based on pot odds this is a simple call with our specific hand.


Thanks for the input.

On second thought I would think shoving may be the best play if he is raising his weaker 2 pairs.

My xing range OTF would be tiny and pretty much limited to AA where I have the deck crippled, and on a drier board than this too.

From opponent's POV, think what your x looks like OTF. This is an A high board, relatively dry, he expects you to cbet about 100% of the time. That you do not makes him a bit suspicious - cbetting is just better valuewise for me.

My cbet sizing is 1/2 whether I have Ax or not on this board, so as not to be too exploitable (betting less than 1/2 with all bluffs is pretty open-book, as is betting more than 1/2 with all bluffs). This may be a leak of mine tho - i tend not to vary my cbet sizing at all.

Im c-betting aswell but i dont think a check-back is bad here. Its preety dry board and you will get a lot of folds- So letting him catch up isnt terrible imo. Also no need to balance against random, just think what will get you the most. As played i think im just calling. Not sure about a jam here. He has likely not many Ax and 3x in his range. Also T9 is like always raising the turn. So his 2pair combos are less and KQ/87 makes just perfect sense.

^ Agree that KQ and 87 are defo part of his range and that's the lesson here - if we cbet and he folds OTF we win a pot of 6BB. If we x and let those kind of hands realise their equity (or gain further equity depending on the turn) we can end up losing a pot of around 30BB.

I'm not saying that you should be timid, but betting strong hands and having opponent fold isn't a disaster - betting always serves the dual purposes of (a) value and (b) protection

You make a good point about thinking what checking flop looks like from villains POV. With regs (although there are very few on 7s) I would cbet flop quite a lot. Now since I am mostly against recreational players, would they really be on that level of thinking?


edit: Thanks for the replies btw A number of issues that I can go over in this spot .

If we check back here we obviosuly want him to gain further equity. We have a monster and we have position. Questions is if there is more value by letting him gain equity / give him the opportunity to bluff or by c-betting. Like i said im also c-betting here. But saying we can end up loosing 30bb if we dont protect top two pair on a dry flop is not an argument.

Yeah I spose even if villain isn't expecting the cbet because of the board and how it fits your pf range, he will probs be expecting it just based on 'instinct' or the traditional rhythm of what happens after xing to the pf raiser. Either way the x from you would look a bit 'off'. And even tho no regs at this level, still good to cbet air there high % too as we get plenty of folds and plenty of good barreling cards on turn.

Yeah cbet flop, bet turn, call river as played. I think 2p will raise river but also KQ, Q8, 87.

On flop vs random you don't care about balance and you don't care how you look. You get value from worse Ax, Tx, KQ, KJ, QJ, few 3x, K high and sometimes random floats. Also at this stack depth you don't want to miss streets of value and most of it will be on the flop and turn.

hmm yeah I do now think I should have cbet this flop now, especially given stack sizes. I didn't even consider this at the time. Thanks for your input.

fwiw while i am always cbetting this, i don't think it can be a huge mistake to check flop. i get 3 streets of action close to never and when you do it is often a scenario where villain will try to get in all the money as well. so the main argument for checking is letting him catch up, while cbetting doesn't give free equity to his draws and gets a bit more value from worse made hands. overall i think it is close against a bad player, but i also prefer cbetting.

The 30BB point is just linked to charging villain to realise his equity. KQ, QJ, KJ, KT, QT will all be calling one street and all of these have around 16% against us. By xing we let our opponent play perfectly by taking the free card when we should be making him pay, for value (as you said) and protection. Will just quote this from an article on 2p2 from Matt Janda:

...it’s useful to bet TT on a 963 board and make the opponent fold QJ That’s because despite TT being the superior hand, QJ still has over 25% equity on the flop. In other words, if we choose not to bet TT on the flop or turn and never made the opponent fold his two overcards, then we’d be outdrawn by the river over one quarter of the time. Clearly, even making the inferior hand fold is extremely important and useful here.

Here our hand is stronger than the example in the quote but still a valid point imo.

Yeah there are 2 effects at play. Depending on villain, both checking or betting flop can be good. A lot of ppl are passive and check turn with their entire range too, in which case cbetting flop should be better.

Villain is obv not playing perfectly against us. He just gains with some parts of his range (KQ KJ etc) and loses with others (very simple example- 97).