only few hands against villain, did not go out of line so far. Pat or draw to the 6? Note: 4s are death. And should I have played it differently predraw?


PokerStars, $10 + $1 - Single Draw 2-7 No Limit - 75/150 (40 ante) - 6 players


UTG: 5,080 (34 bb)
MP: 1,750 (12 bb)
CO (Hero): 11,243 (75 bb)
BU: 1,397 (9 bb)
SB: 9,068 (60 bb)
BB: 2,560 (17 bb)

Deal: (465) Hero is CO with T♦ 6♠ 5♦ 2♠ 3♠
2 players fold, Hero raises to 375, 1 fold, SB 3-bets to 1,515, 1 fold, Hero calls 1,140

Draw One: (3,420) T♦ 6♠ 5♦ 2♠ 3♠ (2 players)
SB stands pat, CO (Hero)?

Haven't played too much of this game so curious what the answer is to this spot. I'm thinking we should pat behind and check back if checked to. I don't like 4bet and pat behind since we'd have to fold to a 5bet, we'd be behind the sb, and we'd get him to correctly break when he has a jack or ten with a draw. There would be some implied odds with breaking though and also we don't pay off a bet when we're behind.

If you break you likely have less equity vs his pat range than you do by patting behind, but flatting a 3b and patting makes you much more likely to face a bet and become bluffable post. I ran a couple of trial hands on GM and if you pat you're going to have about 45-50% equity vs a reasonable OOP 3b pat range, less than 30% if you break. This is why I love this game, post-draw you're in a pure poker situation if you pat and he fires.

For villain it's a perfectly reasonable strategy to 3b any hand he intends to pat OOP, and lead into any hand you flat and pat, checking most of his value range if you draw, polarizing his leading range with all his top-tier hands and snows.

It boils down to how many worse hands you think he'd pat. There are a lot more worse Tens than better ones, and hands better than Tens are pretty rare, so if he pats any Ten or better and bets the river under pot you should just grit your teeth and show down. Unlikely he's leading a Jack or really rough Ten into a pat, so you can probably bet if he checks it to you post.

Predraw I don't know. This is a tournament and almost all of my experience in this game is cash. Small opens are really bad in most normal cash situations. You're most often opening around the size of the pot, sometimes overbetting the pot to vary. There are only two streets to get value and it's difficult to stack anybody (without a cooler) unless you play bigger pots than you can make with a small open. SB's 3b size is more in keeping with that pot building idea and if he has mostly played top-tier hands this would make me pretty nervous.

Against a few very specific players I'd know my Ten was losing and with a weak draw I would be tempted to fold pre to the large reraise. Against an unknown I'd want to pat and show it down unless it was really expensive post, and then I'd want to fold.

Thanks a lot guys from commenting, and thank you Electrical for your detaliled post post