Can anyone give me a line check on the below hand?

This was played during the micro millions $5.50 8-game tourney. I had just been to moved to a new table during the NL round and the Villain bluffed of most of his stack by 3betting 59s sb vs CO and running an over jam on the turn with a gutshot. Apart from that no other reads.

Should I be betting when he checks to be after the 1st draw since we have seen 3 of the deuces giving him less outs and rougher draws a lot of the time?

Turn seems like a standard raise to get him to potentially break weak 9s?

Can we ever find a value bet on the river?


Hero has [8h Jd 3s 2s 2c]
Battles_100: raises 2000 to 4000
Folds to Villain in BB who calls 3000


*** FIRST DRAW ***
Villain: discards 1 card
Battles_100: discards 2 cards [Jd 2s]
Dealt to Hero [8h 3s 2c] [Ad 2d]
Villain: checks
Battles_100: checks

*** SECOND DRAW ***
Villain: discards 1 card
Hero : discards 2 cards [Ad 2d]
Dealt to Hero [8h 3s 2c] [Tc 5h]
Villain: bets 4000
Battles_100: raises 4000 to 8000
Villain: calls 4000

*** THIRD DRAW ***
Villian: discards 1 card
Hero: stands pat on [8h 3s 2c Tc 5h]
Villian: checks
Hero: checks

i would just call and pat. if he's pat, it doesn't look like he has a breakable hand since he called pre and drew 1. and being that you drew 2, you're not gonna get much credit, esp with his hand looking so obviously rough/weak.
i don't see why you want to bet flop when you're behind.

You played it well

is this for pure value/protection?
or is freezing this hand bad because the targeted range isn't big enough?
my thoughts were: it's a small pot, i have a marginal hand, villain's either drawing thin, or with an unbreakable pat, etc...

Flop check good. Turn raise seems to be over playing the hand a bit but maybe could get him to break or even fold a weak pat assuming an unbalanced draw 1 call range pre that probably includes 9s and maybe even Ts considering this is a loose player (per read) in a micro stakes tournament. But given villain checked flop, I don't think villain is betting turn without improving, so don't think our 8532 is worth value raising alone. My favorite part of the raise is that if he is still drawing 1 then we're less likely to be bet into on river after we pat and don't want to face the pressure, but if my assessment that he's rarely breaking if he's pat and he's often pat is correct, then that's irrelevant -- granted this is a bit where we can be a bit results oriented and use the fact that he drew 1 on river as proof that he does have a bet/call/d1 range. Anyways just call turn.

I always check back river here as played but thinking more about it, it could be a bet since you have a pretty bluffy line here since you sensed weakness by villain's passivity on predraw and flop and you drew 2 twice so could've seen a lot of 2s and 7s; hard to say if it being low stakes makes it a better or worse river bet: better because people are more likely to be loose and straightforward with little chance of facing river raise bluff so you can happily fold to raise, but worse because you might be Fancy Play Syndroming thinking your line looks bluffs so you can bet when you're opponent might be thinking 9 or better call, T or worse fold.

nh wp

i honestly don't get how the turn raise is good. when villain calls your raise, how often is he going to be breaking? his draw obv sucks, and it's a small pot. i would expect him to only be pat when he calls. and i don't expect any better hands to fold when we drew 2 and he looks weak. if he is drawing, again, it's a small pot and how much equity does he really have anyway?

I think you’re looking at it backwards. Everything about the hand (his actions and our blockers) suggest villain has dog****. We should increase our value range vs dog**** and make him make tough decisions.

Btw I disagree that villain will not bet here unimproved despite checking first draw.

how many 9's does he fold or how many rough draws does he c/ flop and call raise ui on turn with? like, should he be drawing to a T or 9?
i just don't see us getting called when we're ahead enough and i don't see the value in protection.
also i think there's value in letting him snow and possibly bluff into us when we're pat with an obv weak hand.
i honestly can't even think of a lot of bluffs for us unless we hit 2 pair or something. if i pick up a 4card draw, i'm just calling.

I think the raise is profitable even if he never breaks or folds a better hand, I don't know how much more clearly I can state my position.

Villain almost certainly has something like 8763 or something like that and didn't bet the flop because afraid of being up against a dominated draw with two left.

But with one draw to go he's betting a large % of the time UI in a 1/2.


I get what everyone is saying including DD but a ten is a slight dog over the course of two draws. So it seems like we need some element of him breaking, folding better, or folding drawing live to make this profitable. I think we probably have a sliver of that to tip the equation to a raise. But it seems close and maybe tournament considerations may apply.

Think another important consideration is that we are probably protected from being reraised on the turn due to the highly probable roughness of his hand.

Even if the raise, by itself with no folding, breaking, etc (and there is SOME of that) is a small loser, it gains value for all of your actual good hands and makes his breaking decisions, in the meta, more difficult.

i honestly wasn't taking into account hands like 8763. those seem like easy 3bets pre and bet on flop ui. i was thinking hands like straight draws, 4569, etc. vs those i most certainly thought of our T to be an equity favorite if villain bets ui on turn. my thinking was:
1) you should bluff a lot in small pots
2) villain often has a good bluff/snow candidate
3) when he snows, or pats his J we're 100% equity
4) we drew 2 so he shouldn't break anything better
5) when he calls, i don't think we're doing all that well
6) i don't see how we'd have all that many bluffs as i'd still be calling with my 4card draws

If he calls my raise a pats on the 3rd draw are you standing pat or do we have to ditch the 10?

Easy 3bet and bet UI for you, but lower limit 8 game tourneys probably play non standard in Deuce rounds.

But I think on both sides of the debate we are projecting what should be done and what he should have but hard to read exactly what he has other than the cards we have seen. So I'm not getting too fired up about this one way or another. Just don't fold the turn is what I'd say.

I would draw. If you made a T9 here freeze is more attractive for the reasons AutoZone says.

People just don’t know how to play, he could easily have 2346 here and think it’s a “bad draw”

call down. you can not break a ten.

don't raise.

call down.