I often wonder why I raise flops like this at $10/$20. No better hand is ever folding, can I really take the pot away from Ax on the turn w/out actually improving?

Villain is 23/12/1.8 over only 40 hands, so hes pretty tight.

I dont see too much value in a river bet on this board. Imo he either has a hand that I beat or hes value checking ace-high on the turn.

How should I play this?

Full Tilt Poker $10/$20 Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: Hero is CO with K 8
2 folds, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, 2 folds, Hero calls

Flop: (7.5 SB) 6 7 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, Hero calls

Turn: (6.75 BB) 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: (6.75 BB) Q (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

If I want to bluff at a board like this I usually do it on turn or river.

Is stealing with K8O out of the CO profitable? I am sure it depends on how tight the people are who follow...but have a hard time seeing this being profitable.

I don't see the point of the flop c/r against a tight player, against a wide range it has some merits.

with a 23/12 BTN its a pretty easy raise imo. With a 40/30 tough LAGTAG its a pretty easy muck.

There is always much much more to PF than your hand and your position.


@OP

I dont c/r this flop. He only folds better hands when your hand improves and he will 3-bet you or raise turn quite a lot. If we have reason to believe that he will fold A high on bricks then by all means c/r.

Luckily tho he misplayed his AK or whatever and handed you a free card.

Beautifully put.

Oink -

I think I have a leak here, I would have played AK here exactly how villain did. Please berate me and tell me why that is wrong. -thx

looks like you got owned pretty hard by like KJ here

You don't have to semibluff every time you have a draw. In some cases, it's better to just play your draw straightforward, especially in spots where it's easy for a villain to put you on a draw

It depends on your table image for open-raising from the CO. What range of hands does the Villain put YOU on? If (in the Villain's eyes), you are favored to win, he not have odds to call.

Specifically, what range of hands would you:

• open-raise from the CO, then
• call when re-raised from the Button
• and check-raise the flop?

This a great flop for you, because you can be almost certain that it doesn't connect with the Villain's hand, while the Villain has to worry that it connected with your hand. An information advantage is good.

If he has overcards, he has to worry that you just made a pair, trips, or a straight draw. If he has an overpair, he's not as worried about the pair.

Let's suppose you check-raise with trips or a straight draw, but not with just a pair. Making some assumptions about your range as well as the Villain's possible overcard holdings:


So, from Villain's point of view when he has overcards, you're a huge favorite.
Of course, if he has an overpair, then he's the favorite, but only slightly.

Based on the above, I think a check-raise with your K8 is fine. If he folds, great. If he calls, he probably doesn't have an overpair, and you can bet out again on the turn with any low card or K. If he re-raises, he probably has an overpair, in which case you want to see the river cheaply.

Another option is to check-call the flop and check-raise the turn. I'd go for something like this:

straight draw: 67% check-raise the flop; 33% check-raise the turn
trips: 33% check-raise the flop; 67% check-raise the turn

That improves your equity slightly while maximizing confusion.

you just called 60/40 a huge favorite and 56/44 a slight favorite.

as oink said earlier, you won't get an ace high fold unless you hit a good card (other than a king). this means you don't realize a lot of that equity, so what makes you say that those numbers make the c/r fine?

aghtorr, all i can say in response to your analysis is:

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

i'll let others tell you what's wrong with it.

If he won't fold the Ace-high, then we lose money here to make more money when we have trips.

If he does fold the Ace-high, then we lose money with trips to make more money with the straight draw.

I'm not opposed to check-calling or other lines, but check-raising gives up only a little (due to our strong draw) while making it hard for the villain to read our hand. Even if the Villain doesn't fold.

C/r here is fine if you defended your BB with K8.

It's monumentally bad if you raised and got 3b by a non-maniac. As you said, you're never folding a better hand, the possibility of him folding a live 6 outer is pretty low as there aren't that many out there + the pot is big + most that he has will have some sort of GS or BD draw - so you have to commit to 3 barreling here if you take this line, and considering you get popped on the turn lots, this seems like a bad bad bad spot.

you don't have to needlessly lose money with this hand to make money from ace high calling you down. you realize you're trying to justify c/ring in a bad spot by saying "metagame" and "so we win more when we have 9 combos of a super wide range," right?

and if ace high folds turn unimproved, then you're going to make a reads-based play at the pot here. the fact that you hold an oesd is just icing on the cake.

agthorr,

Are you a professional swindler, or do you write infomercials for a living or something?

Your analysis is extremely flawed, but the professional format of your post makes me want to take you seriously for some reason.

In any case, evaluating equity for different portions of ranges is dumb...Evaluate full ranges. Villain has a hand he intends to show down here a ton, and like Oink said, the only time he's going to fold A high is when you draw out anyway

Err... thanks. I think?

My writing skills improved significantly in graduate school when I was working on getting my research papers published (unrelated to poker).

Okay:


or to look at specifically K8o:


I guess I'm not as confident of that--but I could be completely wrong.

agthorr, among other things:

RANGE FOR BUTTON INSANE = NUMBERS USELESS

you are actually doing a disservice to this piece of software you are trying to promote. please don't confuse beginning players by making a long post that sounds smart and scientific but in reality is just an example of extremely poor analysis.

Sorry guys--I didn't intend to sound so authoritative! I'm here because I want to learn and improve my game, not because I'm expert.

I guess I'm really off base in my estimate of the Button's range (good to know!). What range do you guys put him on based on the preflop action?

after 40 hands his stats haven't converged. most likely he's a standard tag or lagtag. his range is probably between 66+,AT+,A8s+,KJ+,KTs+,QJs and
55+,A8+,A5s+,KT+,K9s+,QJ,Q9s+,J9s+,T9s,98s

Eh !

No need to be so agressive, there is some wrong thing in his post, but it is not a reason to insult this guy. At least he tries to add something to the thread.

Now, first of all, unless you had a really tight BB whom you knew was folding at least 60% of the time to a blind steal, I believe the preflop raise was a little frisky. Not sure the overall circumstances here.

After that, I don't mind the play at all. Given your combo of pot equity + fold equity coming from a big ace, a check raise on the flop gives you some fold equity with some players holding some hands on the turn and river.(if that makes any sense) Once your opponent 3 bets you, your fold equity is shot and you need to rely strictly on your pot equity, which, givin that he is unlikely to also have an eight, is plentiful.

I like the play. It didn't turn out that well this time but overall, it's a winning move.

After reading all the responses on this thread, I'm a little confused. No one is folding an ace high here? Really? I mean how often do you have to either hit your hand or fold a better hand to make this profitable. If you hit your hand and this guy is calling down with KJ, ok, fine. But wouldn't you often get an Ace High or better King High hand to fold at least, say 50% of the time?

I'd say the answer is yes. I don't play 10/20 yet but if they don't fold ace high ever in this situation, I can't wait.

I am not folding A high unless a card that makes my A high a worse hand than 8x comes.

Pretty standard that A high calls down bricks here unless there is some read based stuff going on.

Fair enough.... you won't fold it, but some will. Enough so that his raise will fold a better hand enough? This guy is tight. What are his WTSD stats. Maybe this would be a better move against someone who has a WTSD less than 40. Of course, the OP only has 40 hands on the guy. How often can we get him to fold that hand in order to make it profitable? That's what I want to know.

Imo i dont like my play. I dont think any ace folds unless we actual hit our hand, ie an 8 or 9 hits. In a vacuum, i think its a losing play online