Villain folding small pair to flop c-bet: I said it might induce a fold, which I stand by. Level of play in $50buyin MTTs is still absolutely atrocious sometimes and I assure you some players will make a bad fold with 55 there. Still, that part of villain's range is small so not really the essence here.

I think stack sizes ARE the essence. It's such a shallow situation that we simply cannot afford to not be the aggressor on this flop. If we check the flop, I dare say 90-95% of villains are betting the turn with any two cards - and then what do we do? (assuming the turn misses us). Effective stacks only allow us to fold.

The value in this spot, IMO, is our range vs his range and not handing the reigns over to villain who will almost surely spank our BE-hinds with them! His calling range and the flop texture means we're ahead way more often than not and that edge (even if marginal) is best exploited by betting.

Yep spot on sorry not suggesting its a bad play just imo a little too passive for my liking. I do liek to cbet though

Good discussion though as this is a sticky spot we get in a lot. Good to hear the otherside of the argument.

I would call a normal sized bet OTT, his overshove on the hand...

Ask to see 1 card.

if he refuses...I'd consider folding.

Should be a really easy fold for you, you play for a living man.

If the turn is a 5c does it change anything?

stack sizes suck for a c bet to be honest. the board texture is great for a c bet dont know what any of you are talking about its the stacks sizes that suck

fold the turn

this is a very important hand to post as it illustrates a point that people just dont seem to understand. if you have AK AQ here then betting is way worse than if you have complete junk. in the past betting would get better hands to fold weak pairs would fold but nowdays they wont. so no better hands are folding v the average villain. some worse hands are going to bluff you off the pot when you bet and most are going to fold. but the worse hands often only have 3 outs as weak aces are a huge part of their range. so i just think its generally better to check here. as cbets are only good when better hands fold or worse hands call. and when you have Ak or AQ that will almost never happen whether the board is paired or not.

I can't argue with this reasoning, however, isn't one of the reasons we cbet to avoid this turnspot?

I mean, he could have a lot of stuff other than PP's and flushdraws, so a cbet will take it down more often than not, right?

But if we check, isn't there a chance, maybe even a good chance, that he will bet a whole bunch of hands on the turn, most of which we beat, but we still have to fold?

Obviously getting c/r on the flop sucks, but if he c/c, I think we could get to see a river cheap, as we certainly check back on the turn.

we dont fold turn. we call. thats the whole point. when we cbet we achieve nothing. when we check flop and call turn we achieve a lot.

So you are saying ssnyc should have called this? Or do you have a pain threshold for how big a turnbet you will call?

no im not saying we should call here with AQ. what im saying is that if villain wants to shove turn then great. as there are a ton of hands i would check this flop with that i would snap call villains shove with and often they would be drawing dead or be at least a 4/1 underdog. so against my raising pre and checking flop range its a play i want to see villain make on turn. but in general villain is going to either check or bet around half the pot and i would check it back to them or call the half pot bet. i would play a lot of big hands like this as well so i want villain to bet the turn. as usually they are just donating chips. as sure there is a FD but its HU and we have to let villain spew off their chips as people like to do in situations like this. and sure they may have a PP or a T or AK or they may thit their 3 outer (or maybe its a 6 outer) then they are going to win some chips from me. and if they fire again on the river then i have a decision to make. but again i want them to fire again on river. as against my raise pre, check flop, call turn range here they are just donating chips.

OK, I see what you mean, and I have no problem seeing the merits of checking back the flop, but for me, I have to say cbet is better, probably because I open a lot wider than you do.

And that leads me to the flaw I see in the way you would play it. If you only continue with hands that are good on a board like this, then yeah, you could find those sweet situations when they shove against you and you have them dominated, but it seems to me that you'd lose an awful lot of hands by giving up if you whiff flop.

Like I said, for me, it wouldn't work at all, because I open so frequently that I'd lose a ton of chips if I give up on hands that doesn't hit the flop.

im not giving up. im calling all reasonable bets on turn. and if they choose to shove turn they are gifting me chips v my range.

I just think that the problem with calling "reasonable" bets on the turn, is that if the guy is decent, you will face another bet on the river without having a clue were you are at in the hand.

ugh...percentages percentages percentages

how often villain flats made hands on the SB? folds them to C-bet? how often AQhigh is good omg...there is no standard way here except if sb flats often he will have a hand less often if he rarely flats he will have a hand more often that beats AQ or he flatted a pair for only it's set value (what's your vpip?)...if you bet here it's a bet on having the best hand + getting villain to fold I dunno but how can you think there is any STANDARD play here...it's poker those who can add and subtract win

by default...bet because people fold more often coz it's hard to hit a hand AQ high is best a lot but it looks like OP made the right read so the hand is friggin trivial anyway

thats what i want villain to do. as i am way ahead of villains river betting range with my raise pre check flop call turn range!

Think this is very well said.... and Norwood, I don't really get what you are saying at all. In this particular hand, are you calling turn/river?

kenny - seems you and I agree on the basics in this hand, with reference to my last entry in this thread.

As for Norwood, I recognize what you're trying to say and your argument is usually fine, if it weren't for the stacks involved here. If this was a deeper situation, checking the flop in order to check-call turn and evaluate on river is fine, but there's no room to do so here.

Original poster - seems you've received quite a few varying responses. Choose your 'best' one wisely!

If they are decent they aren't folding to a flop cbet either. Plus if they bet turn & river, you have a fair amount of info about their range.

I would check behind flop, you have the best hand sometimes, getting CRed sucks & backdoor flush/straight draws. Turn fold is fine...FWIW he was probably check/shoving flop anyway & missed.

considering villains stack when he calls our raise pre, what hand is he actually folding to a Cbet?

all pairs are calling if not c/r and all draws will do the same. i think our hand is more of a bluff cbet than anything if we decide to cbet here.

the only hand folding here is KQ and the only hand we are getting value out of is AJ imo

Just because we are guessing doesn't mean that it isn't the best play. This spot is very similar to the KK on a Axx flop problem, where checking, especially IP is normally the best play

ok, why does this thread have over 45 posts? I fail what you need to discuss there. everything is played fine

in after 47