At this point in the tournament there were about 37 players left (out of about 130), top 25 cash and I was about #13 in chips.

I had a chance to see a "free" flop from the BB here and flopped "top pair", though "top" pair was a pair of 7s.

Is it worth betting here?

Not much on villain - had just sat down at the table.

Cake - $4+$0.4|500/1000 NL (10 max) - Holdem - 10 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

SB: 26,751.00
Hero (BB): 12,020.00
UTG: 13,501.00
UTG+1: 8,681.00
MP: 3,009.00
MP+1: 8,224.00
MP+2: 2,762.00
LP: 11,116.00
CO: 27,942.00
BTN: 15,854.00

SB posts ante 100.00, Hero posts ante 100.00, UTG posts ante 100.00, UTG+1 posts ante 100.00, MP posts ante 100.00, MP+1 posts ante 100.00, MP+2 posts ante 100.00, LP posts ante 100.00, CO posts ante 100.00, BTN posts ante 100.00, SB posts SB 500.00, Hero posts BB 1,000.00

Pre Flop: (2500.00) Hero has 7 Q

fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, SB calls 500.00, Hero checks

Flop: (3000.00, 2 players) 3 4 7
SB checks, Hero ???

I'm definitely betting here. Unless you thought villain likes to trap, you almost always have the best hand (I think villain would probably raise most pocket pairs, especially ones higher than 7s, and would probably raise A7 and maybe K7). However, your hand is vulnerable if he has overcards (or, alternatively, you might get bluffed off the best hand if he starts firing at you after you check the turn. Also, there are some straight draws and a flush draw that you could get value from.

I'd bet a bit over half pot and expect to take it down most of the time.

bet 1675

Thanks.

In the actual hand I potted the flop, the villain called, the turn was 9d and the villain checked to me.

Since he was new I had no history of his being a checkraiser or not.

Do I take the free card he so graciously provided for me, or charge HIM to see the river?


By the way, I don't particuarly "hate" that I potted the flop. Normally when you have a marginal hand like a pair of 7s you want to play pot control but there was a very good chance I had the best hand here and wanted to charge him as much as possible to prove to me otherwise. Yes, I'm setting myself up to get eaten for breakfast if he checkraises me, but I just don't think he does that here very often.

I just don't have him on a pair of 9s on the turn - he could have a flush draw, gutshot straight draw or both - at WORST I'm realistically a 65/35 favorite here - I'm thinking shove the turn. Villain's not going to bet almost half of his stack on a 1/3 chance, and even if he does I'm in good shape.

Thoughts?

I don't see anything wrong with betting the flop, but I also see no reason to bet pot. If he has little to nothing he'll fold to half pot, and if he has something decent he'll call or raise whatever you bet.

I'm not sure where you get that realistically you are at worst a 65/35 favorite. I'd think about it a different way - if you shove and you are ahead, he will fold. If you shove and you are behind he will call and you are in deep trouble if not drawing dead.

Unfortunately, your potsized bet priced yourself into checking or shoving. If you make any other sized bet you are basically pot-committing yourself, so you might as well shove. Checking is dangerous, giving him a free card to beat you, and shoving is dangerous because if you are behind it knocks you out of the tournament. I think you make this decision easier if you keep the pot smaller on the flop. Which means that on the flop you should be thinking "am I willing to get all-in here on a safe turn card". If the answer is yes, then play it this way. If you aren't sure, or the answer is no, then exercise more caution.

A few thoughts:

- I'm generally reluctant to play such a big pot with an unknown villain without a very strong hand. Obviously we don't always have the luxury of having great reads on every opponent, but playing a huge pot when you don't have much understanding of villains' tendencies seems pretty bad. Is he a calling station who will pay off with any pair? Is he super aggro with big hands, or is he trappy? Does he play his draws aggressively or passively? Because we don't know, I would tread carefully and bet smaller on the flop and turn. I think you can bet half pot or so on both streets in order to charge him to draw while still allowing you to get away if he checkraises. At this level, an given that he doesn't have reads on you, there's not much risk of a bluff check raise after you bet two streets, so if he does c/r you on the turn, it's an easy fold.

- I agree that he probably doesn't have many 9s in his range (perhaps he turned 2 pair with 97, but, otherwise, I don't think he would call you on the flop with many hands containing a 9, especially since the 9 was a diamond, meaning he can't have 9dxd)

- Why aren't you more concerned about the flush draw that came in on the turn? Obviously, he could have called your flop bet with a variety of hands, but, especially given how big you made the flop bet, I'd think he doesn't have much air, only has a few weak made hands, and mostly has strong made hands or very good draws (for example, if he's a decent player, he shouldn't be calling a pot sized bet with a naked gutshot draw, but he'd probably at least call with a large flush draw)

Basically, although I understand wanting to protect your hand, I think you ended up putting way too much money into the pot with a marginal hand.

What hands do you think villain a) limps, b) checks on the flop, and c) calls a pot bet to continue with? When the diamond comes on the turn, how many of those hands do you think you're beating?

I think pot betting the flop is just awful here, and shoving the turn is worse.

About the 65/35 thing, I had him on a flush draw and gutshot straight draw on the turn. I didn't have him on a pair of anything - I just didn't think he'd checkraise me with top pair, especially not a pair of 9s. So I was thinking 4 outs to hit the straight and 9 more to hit the flush, and if he happens to have an overcard or an OESD we can maybe add on 4 to 7 more outs, so I have him on no more than 16 outs tops. By the 4/2 rule that's about a 32% chance of hitting one of his outs. That's all I meant.

Re: "If he has little to nothing he'll fold to half pot, and if he has something decent he'll call or raise whatever you bet." - I think that's good advice in a situation like this where I didn't have reads. I'll keep it in mind. A LOT of villains at this level call pot-sized bets with an OESD or fourflush, or even just two overcards.

Overbetting the pot OTF is spew. His 'completing' in the SB as a big stack, and then c/cing the flop makes me think he's a fish. Having said that, Axdd/Kxdd is very much part of this line. OTT all you really have now is a bluff catcher, check.

If you have no history or notes on someone, assume they have some idea of what they're doing until otherwise shown differently. His calling PF makes me lean towards a fish automatically, but his calling of the pot bet and the 4th D now, for me, would turn his hand almost face up.

Half-sized bets accomplish the same thing, whether you're bluffing or for value.

/thread

Try thinking about why you're betting a certain amount and stop just clicking buttons (pot or half pot). If you base your standard sizing around half pot, it'll set you up better for when you move up (if you just click pot at higher stakes you'll get torn to shreds by good players who can exploit your horrible sizing). I'll use half pot as standard and bet higher or lower depending on the situation.

E.g 1) You raise pre, BB calls. Flop A44r. Only need to bet 35-50% of the pot here because his range is so polarised and we're rarely going to get played back at on a board that hits villain from the BB so few times.

E.g 2) JT4dd, we have QQ. Betting anything from 50-100% of the pot due to the fact that this board hits a villains range so much more often and we want to get the money in as quickly as possible.

While betting pot in your hand isn't horrible, it creates a bloated pot on later streets when it is very likely there will be an overcard to the 7 and we don't need to get into a massive pot with just a pair of 7s.

Beg to differ about the good player. The good player will assess his fold equity in the pot if he raises when he has air, and might raise the flop with a decent hand. Also, if you constantly bet half pot regardless of position or board texture, that's a bit of a leak.

This is more accurate. With a good player, he takes alot more into consideration, the half pot bet is the standard guideline. A fish simply doesn't care what you bet, he is a level 0 player who looks at his cards and the board. He has zero thought about what you 'might' have or what you're tryig to rep. He is simply concerned with whether or not he can win the hand if he continues.

Now, versus a level 0 fish, we bet half pot or less, hell I've even seen fish fold to a minbet giving them 15-1 to call, and they'd fold. Why make it cost us more when we can accomplish the exact same effect with less?

On the flipside, if a good player sees you bet less then half or less, this is throws a big red flag up to us. If you're a total fish and minbet on a AAQ board, you're announcing you have an A but you're 'afraid' we'll fold. When we raise you might think were bluffing here as we've bluffed you out of several spots, but when you shove and we call, flipping QQ, he tells his buddies online poker is rigged.

According to the op, villain has just joined the table... If this is the case, a "good player" is probably going to play pretty straight forwardly, because he has no idea how op usually sizes his bets, nor how op will react to aggression. So, I don't think he's going to get too out of line in this particular spot. If we make a reasonable bet and get raised, we're either crushed or up against a big draw.

If, otoh, villain is a fish, I still think that we should play cautiously because if we make a misread (or the fish chases a draw and gets there) we're out of the tourney. Even of we can narrow his range down to a draw, why not keep the pot smaller on the flop and turn, and bluff catch brick river or fold bad rivers while still having enough chips to possibly sneak into the money.

Excellent advice.

I'd jam preflop. Reason being he's going to limp/fold a ton of hands and you have decent equity against most of the hands he's limp/calling with. We can already assume he's a weak player because he limped into a 12bb stack, whereas a competent play would know that jamming any two cards for 12bb effective blind versus blind is a profitable, unexploitable play. There's 3000 in dead money sitting out there, and if you want to get to the final table you need to capitalize on opportunities like this to add significant chips to your stack.

As played I'm betting to get value from draws, worse 7's and his A3/A4 hands that will probably call at least one bet. I'd bet 1700-2000 (I'd actually bet 1776, but I'm a troll). I definitely wouldn't check.

I don't agree with the line of reasoning here at all. You seem to be saying "he limped, therefore he's incompetent, therefore we should shove". Well, the more incompetent he is, the less we should want to shove some garbage like Q7o, because if he's horrible, he's more likely to call with K5 or A2, and we really need him to fold hands like that.

But I disagree even with the characterization of villain as 'weak' or not 'competent'. Even if 12BB-shoving any two from the SB is 'profitable' and 'unexploitable', that doesn't make shoving any two the most profitable play. With a spewy shovebot in the BB, limp/calling the top of your range is probably way more profitable than shoving the top of your range, for example. And even if SB-shoving in this spot is unexploitable, BB-shoving on a limper is very very exploitable.

Not that I think that matters. This is a $4 tournament - whether we're exploitable should be far from our minds, since even if we are, the players at this tournament aren't likely to figure out how to exploit us. And while making profitable plays is obviously better than making unprofitable ones, there are ICM considerations this close to the bubble that argue against spewy shoves with garbage hands.

If he's calling with ~20% of hands and we discount a few premium holdings since he'll likely raise those instead of limp, we have 35% equity. He only needs to fold half the time to show a profit. It's unlikely that he's calling with that wide of a range as it will be for half of his stack and we have no reason to believe he is capable of calling our shove correctly.

We can assume he isn't competent because 1) it's a $4 tournament on Cake and 2) a competent player usually won't complete for 12bb effective without reads.

The ICM effect isn't enough to justify not taking a profitable spot. We're still a decent ways from the money, we have 12bb in a presumably poorly structured tournament and we have what appears to be a very good spot to pick up dead money