Join Date: Feb 2017
Posts: 129
If he was UTG and you were BTN how didn't you get to see his cards?
Your post has met with some disagreement don't let it deter you from posting!
Street by street:
- probably fold preflop but call isn't terrible if you're going to extract value when you hit
- you flop bottom pair with flush draw and backdoor straight draw and face a tiny bet and a call on a board that shouldn't do that much for UTG in particular. Whilst you may sometimes have the best hand it is bottom pair no kicker and the value of your hand comes from the draws you hold. When you improve you're frequently going to have the best hand but if all the chips go in you're probably beat. A diamond, 2, 6, 3, 4 and to some extent 7 and ace on the turn would give you some equity so taking the very cheap price offered and trying to hit your draw makes most sense to me here, plus we are in early stages of an STT and shouldn't want to build a big pot in this spot
I don't think there is a strong case for raising here, and if there were I'm confident it would need to be for a larger sizing than the min-raise used. The min raise here reopens the betting and gives the villains the chance to deny you seeing the next card and also slightly bloats the pot - both outcomes which are undesirable for us. Your raise here doesn't serve well as a value bet, bluff or for protection which indicates it is not a good bet
- on the turn much of the flop logic applies but the Ace may have helped one of the villains and your pair of 3s is now worth even less - even after the action checks to you. Your plan on the flop was to get a free card and the opportunity is now there so take it and try to hit your draw
- the river gives you a very good but not unbeatable hand when the most obvious draw gets there. When villain checks to you you have to bet it for value. Villain has shown little strength but still continued thus far amongst these small bets and whilst he can have some flushes (all of which beat yours) he often will raise the best of these and you can pretty comfortably fold if he does. I don't think many players are check-raising with a bluff very often here so wouldn't be too worried about that possibility. He will also have many marginal hands that he may call a bet with (rightly or wrongly), often a weak Ace, 9, J or similar. There are enough of these hands to justify a bet - so it's about picking the right size. If you started with 75bb effective then the pot is about 17.5bb and there is about 69bb effective. A shove is a massive overbet and would probably only be called by better so is not suitable. *All* of those hands may call a minbet but that doesn't make it the right size either. Without further reads on the player I would bet about 33%-40% pot, figuring that this villain has a marginal hand like those listed above but has displayed weak and passive tendencies during the hand that could compel him to pay it off. I think even weak players may start to fold more as the sizing ramps up beyond that point. Of course if he has a weak flush (which he should rarely have from UTG but it isn't inconceivable) he will often just call. To be a profitable value bet it needs at least half of the calls to come from worse hands - and I think with the villain's range and the suggested sizing this will comfortably be the case
I think failing to bet the river at all when you finally made the hand was the biggest mistake here. Next time I'd just fold it pre