5-5, and this hand is $25 bomb pot with all 8 takers at Aria.
Pot is $200.
Hero Small Blind with K4Q9 Stack $1,200 after buying in for $500. I usually play 2-2, but it wasn't running yet, and manage the bigger stakes with smaller buy-in.

I'm pretty sure I played this horribly, so be gentle.

Flop 1: K43 (2 pair)
Flop 2: K38 (1 pair with second nut flush draw)


Post flop:


Turn:


River:

What were all villain's cards?

Hand is ok - you should have been an equity favorite on both flop and turn.

We can take other lines besides pot/pot but its difficult for Hero to get money in badly, especially after card removal effects.


I prefer a smaller lead on flop or possibly going for check/raise. Since Hero has poor position bloating pot can hurt more than help.

Turn t is a very good card for you on both boards, even kills a possible diamond out, as a lot of villain continues will interact with 43 - mostly with nut flush draws. Sets always possible but can't be too afraid.

I didn't notice what else he had as I was so frustrated with that damn run out and losing a scoop that I should have got at least one, and conceivably scooped myself.

Agreed... I was comfortable at the time that the T's couldn't have helped him on the 2x turns.

Prefer the check from SB in that spot. You have good hands, but all vulnerable to many bad turns and so potting and getting multiple callers really sucks. Having only ended up with one caller was probably your best outcome.

The rest of the hand plays out as expected. Definitely not checking the those turn cards after potting the flop. Sucks that you ran into someone that sticky.

check / call turn. check / fold river.

Your flop bet did its job: you got rid of the strays and left you with a single villain. Villain has communicated you're either dominated and/or he has a better draw on each board.

I don't see any reason to pot that turn. Your hands are middling, you're not drawing to the nuts on either board. Getting called doesn't tell you anything about his range. I'm not even sure about calling a pot bet here, but if you do, you at least get information from it.

The rivers don't change much for you. AK now beats you on top, and on bottom you now beat 38, K3, K8. Either way, villain is only betting with a guarantee to beat you on 1 board and probably on 2. KKTTQ is just too weak to call with when your best outcome is only a chop.

The only way you should be putting money into this pot after the flop bet is if your villain is a super aggressive player who can find bluffs... tight, highly competent players don't bluff or value bet bomb pots light.

Re the turn:
But isn’t the reason to bet here is to get him to lay down the exact type of hand he had or charge him for a draw. The only way he beats me on top is if he has a set. and I’m drawing live to a huge range on the bottom.

The other guy played his hand bad. On flop you can have KK, 33, or K3 which have him in a bad spot on both boards and would make it hard for him to scoop. On turn you can also have K10 now. You should never put big money in on bomb pots without good scoop potential. While he got lucky he could have easily been pretty much dead on both boards.

It's pretty rare for someone to call flop on a bomb pot and then fold turn when the turn doesn't change much. That's just my experience. "tight, experienced" players are interested in calling bomb pot flops when they have nutted or nut-draw hands on at least 1 board and usually both boards.

The T is better for villain's range than yours. Whatever you fired the flop with should rarely get helped by the T on either board, but villain can easily have KT or TT or AJd etc. because he's the one calling, not firing out. Whereas you're representing made hands and draws that the Ts missed.

In this case the tight player decided to call lighter than i'd expect, yet still ahead of you on bottom board with plenty of draws to catch on the top.

The trouble with betting turn is you do not have the nut draw to either board but the villain could be drawing to all the nut straights, nut flushes, and better 2 pairs on both boards. So there's such a high chance you'll end up beat on at least 1 board... shoveling money heads-up doesn't make sense to me, you're just hoping you get lucky that your half will come back to you.

If the action has 3+ players, then things change and it's sometime worthwhile betting when you expect to get only 1/2 the pot.

Thanks for the thoughtful responses. This discussion is important to me as I've just entered the world of double board bomb pots and they're proving to be of extremely high value... in both directions. I've won some really high scoops, while also losing a couple... like this one. I feel this is a new trend that is only going to increase in popularity but is completely misunderstood and can be highly profitable.

In some of my prior wins, the big turn bet has been good enough to take it down when V has exactly this kind of holding. As mentioned by others on this thread, his turn call was quite poor. The 2 rivers were most unfortunate.
If either:
- The top river doesn't pair the board with a non diamond
- Club or 2 pair come on the bottom
I'm able to go AI and he's in a tough spot. I could have scooped a very healthy pot under either scenario.

It's just been my experience so far that unless V has the nuts on one board, they're not calling. I didn't bomb this river as he could easily have found a call on 1 board with all 4 tens out. But that is such a highly unlikely-to-repeat scenario.

Since you say villain is "highly competent," it's possible he actually accurately read you for having the kind of hand you really did have. So I give limited credit to people saying 'he made a mistake', when that mistake is predicated on how YOU are perceived at the table.

If you're typically firing pot with this range of holdings, then it's correct to call you with hands that have your range beat. Whereas in the same spot, it would be a mistake for villain to call *MY* pot bet, because an observant player will eventually discover that I'm usually firing pot-sized bets into the turn when I'm sure i have a huge advantage.

I don't understand this, sorry. At the moment you don't know what he has, so why did you assume the running 10s make him more likely to call?

Somehow I feel like if we (for whatever reason) think we're strong enough to bet the turn, then we should feel strong enough to bet the river.

i.e.: if we think we're winning at least 1 board on the turn, we still think we're winning at least 1 board on the river. Let's max-value.
i.e.: if we think we can get a drawing hand to fold, we are more likely to get a drawing hand to fold. Let's max-value.

I've though about this situation a lot and wether checking the R was correct.
Instinctively, the counterfeit on the top was the primary reason. As you stated, all he then needed was AK or AAs and I'm losing on both. If he has a set on either, then he just boated up and he's never folding.

The only way he is folding is if he had a big draw and missed.

The other problem I had was that I only had <$400 left and the pot was $1,800. I couldn't see him folding if he had the slimmest connection. He would need completely busted draws to fold, and I couldn't see how this was the case.

So I realize that my check there means I'm almost certainly getting scooped, but I also feel strongly that shoving is very -EV.


As it turns out, in this case both of the above scenarios were true: i.e. he had a big draw and missed, but he also had As.

Granted I've read these very fast .. but what is the relevance of the As? Other than it goes nicely with the Ad you say he also has via the nut diamond draw. GL

Since both boards were paired with 10's, 2 pair on either / both get counterfeited. It's an easy call at that point with either A's or AK to pick up at least 1 board. I would need a flopped set on both to scoop.

Sorry .. When I see As it means Ace of Spades, not AA or plural As ..

We have avoided the bomb pot frenzy in our area for the most part but a few of our pool played a bomb pot tournament in Vegas and had a great time! GL

Ha! I guessed that and updated my syntax to A’s.

Bomb pots are the new exploitable mode of play. Very popular, Plenty action and plenty weak spots. I suggest to encourage them.

Ironically, the TT on both boards means not only can you get counterfeited on top board, but you can counterfeit villain on bottom board. I'm not sure if my messages included this, but after thought, I decided this balances out.

I agree which is another reason I would not pot the turn, because it's pretty much committing your entire stack with medium holdings.

i.e. what would you do if villain bets $400 on the river? Could you fold? If not, then a villain with a made hand can freeroll you.

So do I, and that's probably why I dislike betting turn in your place. Because on the turn I play out the scenarios:

1) bad rivers
2) good rivers
3) brick rivers

#1 is straightforward: diamond on top, A on the bottom, we know we're trash and wish we could have saved our turn bet.

#2 i'm not actually super excited to have a bigger pot, unless I bink gin cards (e.g., K on top, Ac on bottom). Merely hitting KK444 on top, and a king-high flush on the bottom, that's great.... until opponent insta-shoves and then I know he has me beat on at least 1 board but i'm just calling my last 400 for a chop

#3 is the situation which happened. So we get to the river with everything missing, and basically nothing changed (except counterfeit potential swapped our equity with villain). If I'm not confident in my hand strength on the river, I shouldn't be confident on my hand strength on the turn.

(the exception to this is if I have a monster draw before the river, in which case I shovel in money before scare cards shut things down. But (1) 2nd-nut flush draw + (2) 2nd-nut gutshots isn't strong enough to be a monster draw IMO)

btw, as-played.... I agree with not betting.

Cons: AA / AK hands are probably not folding, because those unfortunate rivers mean they beat everything except full houses. 5.5:1 odds makes it easy to hope we missed draws.

Pros: If villain has the final K with a weaker kicker, he may pay you off thinking the 5.5:1 odds are worth it.

...

The payoff range is smaller than the losing range.

Check flop.

If one bettor and no callers, raise max and get stacks in ASAP.

With more players in you'll need to proceed cautiously, depending on stack sizes, due to lacking nut potential. If facing a large bet and raise from reasonable players, fold.

This seems dubious to me. The 43 wrap hands only interact with one board. Yes, we'll have high/NFD diamonds with 43 wraps. But also high clubs with a K (like what we did), or KK.


I can see a case for not betting pot HU on turn so we can bet more (relative to the pot) on the river when we think it's very likely we'll have one board, but less likely both and we don't want V to sigh call and get his money back. There's few runouts where we don't like either board HU IMO, but this was one.
But if we get 2-3 calls on flop this T looks a lot worse to me, and it's much less likely we are going to get one board on the river ... even more annoying is that we often won't know if we have a board.


Hard to tell all the info. on flop, but I probably only pot flop on the BTN ... and maybe bet less even then. x/r EP and bet less MP (kind of want to get all the money in on the flop or not have to get stacks in).


Also hard to tell how bad V's play is without knowing side cards but I would assume it's worse than heros.