qft

I don't want to be rude here but I think you kinda missed my question.

Hypothetically, if I were to bet the flop and he were to raise, what line would you take? Would you call all the way down? Your post is pretty contradictory. You say I should try to win the pot through aggression, but also imply that I should allow a decent player to win the pot without a showdown by folding "comfortably". My problem is that I don't think a fold would ever be comfortable and if our positions were reversed I'd likely play AK as such:

Raise
Bet
Bet

I'd also do this with any pair and any flush draw. By the time the river rolled around the pot would be quite large and I think it'd be pretty hard to fold for one bet, given that we've already said "proper" strategy is to bet the bejesus out of it and try to win without showdown (which I think my opponent is good enough to understand).

again, why are you are you assuming he's going to raise?

why would you raise AK on this flop against a player who's already repped a huge hand preflop?

and even if you did raise AK the flop, would you triple barrel it?

i mean, if you want an analogy, suppose you have AK and the flop is Axx with two diamonds.

you bet and get called.

the turn is a another diamond. you bet and get raised.

is your turn bet a mistake because you got raised?

i honestly think you are being a bit paranoid in this spot. put your opponents on a range of hands - not just hands that beat yours. given the size of the pot, think about what betting accomplishes, vs what checking accomplishes.


what do you think checking accomplsihes in this spot. if it gets checked around, and the turn is a blank, now what? if the decent bets and gets a caller, whats your plan?

My main goal of checking was to try to get to showdown. As for the flop checking through, I'd probably bet the turn in that case cause I don't think decent player would check behind the flop with his monsters.

suppose the turn is some medium high card (e.g. T-Q). you bet and get raised.

you already announced that you have AK when you checked the flop.

what is your plan?

At the time I'd probably end up bet/folding it. With 5 minutes to think about it, I guess I'd check and probably call again. Hadn't really thought that far ahead to be blunt

jesse -

this is a hypothetical, so please look at it as such, its a rough concept to follow and its not an answer per say but it will help you formulate an unconventional plan. Say you playing HU, you were positive your opponent had an unimproved hand that either matched yours (AK) or AQ or a small unimproved pair based on the way he played the hand, would he call a river bet? Is your bet for value, or is a bluff? What percentage of the time would he call a river bet and you will chop your hand? What percentage of the time will he call and your hand will be no good? Once you answer that then ask yourself the next hypothetical, what would happen if you checked on the river, would the villain bet? What percentage of the time would he bet with his entire range of unimproved hands and small pairs that he may play passivly? Third and final question to ask yourself, if you checkraise the river what percentage of the time will you win without showing your hand? Based on what I see so far this looks to be a fairly high percentage of the time, the variable is if the guy with position on you is willing to bet the river with a slim hand - based on the way you played this hand there stands to be a chance that he can bet rather slim - this is for you to ultimatly decide, we can't help you here because we dont have enough data.

Now do all these calculations on the fly (its not too hard, rough math is fine), and ask yourself is the guy who has position on you agressive enough to bet the river with a slim hand like 33 or AK from his likely range of reasonable cold-call pre-flop hands? If the answer is yes then you need to consider a c/r with top no pair because it nets you the greatest amount when you weigh out the difference between the various lines available. Now adjust by adding UTG to the mix, if you check, position bets and UTG calls then your plan tells you its time to fold of course.

ps - I expect someone to say this post is crazy talk. Perhaps they are right, but my river c/r's tend to keep me winning pots that I should be loosing.

a river c/r in this hand is crazy talk. however, a river c/r is the single most likely way to get people to fold (decent) pairs in LHE IME. but i imagine it is rarely useful in live settings because people dont value bet thin enough, there are not enough blind battles, and fewer players have enough hands logged with each other to 'trust' those types of lines.

I just dont think a c/r or regular raise bluff is going to work often in this game (Bay 20). The players don't value bet thin enough, and when they do value bet, they're going to crying call a raise almost every time. The time to bluff raise on the river in this game is when you can put the other player on a bluff, but you cant necessarily beat his hand.

Just yesterday a guy bet into me on the river on an ace high board, and I just 'knew' he was bluffing. I had QJ high, and decided to call when I should have raised, because he tabled K-rag high for the win.

Does anyone think this is not idiocy? This could be from Captain R's Super Advanced Hold 'Em concepts.

Getting the good player to call with a losing hand but making the fish to fold the winner for one bet on the river.

Sadly I think I'm usually the fish when this concept is applied.