Poker Stars $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked

MP: $14.50
CO: $10.65
BTN: $6.10
SB: $10.45
Hero (BB): $21.75
UTG: $10.50

Pre Flop: Hero is BB with Q Q
2 folds, CO raises to $0.30, 2 folds, Hero raises to $1, CO calls $0.70

Flop: ($2.05) K A J (2 players)
Hero bets $1, CO raises to $3, Hero folds


feel like villain might fold a lower pp he was playing for set value... no?

Ugh. It's okay to c/f every flop like this, especially OOP. Flop hits villain's range like damn.

Why bet to fold out worse hands?

to win the pot?

You're doing it wrong

i'm not going to call any bets in this hand at all. so if villain bets on the turn with 27o, im folding. so why not take one shot at winning the pot outright?

Let's assume he has pocket 3s here. He has two outs, what are we worried about? He very rarely outdraws us, and when he does and suddnely comes fireing, we're not exactly paying him off much. If we think he has this hand, we need to check and give him a chance to bluff at us in later streets. The times we catch his bluff compensate the times he outdraws us and then some. If he just checks it down in this kind of spot, he just checks it down.

By betting, we fold out this kind of hand we're doing great against and only getting action off better hands. It's a bet that cannot possibly yield us a positive return at all. So we bet, and win a pot we'd win anyways nearly all the time (and miss out on giving him the chance to bluff...) or play a bigger pot with what is nearly always the losing hand. A draw is the only thing we can get value from and our hand is just too weak, their calling range crushes us and we're oop. Just check, keep the pot small, our hand has turned to sh*t.

Not to be mean or anything, but I don't think you understand the concept of poker. If you think betting to fold out worse hands is a good plan you just have a fundamental error in the way you think about the game.

The point of poker is to put villain on a range of hands and get value either by getting him to call with worse or fold with better. Think FTOP.

i understand that, but what kind of value am i EVER getting out of this hand? if villain bluffs this flop it's NH sir, because i can NEVER call here. I'm not looking to make a play for this pot on the turn or river, I'm looking to end it here hoping it missed villain's range. i'm not getting any value out of villain's bluffs because I can never call them here. I understand checking down here is an absolutely viable option, but just as I'm getting no value from betting, I'm getting no value from checking.

...so you want to make a -EV play just because you can think of an even MORE -EV play?

Seriously, it's like you're trying to tilt me or something. Is this a level?

edit: not that I necessarily think that calling is more -EV than betting, but I'm just talking about your reasoning etc

Yeah, but we can't see villain's hand. The whole nothing worse calls/nothing better folds ignores that fact that being OOP hero simply has to forfeit the pot if he checks and villain bets, which he will do with hands that are behind and hands that are ahead.

I know nothing about villain in this case, but when I'm in this situation against someone who will bet all of his range when checked to but only raise or call with a legit hand, then I will frequently go ahead and turn my hand into a bluff so that he can't bluff me.

I know it sounds silly, but you can't go into c/c mode for 3 streets hoping to get to showdown against aggressive opponents who have position on you. That leaves you the option of simply check/folding, which while right in many cases, also allows you to be bluffed off good hands whenever a scare card flops.

To play perfectly according to the Fundamental Theorem of Poker one would have to be able to see villain's hand and play accordingly. Therefore, if he could see villain had AT, he would check/fold, and if he could see that villain had 55, he would check/call.

But hero can't see villain's cards, so he can't possibly play according to FTOP. And being OOP, his only options are to bet to prevent villain from bluffing him, or to simply check/fold. Check calling is way too expensive and makes it super easy for villain to own us.

In this case, I would be inclined to check/fold, because this flop is just too ugly. Even hands which we might be ahead of have tons of outs to improve or bluff. But the idea of cbetting a hand OOP that can't be called by worse is not always wrong.

I don't mind turning made hands into bluffs sometimes but I'd much rather do it in a spot where there are better hands that opponent could fold, or at the very least on flops that don't crush his range like this.

NeverScurred, I think wacky is trying to say that he definitely has some equity against Villain's range here, and he likes to bet at the pot to protect that equity.

In other words, Villain will never call a bet with a hand that's weaker, but will often bet if the hand is checked to him. Likewise, with a hand that beats Hero's, he will always bet and he will always call.

In this situation, c/fing is neutral EV. Betting however, may not.

If Villain folds more than 33% of the time, Hero's bet was equitable. If that's the case, leading out with a half-pot sized bet is better than c/fing. Do I think that will happen? On this board, probably not.

QFT. Said a lot better than me.

this

who cares if villain is sometimes going to knock us off of a better hand when its not even a profitable spot to bluff anyway.

Yeah that makes sense. Earlier I thought you were saying something along the lines of "c/c is -EV so therefore I have to bet" which obviously is silly, but I must have just misunderstood you. I'd still c/f this flop but I see what you were getting at before. My bad.

+1

c/f>>c/c>>b/anything.