Reads: Villain is a decent reg who knows I have a wide range from LP. Likes to float buttons, positionally aware, etc. Knows I have a high cont. bet %.

I'm hoping this opens up general discussion as to how to handle situations like this with one J or Q overcard on dry boards in this and other situations. Which is better - minraise, shove, or call?

Hero ($51.25), CO
Villain ($39.50), Button

Folds to hero who raises to $1.75, Villain snap calls, folds.

Flop: J 2 4r ($4.25)
Hero bets $2.50, Villain raises to $7.50, Hero ?

What do you do here if you have AQ / AK?

Barry

fold in both cases, but I might not cb 99.

cb AK is debatable, maybe c/c one street and re-eval the turn is better vs this player type

edit: Oh I see you were asking which is BETTER, out of minraise shove or call. I guess.....shove AK, call 99 is better out of those options.

He may be aware of all of those things, but that doesn't mean villain would raise you with air on this flop. Is he capable of doing that? I would think he'd be more likely to float you without a hand than he would be to raise you on a flop like this when he has position. The raise feels unnecessary to what I'd typically expect a decent reg to do. I would just fold, both AK/AQ and the 99, unless I've seen him raise air here vs floating it.

Any of your actions though (minraise, shove, call, fold, and even the initial cbet), are all so insanely villain dependent for this spot that it's almost impossible to create a generalization for it. About the only rule of thumb I would go by is to fold to unknowns if they raise my cbet. That's pretty much it.

OK - I appreciate that. Without a read, I'm folding this 100% of the time and may not c-bet it with a plan to c/c and re-evaluate. But let's say I have a read and I don't think I can fold 99 because I'm well ahead of his range. Do you call the RR and check the turn planning to call a shove? Or is it better to do something else?

Well, couple of things. This is an NL50 hand right? Villain is 'decent' but not topped off, which feels wierd for a reg. The problem is your hand is really vulnerable. If any single overcard peels off, you aren't going to be happy with the turn, and that's almost half the deck and now your decisions are going to be entirely based on villain reads. If you think that he's capable of raising air and then continuing with the bluff, then yes, you should probably call the raise and c/c his turn bet (or shove) whichever it might be, but also remember this is micros. People just don't make moves as often as we'd like to think because noone else at micros ever folds or wants to fold (this hand perfect case in point), especially when pots start getting larger.

That being said, I am a big believer in trusting reads, and if you think you are well ahead of his raising range with 99 on this board (which is completely reasonable), you should be bet/calling his raise on the flop and check/calling whatever he fires on the turn unless something changes your mind. I would really prefer to have prior evidence of villain being capable of this if possible though.

Nice post.

Let's say we knew it, I would say 3bet the flop instead since we're OOP. Puts him in a much more difficult spot and you're done with you guessing, now it's his turn. I know it ends the hand and you don't get value from a double barrel bluffs, but I I'm fine with that.

This is the sort of conversation I was hoping for, thanks a lot Teppec and JoeyJoJo.

I think the biggest problem with calling is that it gives him an opportunity to check back on the turn thereby leaving me with a guessing game against T - A. However I guess that given that if I think his range his wide that he only hits on of those four cards by then that c/c would be more profitable.

If villain is capable of making errors like raising with TT to JQ - JK to "defend" then I think a shove is better.

If we 3-bet, are we folding to a 4-bet ship from villain? If we 3-bet, how much are we making it to go considering villain only started the hand with 80ishbb? After villain raises he's got about 30 back with 14ish in the pot. I worry because any reasonable 3-bet is going to have us with close to half effective stacks in on the flop and villain may still ship on us. I guess we could CiB and fold to ships because of villain's slightly shallow stack though, but now I feel we're overrepping our hand in a huge way and bluffing with the, most likely, best hand given our reads.

Yes I guess I am (just wait before you all lose it on me). 17-19 sounded right.

I just thought based on description of villian it's very likely to work enough to be profitable. Villian floats pairs less than TT "because he likes to float". There's no draws. Board is sooooo dry except JX two and small PPs. So his raise is either a bluff, 2nd pair (often), trips or Jx. I think I'm saying yes, we are turning it into a bluff and I don't mind that. We are folding out everything we beat for sure but what can he shove with? I don't think this is by any means standard, and it's not something I do very often. I would only do it to people that are very capable of bluff raising me or raising me light (again see the vilian description here) and that i prefer it as opposed to flatting I think. I think this it helps our dynamic too.

This is why 99 etc sucks so hard OOP and most people setmine it. Standard line OOP here is to cbet and open fold to a raise and be exploited lots, or call the raise and then fold to the next bet wondering why you called the first one

This seems like a really ****ty "standard" line with a hand as (relatively) strong as 99.

Dude... it was a joke about how bad most people play 99, or how 99 is a bad hand to play oop.


Barry

This should help...in a way

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78...-check-875594/

99 is just fine though. Are you implying that 99 has absolutely no value on Jxx rainbow?

i see little difference in 99 or AQ. he's either bluffing or he's not so our action should be the same regardless.

you shouldn't be, it's ridiculous logic.

Seriously ... so you can't read between the lines and figure out why I think this, or why in one way it won't be profitable, because I think you know and its not ridiculous but its my preference. Or maybe you can but explaining why in a polite fashion is too much work?

Barry understands the game, but is looking to discuss stuff outside the box... or am I assuming again? Just want to keep the discussion going.

Well, the difference between AQ and 99 is we don't need to hit any cards to improve, we have more showdown value with99, and villain can be raising worse pairs than ours here some of the time that AQ isn't beating.

Joey, my issue with the idea of bluff 3-bet raising 99 in any sense is that if villain is raising us light or bluff raising us, then aren't we better served to bluff catch? And if we 3-bet and then get 4-bet, he could still be bluffing us but now we're folding since he's repping such a narrow range and none of it we beat.

I would much rather try to keep the pot smaller and his range wider and bluff catch him, especially if I have a read that he's full of ****. If he barrels away on blanks, and we call down, and he wasn't full of ****, well, now we have information and a note. But I'd still rather trust our read first instead of blowing him off of his bluffs and allowing him to play perfectly with any kind of flop 3-bet.

I would probably feel even more inclined to bluff catch if I think villain has any skill at handreading, since I think our hand is pretty face up as a single pair marginal showdown hand if we call the flop raise and then c/c the turn.