I often have difficulty figuring out what I should be doing OOP when I flop a decent TP type hand on a fairly drawy board. Maybe I should not have even gotten in to this position in the first place by 3b preflop - but be that as it may, what are you generally thinking in this spot?

Here's an example hand, but I'd love to hear overall thoughts not just on this hand in particular but in the overall position of good-ish TP but OOP and a fairly drawy board texture. Also considering that I don't have an Ace.

This is Zoom NL2 on Ignition, so I know literally nothing about anyone.

Ignition - $0.05 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3

BTN: $8.20 (164 bb)
SB: $4.12 (82.4 bb)
Hero (BB): $5.00 (100 bb)
UTG: $5.20 (104 bb)
MP: $6.76 (135.2 bb)
CO: $3.89 (77.8 bb)

SB posts $0.02, Hero posts BB $0.05

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.07) Hero has K Q
UTG raises to $0.17, 3 folds, SB calls $0.15, Hero calls $0.12

Flop: ($0.51, 3 players) Q 9 J
SB checks, Hero ... ?

range check

For starters, don't post opponents hands, it's crap to read. And it's not relevant to the hand for evaluation.


3-betting KQs here is going to be good, if you opted to flat, now you simply check.

Leading here is dumb.

Sorry, my bad. First post and all. Edited.

Could you elaborate on that a bit for me? What makes it dumb?

Help me to understand what that actually means?

For example, I check everyone else checks - what do I now know that I didn't know before?

Another example, I check, one person bets say 3/4 pot - what do I know?

It's simply dumb, because you should have no leading range here after flatting an UTG raise.

As you get more comfortable with ranges/opponents, you can mix in some leads vs very specific weaklings on certain boards. But it's often not for value, it's a bluff. Even then, it's seemingly thin and not necessary.

So in this case, you don't have anything near what I'm describing. Check.

I think hero is wondering about what he does as a strategy throughout the hand depending on how it plays out. My thinking is you don't want to play a big pot with this. I agree with 100% check on flop and call unless he does something crazy like shove, but call a normal bet. Now if the turn comes out 10 of hearts im probably check folding. If its something like a 3 or 2 I'm check calling again and then check calling blank river depending on villains bet size and read. We have a hand that is just okay, not bad, not good, so we're basically just going to be checking and calling or check and folding as we evaluate since we're oop. I think that's the proper strategy anyway, please someone let me know if I'm wrong.

Thanks for this; you got my intent to discuss thinking in this general spot, not necessarily this very specific hand. Sounds like you approach here is to keep the pot small thinking we have a showdown-worthy hand unless 1) the board gets really bad, or 2) the opponents go nuts with huge bets

OK, so if I get your meaning here - in my own words what you're saying is I should not bet because betting does not tell any kind of a believable story. Is that fair?

Follow-up question to that. What about the idea that at this moment I very likely have the best hand? I'm sure this is a question that many others in this forum may be wondering as well. Should we not be trying to get people to make an incorrect call when we have the best hand, be that with a draw or a made hand?

You may have the best hand right now but the problem is you are out of position and your hand is very vulnerable. You don't want to be building up a pot with this because it's too easy to run into trouble. You can't really get 3 streets of value from this hand against a flop that is hitting your opponents range so well.

It's a few things. The first reason that we rarely lead into the PFR is that they will often c-bet air as is custom, so by leading we allow them to easily fold all that air rather than putting a bet in with some of it. A related reason is what this does to our checking range - when we lead with our good hands, we almost always have a weak hand when we check, so the PFR can bet all of his air with impunity and make a huge profit. Of course, we could also bet more bluffs to try to balance that out, but we also need to think about how our range plays against our opponents range on a given flop. Usually (not always) the PFR's range has more equity than ours because we would have 3bet with our big pairs and such, so it behooves us to tend toward playing more passively rather betting a wide range and bloating the pot OOP with an equity disadvantage. That's certainly a big factor in this hand: UTG has a strong range that smashes this board, he has all the sets as well as all the overpairs and all the AQ/KQ, whereas you never have QQ/JJ or any overpair, and you also 3b AQ (and maybe KQ) some portion of the time.

squeeeeeze

3bet pre, look up some 3betting ranges if you need to because I don't think this is close at all with 3bet >>>>>>>>>>> call.

Whilst you have TPGK most hands you would get lots of value from beat you because they are two pair, tonnes of draws and plenty of made hands that crush you. So if we look at the factors, OOP, showdown value, very wet board, little fold equity, not really any turn cards that make us love life, all leads to me wanting to check this flop.