25-50.

i have around 5k and have been playing fairly tight.

villain is ~28 year old Greek-looking dude. he has maybe 3200. he has folded pf to one of my 3bets when he opens ep to 3bb at 25-25, i 2.7x 3 ip, he folds.

i open Q9cc HJ to 2.5 bb, he cp bb.

flop AKQ cc. he checks.

do you start by betting or checking?
how do you respond facing 2.7x flop x/r?

if you start by checking, do you bet or check the turn when a blnk peels and it checks to you?

thx.

bet the flop of course and call if he raises

yeah, this one is making me feel pretty dumb.

so, say he checks, you bet 175 into 275, he makes it 425, you call.

turn 7o. he bets 575, you... call again? and play str8 forwardly otr?

thx.

i know this one seems pretty novice. stylistically, i would cbet this 100% in cash games 100 deep and make decisions. in cash games i tend to cbet much less freq.

in tourneys where i want to cbet a ton post ante, i look for as many spots as i can early to check back. i feel like it could give me more credit later when the pots are more significant? that being said, certainly not arguing that this should be a check back (although i did in game).

basic theme of my posts seems to be, "i don't have the nuts, so i check." that's why i'm posting, i don't feel like i played these spots well.

Think it would be a big mistake not cbetting this flop - we have too much equity and have a lot of bluff outs along with making a flush...turn Id just call....the river gets interesting on J and T - on one hand I dont expect him to check JT as we have a lot of bluffcatchers but I also dont think we get to the river with many straights....Id bet regardless on the large side

This is pretty much the last flop you should be worrying about getting c/r'd on, and you have a big pile of equity to fall back on anyway.

not "worried" about getting x/r. clearly i'm not folding to a xr otf if i bet. was more thinking about the river plan. think i just got too ahead of myself and made a weak decision.

By "not worrying about being c/raised" he meant that it is a texture on which you will get c/raised by BB very rarely.

if i knew it would runout w bricks, i would prefer to start by checking.

if i knew he would fold all of his air to a cbet and would barrel that air a decent amount when i x back flop, i would prefer to start by checking.

if i knew he would b/c a lot of turns/rivers that improve my hand, i don't mind starting w/ a x.


i don't imagine i'm getting x/r a ton on this flop, i just thought that my actual hand played better v more parts of his range on more runouts by starting w/ a check.

I like to start by checking
Not any worse hands that will call u and many better hands will call (obv)
What hands are we trying to get value from w a bet
Like. You could do smth like bb shove or whatever cause you have way more nutted hands but I think that's meh?
Think if u start betting otf it's pretty meh to like cbet and just check down unimproved?
With so much sdv yea I think a check otf is gonna be std/good
Like if we had 87cc on this board I'd start betting and rly pressure his range on this board which is much better for u but here your gonna be able to win at showdown a good %
Seems kind of meh to just check down here ui but you can't rly value bet the flop and you don't rly need protection so I can't see a great reason to start betting other to win more $ when u do improve
Problem for me is like he's prty capped and shouldn't want to play a big pot here so like are u ever gonna get 3 streets? ( if he's competent)

There's really no hands v can check raise here (for value) other than like bottom set so you can play pretty well v his c/r range

dunno if i try to ever barrel random old guy off ax, not that many kx and most of them have gutters as well as kx so likely doesn't fold turn, way more combos of ax in his range too so you can't triple barrel to fold out those kx (talking about better hands to try semi-bluff off the hand potentially)
no value/equity edge push either

and if you hit you can always bomb/bet big as an exploit vs this player type
he can make bad stabs with no equity or random pocket pairs if you check back flop, you have his air destroyed (obv) and there's not really any hands to protect from since everything you are ahead of you have infinite equity vs.

that being said betting can't be bad cause of your hand..

vs. regs i like to vary my option

^basically

Most of what OMGClayDol said. Unless we have a very precise turn plan I think we should check the flop.

I like checking back, but also don't mind a bet on the flop either.

No this is like the easiest check back ever if villain has any clue, and probably still a check even if villain is clueless.

how so? I can think of a million reasons to bet here but none to check

My post has a few reasons to check

Betting accomplishes nothing and ****s our checking range.

hey sorry - totally missed your post....

I agree he has slightly more Ax then Kx and I wouldn't try to bluff bare Ax - not sure what he does OTT with KT/KJ but I'm sure he folds to a turn bet some significant %.....I think if we check he rarely stabs with air/underpairs....as far as equity edge what range are you assigning him? I'm not sure what a fair defending range is tbh(rusty on holdem math) but with a 20% range excluding a 4% 3b range we have I believe 59% eq(ran this earlier)......let me know maybe my ranges are off on that one

usually a LOT more ax than kx if he is a typical recreational player.
if he is loose he will usually have literally any ax, including offsuit (lots of combos) that he doesn't 3-bet, but not too often the weaker offsuit kx and actually if he is more on the 'solid' side might fold some suited weak kx

him stabbing with air/bluffs was something i said is rare and is a minute consideration in the hand but helps a little for the ev of checking

pushing an equity edge refers to the value we gain against his continuing range to our bet
(sometimes you can combine the term equity edge with playability edge but that is more pre-flop, such as raising JTs 'for value' against a tight, but weak player when he limps. you don't necessarily have 50% or more against his continuing range but your hand plays/flops so well that you can still considering this a value raise easily)
we are easily ahead of his actual range on the flop but that doesn't mean this is a value bet

*if you combine the 2nd point with the value bet stuff basically by betting we somewhat isolate ourselves against the part of his range that is either ahead of us or close to flipping, whereas by checking on the turn we have a lot more equity vs. his range. (this is often a reason to favour a check in other spots especially against aggressive villains where their bluffing frequency is very important to the ev of the hand)

good points.....him being in the BB is definitely going to weaken his range but still it looks like he has about 1/3 more Ax then Kx.....in regards to the equity edge argument I ran some numbers using a 20% calling range and a 3% 3b range.....a 20% range with a reasonable continuing range yields 101 hands vs a 20% range of 154 hands, thus hes continuing 2/3 of the time when we cbet....we have 47% vs his continuing range....we also have 76% vs the rest of that range that would fold to a cbet......you are right we aren't pushing an equity edge vs his continuing range but if hes rarely bluffing the turn we get to protect our hand(not that important but notable), fold 1 pr Kx OTT a significant % of the time, and make him make mistakes on the turn and river......I get by checking we keep in his whole range but if hes rarely bluffing(debatable) we allow his weak range to realize its equity and we also lose equity overall....either way seems like a very close spot

you think he has 24% equity with the hands that fold to c-bet? intuively seems really unlikely

by checking he also can make (big) mistakes on turn and/or river

Are you betting turn David if he would check twice?

I agree with sng24 he would rarely spazz with air ott if we check back flop and he would make his biggest mistakes by stationing runouts which good for us or by overplaying second best hands. Tbh I'm not sure how checking flop helps here.

He does those things anyway (overplay/station when we hit)
Some player types even more likely to pay more often if we check flop

I made clear him bluffing is a very small consideration and more like a bonus

but we dont know where we stand if we dont bet
i learned that u have to continuation bet
i would just bet 1/3 pot

x/c flop or barrel off. I am mostly indifferent.