Bad play?

[TopperH]

Villain is a good, thinking reg. I think he's capable of thinking that it's unlikely that i've hit the flop, and therefore raise my cbet ip. The hand kinda puzzles me... He might have some lower flush draws in his range... But when he shoves it's a K most of the time. Should i fold this hand and when, or play it in another way?

I appreciate your input!


***** Hand History for Game 48534574357 *****
$600.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Sunday, January 04, 10:08:00 ET 2009
Table Asmara (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Seat 2: ABCNLHE ( $705.00 USD )
Seat 3: surrrrrr ( $1188.00 USD )
Seat 8: ADUBERT ( $961.75 USD )
Seat 9: HERO ( $594.00 USD )
HERO posts small blind [$3.00 USD].
ABCNLHE posts big blind [$6.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to HERO [ Ah 7h ]
surrrrrr folds
ADUBERT folds
HERO raises [$15.00 USD]
ABCNLHE calls [$12.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Kd, Kh, 9h ]
HERO bets [$27.00 USD]
ABCNLHE raises [$72.00 USD]
HERO raises [$180.00 USD]
ABCNLHE raises [$615.00 USD]
HERO calls [$369.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 7s ]
** Dealing River ** [ Js ]
ABCNLHE shows [Ks, Qh ]
HERO shows [Ah, 7h ]
ABCNLHE wins $1297.00 USD from main pot

HIT ME!

[klink-]

i think its fine, im not happy about getting it in, but i can't really see folding as an option, and calling leads to some bad spots on turn/river.

[Irishman07]

If you think your raise will induce villain to semibluff shove a lot then I think its fine, but in my opinion that would take a lot of history and villain would have to be quite aggro. I think the "standard" villain in this spot isn't usually that aggro with a low fdraw on a paired board. I would think his range for shoving the flop is something like K10o+, K9s+, QJhh, Q10hh, J10hh. Occasionally he might shove a naked flush draw, but he'll also have 99 here sometimes too so I think overall you've got about 27-30% equity when he shoves. Given your price you need 31% equity to call. Calling isn't a huge mistake here but it might be slightly -ev depending on how aggro villain is.

To be honest I think you can just flat call his flop raise. You're getting a good price and with an A high flush draw you have some showdown value. Often a villain will look at this flop and decide you are cbetting with a high bluff frequency so they will take one stab with a bluff raise then give up. Depending on how often you think opponent will double barrel bluff and how big his bet size is on turn there are arguments for c/c, c/raise and c/f. Basically if he bets really small on turn (maybe about 1/2 pot-ish) I'd consider c/c. Any bigger and you have to decide between c/raise and c/f. The nice thing about c/raise is that in this instance you get to put the last raise in which is ideal with a draw to maximize your fold equity. When you raised on the flop you had to call to put your final money in which you really would only like to be doing if you are ahead of his shoving range which here you clearly aren't.

So on the turn if you had flatted the flop the pot would be ~180 with eff. stacks 504. A typical bet size here by opponent would probably be around 120. Too big to make c/c viable so would c/raise be decent? You'd be risking 504 to win 300 so if you had 0% equity when called you'd need him to fold 63% of the time he bet to make it profitable. But against his calling range you still have some equity. Using the above "standard" villain range he's never folding a K or 99 and often times will take a free card with a flush draw/won't have odds to call your shove. For arguments sake lets just say he also bet/calls turn with QJs convincing himself he has odds to call your craise shove putting you on a lower fdraw (people hate folding good draws so often will convince themselves they have odds). So against this calling range you have ~18% equity. I think my math is correct, given this info you need him to fold to a turn c/raise 47.4% of the time for a c/raise to be profitable. I think intuitively you can tell he usally just won't be bet/folding turn enough in this instance for a c/raise bluff to be profitable, so although it may seem weak, I think in this hand its correct to fold the nfd to a largeish turn bet.

I don't really think its bad to be able to fold a good draw as long as its the best of the available options. As said before with A high you do have some sd value so often when he checks behind turn you are best and you can consider firing river as a bluff yourself because villain is almost never raising flop with Kx then checking turn and you can rep a big hand with a river bet (think about it - no one really raises flop with pocket 10's, checks turn for pot control then calls your river bet bluff).

Like I said before, if villain is the type to semibluff shove over your flop 3bet with a wider range then your play is fine. One other consideration - if villain love to float and never gives you credit he may just flat your flop 3bet (probably a rare occasion but it could happen). If thats the case and he folds to a decent clip on the turn your play would also be fine because you've inflated the pot and will be able to take down the considerable dead money on the turn. I don't have math for this case - but it will happen sometimes but like I said the opponent is probably pretty rare.

If you wanna check the math I did for the turn c/raise calc here it is:

1) x% of the time he folds you win 300 (180 in pot + his 120 bet)
2) (1-x%) * 18% you win 684 (180 in pot + his 504 eff stack)
3) (1-x%) * 78% you lose your 504 eff stack

set 1 + 2 = 3 and solve for break even

[TopperH]

Irishman... WHAT AN AWESOME ANSWER.

I completely agree. I couldn't spot what i thought was wrong with this hand, but your math explains it. We also have to consider, that if he indeed does have a king, he has a redraw to a boat, so my flush draw value is quite low, like 25%. So i think on this board, especially because it's paired, i should cbet, flat his small raise, and just give up on the turn if he continues.

Thanks...

[Meterocre]

I like the flat call on his re-raise to 72 because of shorter stack sizes.. Then, I would call a turn bet or check/check it. Finally, if you get there, a value bet is always in store which will most likely be his entire stack because of pot commitment.

On the other hand, I think you played it absolutely fine