Thanks for all the comments on this week’s What’s Your Play?
I consider the nut flush draw one of the most interesting hands in no-limit hold ’em. Not only is it almost always an excellent semi-bluffing hand, but under the right circumstances it can be quite good at bluff-catching as well, providing resilience on turn and river cards that are usually bad for the rest of your bluff-catching range. With so many options at your disposal, there’s a lot to think about and discuss when you flop the nut flush draw.
I’m about to spew a lot of words here, as is my wont. If you want a brief executive summary, look no further than Greg896’s comment on the Cardplayer blog:
I think we can look at this 2 ways….1) we either have the best hand and want to get more value out of V (Flush draw/Straight draw) by checking and letting him bluff or 2) bluff V off a one pair hand ( his most likely holding IMO)…… I think our best route is to check and reeval based on his sizing etc… If he bets 1/3-1/2 pot Id be more inclined to think he has a pair and try to bluff him, if he bets larger I like calling, as I feel Ace high will be good a decent amount of the time.
Flop
There were a lot of questions and comments about earlier streets, so I’m going to discuss those briefly before moving on to the river situation.
Like many of you, I read the middle position open limper for a wide and weak range. Even so, this flop was so low that I didn’t think it was likely to help him. The BB, on the other hand, could easily have flopped a pair. Limpers will usually stab at the pot when checked to, so check-calling or check-raising the flop would be good options. Looking at the hand now, I think checking planning to raise the limper would have been better since it would give me more information about my opponents’ holdings before I put money in the pot, enable me to win a larger pot when my bluff succeeded, and increases my odds of blowing BB off of a weak pair.
Betting makes sense only if I plan to barrel most turns. No one is folding a pair on the flop, so I need to either bet multiple streets (if I want a chance at beating their pairs) or check-call if I want to focus on beating bluffs.
Turn
It was indeed my plan to barrel, but the deuce wasn’t a good card for it. Just based on the open limp, Villain seemed more like the sort to fold a pair when overcards, no matter how unlikely to pair me, came than to give me credit for a monster because I took a strong line.
I checked intending to make a decision, which is what I ought to have done on the flop. This is an underrated option against weak players, because often their bet sizes reveal a lot about what they have. Especially with a versatile holding like the nut flush draw, you can check and then re-evaluate your options with the benefit of this additional information.
Villain’s bet gives us good odds to call. While there’s a small chance that we’re drawing dead to a full house or quads, there’s also a fair chance we have the best hand (though it won’t always get to showdown) and/or solid implied odds. In my opinion folding to a bet of this size is out of the question. Raising is an option, but I think it’s an unnecessary risk given that we beat a fair bit of what he’ll fold anyway.
Betting the River
I’m not a fan of this, as we beat most hands that fold. This line looks too much like a busted draw and makes it too easy for Villain simply to click call and see showdown for relatively little risk if he’s suspicious, which he probably will be. As Steven7 says, “IMO, your hand appears relatively faceup. In the villians shoes, I’d most definately call any reasonable bet on the river with any 9+ or maybe even 66 or 88. Its possible vil has a worse missed FD, QJs or something and your hand may get shown down with a check behind.”
Check-Folding the River
I was prepared to do this depending on the feel I got from Villain’s bet. Something that felt value-y would probably have made me fold. One point I want to emphasize with this hand is that you shouldn’t take this route automatically simply because your draw missed and you can only beat a bluff. If the odds are right and your Villain has enough bluffs in his range, then calling when you can only beat a bluff is perfectly fine and much better than folding.
Check-Raising the River
Several commenters make a strong case for this play, though I still believe you should remain flexible after checking until you see what your opponent does. As you’ll see, Villain ended up making a large bet which I read as polarizing: he was either bluffing, in which case my hand was almost certainly good, or he had a monster – in his eyes, anyway – that he wasn’t folding. In that case, there’s no sense in check-raising, but against a bet that you believe represents a thin value range, check-raising is well worth consideration.
Check-Calling the River
This is the route I ended up taking, because Villain made such a large bet that I believed his value range would have to be quite narrow. I didn’t know anything about his bluffing tendencies, but I did expect him to get to the river with a lot of air, which is the first step towards bluffing. It turns out I’d misjudged his open-limping range, so he had more value hands than I expected, but I still like my play given the information I had at the time.
Results
PokerStars – $2000+$100|700/1400 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com
BB: 98,335.00
UTG: 54,778.00
MP: 64,567.00
CO: 92,186.00
BTN: 139,809.00
Hero (SB): 115,612.00
BB posts ante 175.00, UTG posts ante 175.00, MP posts ante 175.00, CO posts ante 175.00, BTN posts ante 175.00, Hero posts ante 175.00, Hero posts SB 700.00, BB posts BB 1,400.00
Pre Flop: (pot: 3150.00) Hero has Ah 6h
fold, MP calls 1,400.00, fold, fold, Hero calls 700.00, BB checks
Flop: (5250.00, 3 players) 2h 3c 9h
Hero bets 3,333.00, fold, MP calls 3,333.00
Turn: (11916.00, 2 players) 2s
Hero checks, MP bets 4,800.00, Hero calls 4,800.00
River: (21516.00, 2 players) 7d
Hero checks, MP bets 14,459.00, Hero calls 14,459.00
MP shows Ac As (Two Pair, Aces and Twos) (Pre 88%, Flop 63%, Turn 80%)
Hero mucks Ah 6h (One Pair, Twos) (Pre 12%, Flop 37%, Turn 20%)
MP wins 50,434.00
Thanks to everyone who participated!
Wow, good thing you didn’t c/r because if he got to the river with AA in this way then he was never folding it!
Interesting discussion of the points in favour of checking flop/turn. I’m not saying you didn’t take the best line but there are a couple of points I’m not entirely convinced about:
(a) part of your reason for checking turn was expecting to get a read based on bet sizing. What interpretation did you give his turn bet sizing at the time? What would have been your prediction at the time for his sizing if he had air or a monster etc? You felt more inclined to call a biggish river bet than something that appeared more ‘value-y’ (i.e. smaller). This might be questionable justification for calling, given that the turn sizing could equally be interpreted as ‘value-y’, though it’s certainly not inconsistent to interpret the sizing differently on turn and river.
(b) you say that you expect him to get to the river with a lot of air. So you think he calls your flop bet with a lot of air (i.e. no pair hands). This makes me think he can have enough A-high hands that betting turn to get folds becomes better than bluff catching. It also makes me wonder what we should be trying to achieve with our sizing on the flop (perhaps we should lead smaller?)
IRT (b) the no-pair hands that we expect him to show up with OTR are mostly flush draws we beat, not necessarily better Ahi hands.
Sorry I think I wasn’t clear enough. Once he bets the turn I’m not expecting him to turn up with A hi hands on the river. The issue I was getting at was his range for calling the flop. I doubt he folds flop with better Ax.
As an aside I’m not sure the available combinations of flush draws constitute ‘a lot of air’, so I’d be interested to hear what else Andrew thinks is in his air range on the river.
Could you explain how calling being more inclined to call larger bets on the river with A high makes sense? Wanting to call larger bets for bluff cathing but folding to samller value looking bets just sounds crazy.
Why don’t you feel like that while villain’s value range is narrow he’s much less likely to make that size bet with his bluffing hands than his legit ones? Considering the read on villain is that he’s a weak player don’t we also need to consider that weak players tend to have a big leak by not bluffing the river enough?
Isn’t this hand really more an example of how bets on the late in the hand (especially the river) are much more likely to mean what the bet says it means rather than a bluff? Also with villain’s turn bet is not a bad size bet if he puts you a a flush draw. You don’t have the actual odds to call and he can fold if any heart hits the river while catching your bluffs if you miss. The rationale for calling the river seems perverse.
Sorry for the ranting questions there’s just a lot here I’m not following, but that’s why I suck at poker.