Thanks for all the comments regarding the flop check-raise, and sorry again for the delay in getting this next post up.
This is another close decision. Holding the nuts, our goal is of course to get as much money into the pot as possible. Villain’s kind check-raise leaves us now with a stack-to-pot ratio (SPR) of about 2 (once we match his raise), which means we can easily get all-in by the river.
My default, when I have position on a dry board with such a low SPR, is to call with any hand I’m going to play: monsters, marginal hands, and bluffs alike. This reveals nothing about my hand except that it was too good to fold and forces Villain to act again before I decide whether to bluff, consider slowplaying, make a big laydown, or do whatever else I’m going to do.
This is a bit of an extraordinary case, though, because both of our ranges are so narrow, so I think it’s worth considering all his range and our options carefully before deciding definitively to do that. With that in mind, let’s think about each type of hand Villain could have and how best to play against it:
Bluffs
Many commenters seemed to think that Villain would shut down if called but might continue bluffing if Hero raises. Heffmike does an especially good job of illustrating how a raise might look to Villain:
you’re just playing position here, you can’t possibly have the nizzles in this spot, you’re just f-ing with me by 3betting pre, bet/raising a pretty dry flop, you’re smart enough to know how to manipulate a situation like this… etcetc.
Although it’s true that a 3-bet would represent an extremely polarized range, I still doubt it will ever induce a 4-bet bluff. Any bluff would have to be big, committing most if not all of his stack. Even with T9 his equity figures to be poor when called, since Hero will almost always have a set. He’s especially unlikely to take such a risk so early in a relatively juicy, well-structured tournament.
A 3-bet would indeed represent a very narrow value range, but Hero’s range is already on the narrow side. A set of Queens is not such a small part of my range considering the action so far, and while I agree with johndee that I probably wouldn’t play 88 this way pre-flop, I’m not sure Villain would assume that since many tournament players do.
This is in fact an OK spot to bluff precisely because, even if Villain realizes that, he simply can’t do much about it. That’s also an argument for not raising with the nuts.
As for dsho’s argument that, “Villain w[on’t] barrel into our perceived range of AQ/KQ/AA/KK”, I think his check-raise is bad if he never does. It’s just not that likely that Hero has missed the flop and will give up a bluff often enough to raise for that purpose alone. He ought to believe that he can at least occasionally try to represent a set with a smallish turn bet or else it doesn’t make sense for him to bluff raise in the first place.
As Andrew points out, it’s not so unreasonable that we might float here with a draw of our own. And Shawn is right that he may try to get Hero off of 99-JJ as well.
Monsters
Not to say that he would fold, but Villain should actually feel pretty sick holding bottom set here if Hero 3-bets. Overall, as others have said, it probably doesn’t matter much what we do when he has these hands. Gareth is right that “there aren’t that many action killers to come if we are in a set over set situation”, nor is he likely to get away if re-raised.
Marginal Hands
To be honest, I don’t know how likely Villain is to raise these. It drops off quickly as they get weaker. AA, looking to get value from KK or AQ, is a possibility (though a call is arguably still better). KK would be a lot more questionable, and Kelly is right that Villain deserves a gift receipt if he jams with AQ. I think 99-JJ are pretty much out of the question unless he’s turning them into bluffs, in which case they don’t belong in this category.
Johndee says that “those hands are most willing to get money in on flop due to their vulnerable nature”, which would be true on wetter boards and/or when ranges are wider. Here, AA/KK are more like way ahead/way behind hands. Three-betting signals that they may well way behind and could lead to their folding. Popskull puts it nicely: “both a small raise and a large raise look strong. A small raise, somewhat obviously, appears to invite a call which indicates strength. But we have to consider this: our stack sizes are nearly identical, so any attempts by us to commit him early invariably commit ourselves as well, which will likely appear stronger than we want. ”
Results
I don’t think it’s practical to try to stack Villain’s marginal hands. In all likelihood Hero can squeeze out just one more smallish bet from them.
This is why I still like calling: it gives us more information about what Villain wants to do. If he still wants to play a big pot on the turn, we’ll be glad to go along. If he acts timid, we can try to reassure him and reassess the best way to extract a bit more, which in a pot this large still amounts to quite a few BBs.
Turn Action
PokerStars – $2000+$100|30/60 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com
BB: 9,290.00
UTG: 9,903.00
UTG+1: 11,228.00
Hero (UTG+2): 10,517.00
MP: 7,131.00
MP+1: 11,411.00
CO: 14,790.00
BTN: 6,490.00
SB: 9,240.00
SB posts SB 30.00, BB posts BB 60.00
Pre Flop: (pot: 90.00) Hero has Qh Qs
UTG raises to 120.00, fold, Hero raises to 360.00, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, UTG calls 240.00
Flop: (810.00, 2 players) 8h Qc 7s
UTG checks, Hero bets 555.00, UTG raises to 1,560.00, Hero calls 1,005.00
Turn: (3930.00, 2 players) Ad
UTG checks, Hero ?
What now? Post your thoughts and comments, and I’ll be back on Friday (hopefully!) to provide my own insight and the actual action.
just sic turn…just don’t see how betting doesnt (most of the time) make you lose more money..check call pot size bet all rivers except K…FML 🙂
Interesting turn card. Let’s take a look at how I would interpret his action so far and then see what the best line is. I’ll follow Andrew’s write up so villain either has a monster, marginal hand or a bluff.
Monsters: I think it’s highly unlikely that he has 88/77. I just don’t see him checking with those when hero can very well have AQ and probably go broke. I think hero would call twice with AQ quite often, but if villain checks, hero might actually go for just one more street of value, after all, what worse hand will call two more streets that fits the action so far? Villain could maybe check AQ, but there are only 3 combos left. His reasoning for checking would be that hero is unlikely to have an A so he decides to give hero some room to bluff or go for one more bet on the river.
Marginal hands: A7/A8/87. Given preflop and flop action I’d say those are actually marginal hands. It’s tough for hero to have a 1 pair hand on the turn that’ll call two more bets, so villain might check these for the same reason that he checks AQ. He could also have something like ATs/AJs. He check-raised the flop on a bluff hoping to get you to fold some hands and also having some turn outs to a backdoor draw. He checks the turn because he won’t get two streets of value from worse hands, so again he wants to let hero bluff. In general, all his marginal hands are basically bluff catchers if hero bets the turn, but villain can maybe value bet them on the river if hero checks back on the turn.
Bluffs: It doesn’t matter what he bluffed with, he’ll not put anymore chips into the pot, unless he has an OESD, in which case he might c/c a smallish bet. However I’d be a bit surprised to see villain check an OESD on a pretty scary card. I’d expect him to bet once more and then either go all the way on the river or, what I think is more likely, give up when he misses.
For now I think hero can almost ignore the bluff category. That leaves villain with mostly marginal hands that won’t call 2 more bets. So the question now is whether hero wants to bet now or on the river. I prefer to bet now for a few reasons:
– I think a turn bet looks weaker than a river bet. This might sound weird, but I think if hero checks back and then bets on the river when checked to, hero will almost always have at least Ax. If villain has something like AT, he might actually fold to a river bet. By betting on the turn, hero keeps at least a few bluffs in his range. In other words, I think villain might fold the weakest of his bluff catchers on the river, but not on the turn. In other words, his bluff catchers are in better shape against a turn bet than against a river bet.
– If I’m wrong and villain actually has a monster, I preserve the possibility of stacking him on the river.
– I don’t see how checking gets more value.
I’d bet about 1500 on the turn, an amount that sets up a river shove. Against a mediocre player I’d prefer to check, because such a player would be more likely to make a crying call on the river. Very interested in what other people would do…
I check. The A on the turn means one of the three things to villain: a) it’s a scare card (if he has 77, 88, or 78) as he perceives AA as a large part of our range (this would also cover weirdly played hands by him like KK where he could be putting us on AQ); b) it’s a great card for his hand (if he has AA, AK, or AQ; if he has AK or AQ it’s not really a great card for him, but he might perceive it as such); c) it’s a good bluff card (if he has total air or a semi-bluff). I would expect him to bet much of the time if b) or c) is the case. His check indicates fear and weights his range heavily towards 77, 88, and 78 (although he would also check AA some of the time for balance). So I think if I bet now I am most likely getting a fold; even if I did get called or check-raised then I am probably behind about half the time that happens. Also, by checking I get to see what he does first on the river before acting.
This sounds exactly right to me.
Bet. He’s never bluffing the river having checked the turn. And in his eyes, you are never bluffing the river once you’ve check back the turn.
Why? (Not necessarily disagreeing, but curious to know your reasoning for those two claims.)
If you check back the turn, having called a raise on the flop, it looks like you are taking a bluff-catching line -with either a medium strength or strong hand. So I don’t think any of his pure bluffs are firing the river.
For the same reason I don’t think he can bluff catch river (- because your flop check-back range is plausibly quite strong on this board and given the action, and you could have bet your bluffs on the turn).
I think you are better off betting for value on the turn.
I should have said ‘bluff-catching or slow-playing line’.
Given what you wrote above I suspect you think villain is weighted towards some kind of draw/air hand or 77 or 88 (with KK ,AQ and AA less likely). You also say that by flatting the flop we can think about how to extract value if villain becomes timid – and a turn check is surely timid – so I guess you are going to lean towards checking back to bluff catch and extract thin value on the river.
But against this line of thought i would argue:
(a)if villain is happy to check raise 77 and 88 on the flop for value I think its unlikely that this card makes him so timid that he will fold the turn to a bet – only AA beats him that didn’t beat him before so that would be quite a change in attitude.
(b)he could be pot controlling somewhat with his strong hands, also knowing that he could induce a bet from some of your draws or floats on this card. – You say you would flat his flop raise with your entire range which you intend to continue with (including some draws) and he might believe that too.
(c) you say that you think it would be bad for villain to raise this flop as a bluff and never fire turn. If you think he’s competent and you stick with your read about how he would play his flop bluffs on the turn then there simply won’t be many bluffs to catch on the river. (of course you can change a read on an opponent given new information, but we don’t want to be saying simply ‘I think he bets some of his bluffs on the turn unless he doesn’t’)
I doubt he turned a set. I don’t think he would play AA preflop OOP like that, and I don’t think he would give you a free card if he did turn a set. Using the same logic I doubt he has a lower set.
His check tells me most likely his c/r was a pure bluff and he won’t be putting any more $ in anyways, or it was a semi-bluff and he wants a free card. I would be about 2500.
I had to resort to taking a shower having unsuccessfully mulled this hand at length (because I do my best thinking there! get your minds out of the gutter).
Let’s use AB’s favoured categories, Monsters, Showdown Hands, Air (draws).
Draws
I think with draws villain would be inclined to bet this turn. His one flop gutter turned a double gutter (JT) and his other open enders are still very clear. Moreover AB’s hand looks so much like KK when combining pre-flop and flop action with the combinatorics of the board, I would be surprised villain didn’t see this as an opportunity to bluff out 6 combos of KK with equity versus the other hands that call. Only JT picked up outs so it is not as if he could have backed into a real draw on the turn he hopes to see cheaply, though I suppose KJ/KT are exceptions to this, very remote. So once he doesn’t bet this turn I don’t think he can have too many draws since he has such a clear opportunity to fold KK which should make up such a large proportion of his perception of AB’s flop bet/call range.
What this means for us: We should see considerably less value in protecting our hand while we have the 2nd nuts now if we are unlikely to be giving a free card to a draw.
Monsters
I don’t really think that villain is going to have check-raised AQ on this flop and therefore can only have AA/77/88 as legitimate monsters. 78 has been relegated to a non monster. AA seems significantly less likely than 77 or 88. Why would 77/88 not bet though? It is not as if they can stack KK on the river or even get a bet from KK on the river should turn action be x/x. Thus they check because they are worried about value cutting themselves with bet/shove v a river calling range that is alarmingly high in AA combos as a % of the total. I don’t think we can count on villain slowing down with 77/88 all the time for that reason though so should expect him to bet the turn pretty often with his monsters, including AA.
Showdown hands
These are the most likely hand category to check the turn in my estimation. Unfortunately to balance that this is the least likely hand category for villain to have given his flop action. The hand that stands out is AK, as well as some A9s, ATs, AJs (backdoors yo) and the aforementioned 78s. We can probably get 1 bet at the most out of these hands and we have to bet ourselves to do it.
I actually have an entirely different problem with checking back the turn that really makes no reference to anything written above.
It is this: how many river cards can we value shove on should they come and villain lead the river for a substantial bet?
This is not a question of having the best hand, it is a question of calling range, and it seems to me that this is the strongest, least bluffy, of all possible lines. More than that we have the 2nd nuts at the moment, but the number of cards we have the 2nd nuts (or better) on the river are 9: {2x, 3x, Q}. I would still expect to profitably shove river over a lead on a 7 or an 8, which could be between 4 and 6 cards. So we can shove over a river bet on something like 14 cards. It is a real problem if we are checking back this card and most of the time our action rendered corporeal the fear of undersets folding to a river shove, not to mention us getting snapped reasonably often by some weird gutter that got there, or top set that doesn’t care that we aren’t bluffing.
As much as I don’t think him having draws makes a load of sense he may just not want to commit to firing a big turn bet in terms of BBs when this card may earn him a free look at the river. I think that’s fishy logic when KK is out there to be folded but we can’t rule it out. We can still stack 77/88 with bet/shove, get value from those draws, and get that one street from the check-raise bluffs that turned top pair. So bet 1777 to target that whole range. If he check-raises I would put the money in expecting to be at least 50% v his turn stacking range. I’m sure the real number might be a lot higher but I can’t see it being less and consequently, can’t see myself folding should he check-raise the turn.
Why do you say 7s and 8s are good cards to shove over a river bet after checking back turn? They seem to me among the worst, as they promote a few of Villain’s most likely candidates for calling and losing to hands that now beat us.
because we have a full house? 🙂
ah well I think stacking 78s and the 3 combos of 77 in the case of a river 8 or the 3 combos of 88 in the case of a river 7 will take precedence to losing to quads. We still do have the problem of him potentially bet/folding those 78 and underfull combos.
But in general this would only further my point that we won’t be able to just shove the river for value on the vast majority of river cards (if its true we can’t on a 7 or an 8), so why not bet now?
Maybe I am just constructing circles that seek to avoid just flatting a river bet in position with a set and that’s indeed what we should do after checking back the turn.
I think we need to check behind on the turn. Looking to get 3 streets doesn’t seem possible now unless we’re beat. It’ll be hard for Villain to continue with much less than AQ in this spot.
Even if he has AK he’s got to be worried about our 3b-pre and then our call of the check raise.
If we end up betting what does Villain call with? I’m guessing all his JJ-99, 66 fold. All his possible draws and 1p hands would have to consider folding with the line we’ve taken since he might still be facing a big River bet. (KQ, 109, 98, 56, 67) Even KK might fold now as the A puts out another set of hands he no longer beats.
I like a check on the turn planning to call almost any River. Unless he over shoves the River then the donkey I am would tank call and lose to AA. 🙂
Um, how about a small bet of slightly more than 1/3 pot?
This sometimes induces a jam from hands like T9s (and JTs if villain gets to the turn like this) that *could* otherwise be giving up now.
Hands like Axs that turned top pair *could* be convinced to call one bet, due to its size. For example, A9s could have called a 3-bet pre-flop deep and check-raised a dry flop with a lot of turns they could barrel.
I think villain could well check hands like 77/88 hoping for a bet from AQ or, if we check back, having a bet called on the river. In the case of AQ, he *could* be checking because he perceives he can eke out more value from our betting range than he would from our calling range.
We look very strong here and there are good reasons that others have outlined that the above scenarios may not play out (hence the asterisks around the word could several times). But, given the sizing, our bet reps as wide as we probably can in this spot. Moreover, if we check, we are usually losing ev from all of the hands above.
Oh and I don’t really feel too worried about AA, which others have put the arguments for. That is, there are three combos left, some he would have 4-bet pre-, some he would have called flop with.
After reading you, I think that your call is hiding more our hand than a reraise and that I can think why I was wrong about betting on the flop : I was giving away too much information.
I tried not to think about it for some days to rest a bit from this problem. Instead of a long post, while we already talked long enough about both our hand ranges this comment is less “technical” :
We’ve shown strength preflop and less strength on the flop by calling. Our opponent has made the opposite, calling preflop, raising on the flop. In terms of game flow, he was supposed to bet on the turn to take the pot right away after our “weakness”.
His check on the turn either means weakness (game-flow wise) or what he thinks is trapping (even though AA is really less likely). I’m quite helpful, right ?
Since he didn’t bet where he was supposed to, he is either scared by the Ace or the Ace is giving him the strength he was hoping for with a lesser hand and he’s inducing a bet from us.
I can’t see any clear path but I do know what I want : more money from Villain. If I check back the turn I’m not sure I can have any more money by the river since all the information would be available.
Since I see his range weighted towards genuine hands, I don’t see any reason not to add some money to the pot right now!
And, actually with the second nuts we are not supposed to bet for not scaring away any player. So let’s take the unusual path : the underbet !
We bet between two thirds to half of the pot. It can look as a scared bet, it can look as a strong hand also for sure, but since his range is more weighted towards genuine hands we have a better chance of being at least called then committing him to any bet on the river. If he is scared on the turn, perhaps our bet will make him fold, but anyway can he add any more money on the river if he is scared to bet here already ?
That’s it, it was short, wasn’t it ?
One of the few (actually many) cards we really didn’t want to see … but we are still only behind one hand right now. Hey, no flush draw to deal with either, bonus!! Checking behind certainly is a safe thing to do as our opponent might be smart enough to check-raise or even check-shove this card and put us to the test even without AA. Quite the play if he has it in his book, but he has to know we are ‘good’ enough to fold even lower sets … big risk when he still has quite a few chips behind.
I don’t like giving any potenital draw, which at this point certainly is one heck of a stubborn line, a free card and I don’t see a check-raise/shove from him even if he has AA since only a straight can beat him now as any board pairing card helps him except for quads and we don’t really ever consider quads … do we?? He may lose us with a check-raise (and we have already called one of those in this hand) so with him being OOP I think all of his range is willing to check down or check-call the Turn with stacks this deep. If he is drawing, he wants the free card … If he is now ahead, he wants us to put the amount of chips into the pot WE are comfortable with at this point. Wtih both players being somewhat stubborn in this hand, he is showing OOP pot control.
Betting 1600 at a minimum leaves us with 7000 behind which is a pot sized bet for the River or over 100BB left if we do decide to fold to a shove on either street. This would be a tough hand to lay down, but it is time to let him know that we don’t want any free cards out there, which should narrow our range and he should know we aren’t bluffing by now with our line in this hand. This bet could be as high as 2500, but 1600 doesn’t price him into any open enders (1600 into 5600) and we could show a little pot control here as well. It basically matches his raise from the Flop also which people seem to like calling for some reason.
Still tons of cards out there that we don’t like on the River, but at least we get to react to his play after we see the last card.
Let’s not forget this is very early in a fairly high buy in event.
Nobody should be stacking off here lightly.
His CR flop followed by check turn is likely an over pair, set/2P or air.
AA is trapping, although it should be betting to get value from sets and A or KK.
KK is afraid of the A or sets and is in pot control mode.
AQ made top 2P, but may be afraid of sets.
Even 88 and 77 (or 87) may be afraid of bigger sets and 2P hands.
Anything else was a CR bluff on the dry flop, and all shut down now anyway.
We have the second nuts and need to bet to get value from all the hands above.
I would bet small here (1/3 to 1/2 pot) to get worse hands to call.
I am not afraid of any draws at this point.
If I get CR again, I have to decide if it is with AA or a lower set/2P, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it. I think AA is fairly unlikley as it failed to 4B pre flop, then took the CR line on the flop. Possible, but unlikley.
I would not fault anybody that wanted to check and see the river action if they thought a river bet was more likely to get called than a turn bet (deleveraged bet). This controls the pot and avoids going broke if he does have AA, while still getting decent value from those hands that are second best (and don’t want to stack off so early without the nuts).