$1/2 NL: Flopped set on soaking wet board (1 Viewer)

[jbutler]

I had been at the table for approximately 4 hours and had about $1k. The only two other big stacks were on my immediate right: a young guy with about $700 and an older guy, the relevant villain in the below hand, with about $600.

The older guy had been playing relatively tight. I had 3-bet him maybe half a dozen times preflop and he had folded all but once when he called and check-folded a high-low-low flop. I hadn't seen him make any notable mistakes, but most hands weren't going to showdown. One notable hand: he was in position on a short stack who bet-bet-bet until finally he was all-in on the river and the older guy called him down all the way with AK high and was good. Another hand that ended preflop: he raised to $24 over a straddle and two limps and a guy showed 99 and folded complaining that he wanted to see the flop and the old guy said, "I didn't want you to see a flop."

The hand: villain makes it $14 in UTG+1, other big stack folds, I call with , folds to short stack who goes all in for $28 total, folds back to villain who flats $28 and I flat as well.

Flop: ($85):

Villain bets $15. My play?

 

[courage]

It's a wet board but on the low end and less likely to hit villain's range. It'd be much trickier if :Qs: :Kh:. So I'm raising here to about $50.

 

[bergs]

I'd raise to $75 (easy 3 green chip slide). It's a little less than pot sized bet. No problem getting it in here if raised.

If he calls, pot is roughly $225. His effective stack will be around $500. If turn isn't a diamond or a 4 or a 6 I'm betting $200. If he bets at all on the turn and it's not a diamond, 4, or 6, jam.

If turn is a diamond, I'd slow down pretty dramatically. If it's a 4 or 6 I'd consider bet/folding depending on how hard he played back at you (I think 44 or 66 may be in his range but mostly hearts here).

For whatever reason, it doesn't feel like a 99 or TT or JJ hand though most villains would have that in a 1/2 hand played this way.

 

[guinness]

Sounds like your image is perceived as a moderate aggressor to the villain? I think the right play is to bump in the $50-$75 range, although personally I might get tricky with a call if he's 88+/hh and allow a free peel. I'm afraid he's pot controlling with his $15 and he might high tail it out of there with a healthy bump. You won't learn anything about his hand with a flat, but do you care? Most importantly, you stay concealed and perceived as draw hungry.

 

[jbutler]

Agreed we're targeting an overpair or possibly AKhh/AQhh so I understand flatting to keep those hands around. I thought a raise was the better play because stacks are so deep and I think it would look a bit more suspicious to flat then raise the turn. Plus raising the flop increases bet sizes on later streets exponentially so I wanted to bloat the pot early.

I didn't want to drive him out, though, so I raised to $65 and he thinks for maybe 5 seconds and raises to $215.

So it's $150 to me and he has about $360ish behind and I cover.

 

[Mr Tree]

I think I flat here and hope it looks reluctant to potentially disguise my hand here. If he has an overpair hopefully he makes you for a lower overpair. If not hopefully he hits the ace in the next card. If you shove here he has to seriously think about the set if he has a brain in his head.

 

[onerand]

You have pretty much the nuts and are in position. Calling and planning to get it in on any turn is solid with under a psb left. Shoving now is also attractive - but will this guy be able to drop a big pair? Most people stack big NFD here and AA/KK with a heart. 4 or 6 could freeze opponent on turn by bare fact of four-straight on board, even though the cards are unlikely to improve you on this board and with this action.

I think I flat here and would click it back if oop. He may be sticky with this hand because you have been slapping him around with the 3-bets.

 

[Ben]

I'm raising flop 100% and snap-shipping over his 3-bet. Don't want some silly turn card to kill action, and with that much money already invested people find plenty of reasons to call with 2 cards to come - less so on the turn.

 

[DrStrange]

$84 in the pot, villain is betting into a dry side pot.

Villain made a stiff raise UTG+1 but didn't isolate preflop when it the opportunity presented itself

Villain bets $15 into an $84 pot (dry side pot though)

Effective stacks are $550 - SPR is 6+

So what is Hero to make of these conflicting data points?

Villain was read as a competent TAG. Let's range villain: Big out of position raise AJs+, AQo+, 99+, KQs. Failed to four-bet isolate, so lets drop AA / KK and fade AK / QQ. Makes a micro flop bet, hardly worthy of the effort. Lets drop the pocket pairs and fade the flush draws (which are few enough already) I range villain as good aces without a draw or in rare cases villain has something really unexpected and the micro bet is intended to provoke Hero.

There might be some temptation to slow play, but I lean towards a modest raise. Once Hero catches up, the pot is $114. I am not giving villain a crazy cheap card in case he has something like 76 so I'd raise to $75.

Now Hero gets raised. There are too many unexpected "big" hands for hero to ever fold here. (meaning villain played AA tricky preflop or made a micro bet with the nut flush draw.) The bad news camp is villain played 55/77 and Hero is going to get stacked, but that is now unavoidable.

Hero needs to shove now - the turn has a host of unwelcome cards that A) could kill the action or B) give villain a chance to bet and hero have to decide about calling when he is drawing 4-1 if villain really has the flush.

So, in short - - - make a medium sized raise on the flop then jam after the three bet. Reload if needed.

DrStrange

 

[jbutler]

Whether to raise or flat is the decision I wanted to focus on in the hand. I definitely tend to side with Ben in considering the detrimental impact of an action-killing turn.

However, my question is whether we really think he's likely to to stack off with an overpair. We've seen from his call down with AK high (in which he called like $75ish on the river) that he's capable of playing off his opponent's range and not merely his own hand strength. And he didn't take much time to 3-bet. Is he just putting me on a combo draw (or just a dry flush draw) and therefore willing to get aces in here?

Further, how often do we believe he would flat the short stack's jam pre with aces or kings?

I take it for granted that he's going to stack off with AKhh/AQhh after his reraise. I also entirely exclude 46 from his range and think he has 55 or 77 rarely.

 

[Mr Tree]

Whether to raise or flat is the decision I wanted to focus on in the hand. I definitely tend to side with Ben in considering the detrimental impact of an action-killing turn.

However, my question is whether we really think he's likely to to stack off with an overpair. We've seen from his call down with AK high (in which he called like $75ish on the river) that he's capable of playing off his opponent's range and not merely his own hand strength. And he didn't take much time to 3-bet. Is he just putting me on a combo draw (or just a dry flush draw) and therefore willing to get aces in here?

Further, how often do we believe he would flat the short stack's jam pre with aces or kings?

I take it for granted that he's going to stack off with AKhh/AQhh after his reraise. I also entirely exclude 46 from his range and think he has 55 or 77 rarely.

I think most of our range on villain is actually fairly weak here. Coming over the top is going to lose him fairly often IMO where flatting may get the turn bet to attempt to shove you out. (It's very likely he makes YOU for the flush draw.) if it misses he may shove. I think shoving here may end the betting fairly often.

 

[DrStrange]

We know villain is deviating from Hero's reads to some extent (or perhaps we don' t have enough table time to have seen this before). We also don't know if villain has much experience playing deep. Villain's line is filled with contradictions - OOP raise preflop no isolation followed by a micro bet / raise which is a lot like a check raise to me. This isn't an ABC line. The "good" news is Hero has bottom set with an SPR too low to fold, so the confusing line by villain isn't going to present as much trouble for hero.

Let's ask ourselves how Hero would play the Ax flush draw here? Would Hero jam now? I think yes.

Let's ask what Hero does if he flats the flop - ~$500 in the pot, $360 effective. Now the heart comes on the turn and villain jams. Is hero folding? Hero's full house draw is inadequate to justify a call - He needs to find villain bluffing something like a third of the time (and villain might have flushing redraws even if he is bluffing) This is not as a happy situation. Villain is going to get to play more perfectly than Hero - check folding without a flush or draw, sometimes check folding with a semibluff hand and always jamming a flush.

I don't want to be in this situation. let's make villain decide rather than the alternative. Hero's jam range includes draws and over pairs in addition sets. Put the money in now.

DrStrange

 

[bergs]

Jam all day. If set over set lol. Not much else we can do. Folding is horrible.

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

Whether to raise or flat is the decision I wanted to focus on in the hand. I definitely tend to side with Ben in considering the detrimental impact of an action-killing turn.

However, my question is whether we really think he's likely to to stack off with an overpair. We've seen from his call down with AK high (in which he called like $75ish on the river) that he's capable of playing off his opponent's range and not merely his own hand strength. And he didn't take much time to 3-bet. Is he just putting me on a combo draw (or just a dry flush draw) and therefore willing to get aces in here?

Further, how often do we believe he would flat the short stack's jam pre with aces or kings?

I take it for granted that he's going to stack off with AKhh/AQhh after his reraise. I also entirely exclude 46 from his range and think he has 55 or 77 rarely.

if that's how you are ranging him, may as well jam. His three-bet pretty much pot committed him there. I wouldn't be surprised if he did wind up flopping a set, though. That small lead out, followed by a big three-bet over a fairly large raise usually means a monster.

 

[Ben]

What I was trying to say is that regardless of what he has and regardless of how likely he is to stack off with it, calling and letting a turn come off is unlikely to help our cause in any event. Even if he only has, say, 99 he's still more likely to call the rest off on the flop than on the turn.

 

[jbutler]

Jam all day. If set over set lol. Not much else we can do. Folding is horrible.

Yeah I'm never folding. Just trying to figure out how to target the right range.

if that's how you are ranging him, may as well jam. His three-bet pretty much pot committed him there. I wouldn't be surprised if he did wind up flopping a set, though. That small lead out, followed by a big three-bet over a fairly large raise usually means a monster.

I don't see enough people lead out with their big hands to automatically assume that's the case here, though if someone will, this is the board for it.

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

I'm not saying I still wouldn't jam. I just think the possibility of him having you beat is better than you seem to think, although you were there, and I wasnt, so know the table dynamics. Anyway, what happened? I've been on the seat of my pants all morning.

 

[courage]

I'm not saying I still wouldn't jam. I just think the possibility of him having you beat is better than you seem to think, although you were there, and I wasnt, so know the table dynamics. Anyway, what happened? I've been on the seat of my pants all morning.

I sort of agree with this, and should have read the OP more carefully. Villain raises utg+1 then flats the short stack shove pf which weights his range more to small pairs. If he had AQ+ or TT+, I expect him to squeeze and isolate. Then the flop action is heavy with villain oop and deep but 4betting. Even with AA or other overpair, most players would just call the hero 3bet. I'm sure hero's radar was active, but horrible spot! Agree straights are unlikely in villain's range. Not sure I could find the fold button but hope you spiked quads. [emoji4]

 

[jbutler]

I'm not saying I still wouldn't jam. I just think the possibility of him having you beat is better than you seem to think, although you were there, and I wasnt, so know the table dynamics. Anyway, what happened? I've been on the seat of my pants all morning.

I agree and I did think the possibility of being beat in this spot was real, but I came to the conclusion that I was going to try to get the money in, so trying to figure out how to do that versus an overpair was my real question.

I ended up shipping and he called with (I didn't suck out) so the point was moot in this instance. In the post-mortem, however, I was wondering if there was anything I could have done differently in the hand and it occurred to me that an overpair might be only rarely calling off there. And further, since he didn't 4-bet preflop, he will rarely have aces or kings, conditional probability would dictate that when my jam gets called, it's usually by a hand that beats me.

 

[jbutler]

Worst part was the guy actually thought for like 10 seconds and said "I guess I have to call." When I politely expressed my displeasure at getting slow-rolled he said "I thought you had the NFD and I didn't know if I wanted to gamble." Blech.

 

[AlPresidente]

$75-100 bet seems good to me. Don't think we want to make it less than that as it's clearly correct for him to draw to a flush if we do. If we're 3-bet, I like a call; 4-betting gives him a chance to escape from an overpair.

 

[AlPresidente]

So we got raised...let's revisit. If we call, the pot's $515 & villain has $360ish behind. My first thought was to call to keep big pairs in, but they aren't a huge part of his range. We can't fold, and lots of turn cards either beat us or kill our action & it's hard to tell which. Ship it I guess because what else can you do? Feels like 45hh, 56hh, 89hh and we're getting called and racing a lot.

 

[bergs]

I agree and I did think the possibility of being beat in this spot was real, but I came to the conclusion that I was going to try to get the money in, so trying to figure out how to do that versus an overpair was my real question.

I ended up shipping and he snap called with (I didn't suck out) so the point was moot in this instance. In the post-mortem, however, I was wondering if there was anything I could have done differently in the hand and it occurred to me that an overpair might be only rarely calling off there. And further, since he didn't 4-bet preflop, he will rarely have aces or kings, conditional probability would dictate that when my jam gets called, it's usually by a hand that beats me.

I don't think your jam usually gets called by hands that beat you - essentially being only 46, 55, and 77. A lot of 1/2 players will flat a 3-bet preflop with KK or AA, and the majority of 2/5 players do the same with QQ or JJ - and they'd absolutely get it in some percentage of the time there. Also, A-high and K-high flush draws will call some percentage of the time.

What percentage of the time do you think you can fold or slow down there and not go "blech" when he shows 57 or 53 or JJ through AA or flush draws?

 

[AlPresidente]

Gapped connectors! 55 & 77 seemed unlikely but that's right out of left field.

 

[onerand]

A sick cooler. Nothing you can do.

 

[courage]

So gross. Villain gets lucky with flopped nuts and straight flush redraw but slow rolls. NHGGFU

 

[jbutler]

and of course he insta-racked up and left. he wasn't an asshole, just clueless, but it was gross nevertheless.

 

[links_slayer]

and of course he insta-racked up and left. he wasn't an asshole, just clueless, but it was gross nevertheless.

srsly?

 

[Trihonda]

and of course he insta-racked up and left...

^^^ this above all, would send me tiltly...

 

[BGinGA]

Maybe it's just me, but I've never been tilted when somebody wins a big pot and leaves, regardless if his cash-out included my former money or not. It's now his, to do with what he wishes. However, I don't expect any crap when I decide to leave, either. I do always respect cash-out advanced-notice rules/etiquette, and expect others to do the same. But tilt? Nope.