A fun hand: huge draw OOP vs. LAG, deep (1 Viewer)

[Ben]

Not many strategy posts lately it looks like - let's give one a try.

Home $1/$2 NL game, smallish, no straddles by house rule, most buyins are $100 although larger buyins are allowed. Bets of over $50 usually only get action from very strong hands, although those in the know sometimes make exceptions in Hero's case. Villain is an infrequent recreational player, only played with him once before and it was awhile ago. Remember him as loose, sticky, but not too remarkable. Hero is a regular but has not played in this game in almost two months due to scheduling conflict.

We're a few hours in and villain has been playing loosely, as I remembered, but more aggressively than I remembered. Lots of preflop raises, at least one light 3-bet, and has been taking a number of stabs at pots (but giving up and not firing again if they don't work.) Villain has been getting smashed by the deck and ran up a huge stack very quickly, but Hero took a nice bite out of it about an orbit ago when he picked off Villain with a very weak holding when he fired a huge river bluff with a missed draw. Since then Villain has made it clear that he is looking to get "his" chips back (all in good fun, of course. )

Hero starts this hand with $500, Villain covers. 8-handed. UTG limps. Hero (UTG+1) looks down at and makes it $12 to go. 2 folds and Villain on BTN makes it $35. UTG limp-calls the $35 3-bet with around $150 behind (this is some cause for concern, but I won't go into too much detail on UTG because he winds up not mattering, but lets just say generally speaking he's another player you want to be in hands with if possible.) Hero calls the $35 as well. Maybe questionable, but this isn't the main focus - I'm fine with the preflop call in this scenario. $108 in the pot headed to the flop.

Flop comes . UTG checks, Hero checks, Villain bets $50. UTG folds.

Action?

 

[Rhodeman77]

Raise!!!!!

I'm probably going to $150-$175 and snap calling any shove.

We want all the one pair hands getting the money in now before the board gets even more scary and they can get away from their hand.

 

[trever]

Raise to 150, and plan to shove on the turn

 

[Kain8]

 

[detroitdad]

Raise!!!!!

I'm probably going to $150-$175 and snap calling any shove.

We want all the one pair hands getting the money in now before the board gets even more scary and they can get away from their hand.

Raise to 150, and plan to shove on the turn

View attachment 125355

I'm also in the raise camp. I agree with @Rhodeman77 about the amount. I usually go towards the higher end of the raise. I'm probably looking at making it $170ish.

 

[krafticus]

Me, I probably flat the flop and essentially open jam the turn. Hoping that the board pairs knowing that he might have an over pair.

 

[Ellasdaddy]

Agree with Rhodeman at $150 FTW.

 

[Ben]

Raise!!!!!

I'm probably going to $150-$175 and snap calling any shove.

We want all the one pair hands getting the money in now before the board gets even more scary and they can get away from their hand.

Raise to 150, and plan to shove on the turn

View attachment 125355

I'm also in the raise camp. I agree with @Rhodeman77 about the amount. I usually go towards the higher end of the raise. I'm probably looking at making it $170ish.

Agree with Rhodeman at $150 FTW.

OK fine, you guys win. Whatever.

Hero raises to $150.

(I should note here that part of the reason I did that was that Villain had made a couple of comments throughout the game about how cheap he is away from the poker table, seemingly sincerely. I was hoping that maybe by threatening his whole stack now I might be able to get him access that part of his brain and possibly find a fold with an overpair. )

Here's where things get interesting. Villain tanks for a couple of minutes, worrying aloud whether Hero has JT.

Hero: "it's always a possibility..."
Villain: "I don't know if I can fold. I can beat the board, you know."
Hero: "What does that even mean on this board?"

Villain then SHOWS Hero two black kings. Hero considers showing Villain the , but decides against. After a few more seconds, Villain makes the call.

$408 in the pot heading to the turn, $315 behind. Turn card is the , pairing the board.

Action???

 

[SixSpeedFury]

Open-ended, gutter and flush draw with a straight-flush redraw?

 

[detroitdad]

Open-ended, gutter and flush draw with a straight-flush redraw?

View attachment 125365

ditto

 

[FDLmold]

Not sure villain is folding to a shove. Being clairvoyant is helpful here. The outs are what, eight clubs, three sixes, and three jacks? If there is any chance villain folds, it's an easy shove. If there is no chance he folds, then our outs match the pot odds and we are simply playing with variance at that point.

 

[Jimulacrum]

I'm late to the party, but $150 on the flop seems fine.

Shove the turn all day.

Knowing VIllain's hand (WTF Villain?!), we can expect him to shove, and you have to call if he bets, because you're getting (315 + 408) : 315 = 2.3:1 and you're only a 2.14:1 dog.

This makes shoving a no-brainer because you're getting 2.3:1 when he calls, and fold equity is gravy.

The only thing that might dissuade me from shoving is if Villain will never fold to a shove and will often make a stupid-small bet on the turn. Drawing cheaply and only playing for stacks when you hit is better than playing for stacks every time. But I don't think this Villain fits that bill.

 

[Rhodeman77]

At this point he is never folding. Might as well check to see if he gives the free card. If you hit on the turn jam and hope he will call off.

Unless you want to embrace the variance and shove!!!!

But if he bets we call off for sure.

 

[trever]

 

[kmccormick100]

Shove. Your perceived range is even stronger having seen his kings, so there is some fold value (even 5-10% makes you favorite) If you’re worried about variance run it 2 or 3 Times.

 

[Ben]

What do you think Hero did??? Of course I shoved (took a while to think about it though - maybe that didn't help me.) It's still a $300+ bet on a nightmare board for KK - I thought there was still some chance of getting a fold. It occurs to me belatedly that Villain REALLY ought to check back if I check, given that he has shown his hand. No idea if he would or not, my gut says not...

Villain snap-calls without even a moment's consideration (so much for fold equity...) The river, as Andrew Neeme would say, is "pretty favorable." :

The hits the board, giving Hero a straight flush, a $1,000 pot, and a much-needed bankroll boost for DCS next month. As well as a night of derision from everyone else at the table for "insanely" shoving into a guy who has shown KK. Better to be lucky than good I guess.

 

[FDLmold]

You hit the best of your 14 outs. Made you look "lucky" to the table. That's a good image to have.

 

[jja412]

Lol at derision for aggressive push with 14 outs. I think I'm all in on the turn 99 times out of 100 there.

 

[Kain8]

There are just some players that can't fold an overpair. Even if you held a gun to their head and you tell them that the trigger gets pulled if they call, AND you also show them a hand that beats their precious preflop holding, they'll still call.

 

[onerand]

4bet pre is a solid option against this guy, although this time no good. Flop is fine, but a bet and 3 bet jam are nice. I would check the turn as this guy is never folding after showing you kings on a good card for him.

 

[DrStrange]

Late to the game in this thread. . . .

One prospect on the flop unexplored (best I saw anyway ) is an overbet jam. This is a reasonable proposition for Hero. Maybe villain and the third party folds and Hero collects $105+. Maybe Hero gets called by an inferior draw. There are hands that Hero doesn't want to see - a better flush draw or a set or a made straight. However, Hero is likely going to get to the same all-in situation vs the made hands anyway.

As for the decision(s) after villain exposes his hand; Hero needs to fall back on his villain reads.
Can this guy fold facing a jam? I can imagine the burn should Hero shove, villain fold the overpair and then Hero shows the bluff. So can villain, avoiding the "shame" of folding to a bluff might be much more valuable to villain than $500.
Will this guy check or weakly stab at the pot if checked to? If this is the case, then let's take the free/cheap card.

Note that Hero can't make a significant mistake here. Worst case, Hero gets his money in the pot at a fair price.

 

[upNdown]

A bit of a tangent, but this hand aside, what do people think about raising with Q10 out of position? I was thinking about this hand the other day, for no reason, and I came to the conclusion that it's pretty shitty. I suppose if it's sooted, some folks will want to play it every time in hopes of a royal, and if I can see a flop cheaply, I suppose why not.
But unless you're flopping the joint, it seems like a hand that will get you in trouble, more often than not.

 

[DrStrange]

It depends on the nature of the table and the depth of play.

If Hero is short stacked, there is far less reason / justification to raising speculative hands in general. The only time I would be raising speculative hands from poor position with a shorter stack is if the table is passive and weak. Ideally, the table calls preflop and the folds post flop to aggression. In that case, Hero can raise any two cards planning on stealing the pot post flop.

Is the table "tough" enough to demand Hero merge his powerful hands with speculative hands else give up too much information? It might be better to fold most speculative hands in such conditions, but Hero needs to have some chance of an off-color hand mixed in his range.

Is the table "weak" enough for Hero to profitably play any two cards from bad position?

As a general rule, hero is likely spewing when he raises QTs or similar hands from bad position, but the deeper the stacks the better for Hero's off color raise. Note in this hand that Hero gets into a low SPR mess with a hand which plays better in good position and with a high SPR situation. Making matters worse, Hero is whipsawed between a short stacked Tagish villain (SPR something like one) and the LAGtard with an SPR of five. Hero can not count on flopping a massive combo draw after dropping 7% of his stack in the pot preflop.

For what it is worth, I give Hero failing marks for his preflop play. The Poker Gods saved Hero's bacon with a lucky flop and even then Hero ends up putting most of his money in the pot at a fair price. While this isn't a disaster, Hero is giving a weak player a shot at his whole stack and gaining almost no expected value. We win money at poker by exploiting the weaker players (and exploiting mistakes by our peers ) Hero set up a situation where he can't do this very effectively. Yes Hero ended up with all the money at the end, but it was essentially all luck / no skill.

It is better to be lucky than be good -=- DrStrange

 

[Ben]

Is the table "tough" enough to demand Hero merge his powerful hands with speculative hands else give up too much information?

The short answer is "yes, definitely." Villain and his presence (and stack size) at this game is an outlier - most any profit you make here will be by finding profitable spots to steal. I've tried to type out a longer answer, but can't seem to do so without writing a book.

I don't necessarily agree with describing QTs as "speculative" or "off-color" at an 8-handed table though - out of 8 hands, this hand will often be the most playable by far. It might not be the "best" (someone is bound to have A7o or pocket 5s or whatever - hands that will hopefully be forced out by a raise, or a flop bet on most flops) but I would say that open-folding QTs in most 8-handed situations is a mistake. 10-handed it becomes much closer, as well as in games full of people who never fold anything (such as the Dr.'s) Also if you are someone who normally applies a very conservative (read: nitty) strategy, there are better hands to select on the rare occasions when you "open it up." But for an average player with an average preflop range on an average table, you should not be open-folding a hand with as much value as QTs (conversely, QTo is fold in most situations.)

However, you should be folding to a 3-bet in almost every situation (i.e. except when deep-stacked against a specific type of villain. )

 

[upNdown]

The short answer is "yes, definitely." Villain and his presence (and stack size) at this game is an outlier - most any profit you make here will be by finding profitable spots to steal. I've tried to type out a longer answer, but can't seem to do so without writing a book.

I don't necessarily agree with describing QTs as "speculative" or "off-color" at an 8-handed table though - out of 8 hands, this hand will often be the most playable by far. It might not be the "best" (someone is bound to have A7o or pocket 5s or whatever - hands that will hopefully be forced out by a raise, or a flop bet on most flops) but I would say that open-folding QTs in most 8-handed situations is a mistake. 10-handed it becomes much closer, as well as in games full of people who never fold anything (such as the Dr.'s) Also if you are someone who normally applies a very conservative (read: nitty) strategy, there are better hands to select on the rare occasions when you "open it up." But for an average player with an average preflop range on an average table, you should not be open-folding a hand with as much value as QTs (conversely, QTo is fold in most situations.)

However, you should be folding to a 3-bet in almost every situation (i.e. except when deep-stacked against a specific type of villain. )

I don't think I'd argue with any of that. And I should add that I was thinking about Q10 utg or utg+1 in a tournament context, which is wholly different. In shorter handed cash tables anything goes, to a certain extent.

 

[v1pe]

Fold pre, and definitely fold to a 3bet, although the sizing is pretty small and with UTG limp-call you probably have the odds to just flat since you are last to act. So I don't actually hate calling the 3b pre.

As played Flop and Turn I think you played it well. Very interesting that Villain shows his hand AND calls the shove. You have so many hands that beat him and/or have great equity; and in most cases (like you said) your perceived strength should be even higher since you know his hand and he doesn't know yours.

Home games are fun

 

[Ben]

I don't think I'd argue with any of that. And I should add that I was thinking about Q10 utg or utg+1 in a tournament context, which is wholly different. In shorter handed cash tables anything goes, to a certain extent.

Oh yes; outside of the first level or two (i.e. 100+ bb deep), QT should be an auto-muck from early or even mid-position in any tournament (suited or not.)

 

[Jeff]

What's the consensus of the strategists here...what do you think of villain showing the kings?

 

[Kain8]

Villain is trying to get Hero to check the turn by showing his hand. When Hero instead decides to shove, he's foiling the Villain's "master plan." Villain's ego gets in the way + can't fold them purty cowboys away = Calling off due to stubbornness / pride.

 

[BGinGA]

What's the consensus of the strategists here...what do you think of villain showing the kings?

He's an idiot.

If he thinks he has the best hand, he wants more $$ in the pot, and showing the best hand isn't likely to accomplish that.

And if he thinks his hand is losing, why intentionally remove any doubt in your opponent's mind that his hand is best?

It's a lose-lose proposition.