Absolute/UB Cereus No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (4 handed) - Absolute/UB Cereus Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

villain is: 18/12/3 over 500 hands. He almost never check-calls my Cbets and either folds or check-raises

Hero (Button) ($82.55)
SB ($31.16)
BB ($54.02)
UTG ($26.80)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 9, Q
1 fold, Hero bets $0.85, 1 fold, BB calls $0.60

Flop: ($1.80) 5, 7, Q (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.90, BB raises to $4.50, Hero calls $3.60

Turn: ($10.80) Q (2 players)
BB bets $10.80, Hero calls $10.80

River: ($32.40) 6 (2 players)
BB bets $32.40, Hero ?

Fold flop?
Fold turn?

Have you gotten him to showdown after he's c/r any of your cbets before? Does it usually mean he has the goods? Stats seem just too tight to think he'd take this line without a huge hand...though you have a pretty big hand too. I'm guessing your probably beat, but its a hard as hell hand to get away from. Very curious to hear how others would play it on each street.

Probably better set this is too crazy at .10-.25 to not be. I would have liked a slightly bigger flop bet like 1-1.25 because at that point for all we know we have the best hand and wanna value bet it. The really small bet showed some weakness in the hand so if he pots at us with a value bet we can have an easy fold because a "tight" player should be reraising with much better than top pair 9 kicker

oh and as played you call flop reraise because it was too small to scare the flush draws so you see if turn comes safe . In a bubble thr turn should be a neutral card but the pot bet looks horrible for us and a fold should have come there. What we could use to help get a better picture is how much he has check raised you and any showdowns of what he did with it. Also, if he took a semi long amount of time i woul;d be more scared than an insta-raise but either way it is looking bad for your hand on ever street and a bigger flop bet would have made this move a lot more clear, almost certian flop fold.

i know im getting long winded but i think you played the hand this way because the flop check reraise looked like a semibluff of the flush draw but at the low stakes it is i think generally best that unless you have a read from previous check raises or have simply seen many of them and a short amount of time without a showdown, take check raises ver seriously in the micro and low stakes

1/2 the pot is usually my standard cbet on naked boards. I don't change the bet size due to strength of the hand for the most part. It usually has to do with board texture.

I'd prob do what you did and fold river. That's disgusting though, but you beat 0 of his value betting range.

Most of the time you should probably bet more on that flop, but I didn't say anything about it in my first post because I assumed 1/2 potting it was your standard cbet for a board like that and since you confirmed it was then I don't see anything wrong with that. I keep my pfr's and cbet's pretty standard too especially short-handed.

I'd also like to know what villains WTSD and W$SD %'s were, out of curiosity.

I think a larger cbet is in order here because the board is not completely dry - with diamonds out there and two low gapped connectors. Since the caller was from the BB his range is a lot wider and will certainly include lower pairs, flush draws, and straight potential. I bet about 2/3 pot on this flop.

26 and 56 respectively

AA/KK? Depends on his 3-betting stats, but if he thinks Hero is stealing widely he may flat call to trap with AA/KK here. I would think he would bet smaller with a better Queen or a set/boat, no?

Flatting OOP with AA and KK is pretty LOL anyways, but they're greater than 200bbs deep. I couldn't think of a worse way to play AA and KK here and from the stats Temp posted it seems like villain is pretty competent. Especially with his WTSD and W$SD stats which are reasonable and very good this guy definitely has a clue how to play poker. His leaks are probably calling too much with any pp among other things. That's why his VPIP and PFR are soooo far away. Someone only playing 18% of hands should be damn near close to a 18/17 if they are playing right, but this guy has a big gap, which means he's flatting pps like all the time and probably lots of suited connectors.

Once temp gets c/r on the flop it's pretty much over for us and we just hope he doesn't go pot/pot cuz that's such a stupid scary line for our holding. He's literally never value betting worse, the only hands we beat are like 46dd, 68dd, AKdd, AJdd. We ebat those but it's pretty ballsy to play those the way he did, it's tough to just pot your ass off twice especially a huge pot bluff bet on river. Pot bets almost always equal the nuts in big pots. So those are hands he could have that are now bluffs, his value hands are 55, 77, QT, QJ, QK, QA. That's a tonnnn more combos, it's a lot easier to have AQ of any suit than it is to have AJdd. Plus I think the betting for those hands makes sense.

Thinking that villain would bet smaller with a made hand is flawed thinking. We'd need a read on that, only really bad players do that. This guy could rightly think that we have at least an overpair here and bomb out big bets at us because we have such a strong hand. Our hand looks very much like it could be KK, AA, Qx, or diamonds ourself. I know if I was villain with any of my value hands I'd pot here on the river. The reason is that Temp either has a missed draw and wouldn't call any ways, or he has a very strong hand and he's gonna have a hard time finding a fold if he has trips. I also think it's veryyyy optimistic that villain has KK or AA they don't pot river, that's literally turning their hand into a bluff. If I had AA or KK here I would probably not pot the turn and I def wouldn't pot the river.

If he plays an overpair this way, slow from the BB HU, I think you can put him in on the river.
If not, I think the flop might be a fold.


EDIT: Yah, from what everyone else says, I doubt he shows up with AA KK much here, so we fold.

If you've seen a semi-bluff raise or c/r from him before, then I'd call flop...if you think he never does it with a hand worse than yours on the flop, I fold.

If you call flop you have to call turn and river, imo. It looks too much like a spazz bluff from a missed river to lay it down.

I'm a station

I called and he showed A spade 3 spade

I so should have never called

I don't like my answer, BTW.

Yeah, he can never ever show up with AA/KK here if he seems at all competent. He's never fullpotting the turn when TP pairs and then betting like 125bbs on the river. He can basically only have a better queen, a set that turned into a boat, or a really really stupid bluff.

I don't think I could call the river.

Anyone advocating a flop check against this type of opponent?

There's too much value in betting here. If the board was a little bit drier I'd like checking back. He can just have too many combinations of hands that we're ahead of and that giving a free card to is horrible against. I know the read is c/r or fold and we don't really like either of those options but our hand needs to bet for value here.

I hear you, you are probably right.


it's a crappy spot though if he truly never smooth calls. The hand is very hard to play if he raises, and I guess we don't mind a fold but it's hardly the optimal situation for us.

then again, the hand can be hard to play if we check behind too.. I probably bet 95% of the time on that kind of board, but against this particular type of villain I may check behind just to control the pot size and make the hand a little easier to play.

Easy != maximizing profits.

I arguably made plenty of mistakes in this hand, but betting the flop is not one of them.

Betting the flop might not be a mistake.
Calling the raise usually is.

If villain never smooth calls our flop bet, can somebody outline a good argument for why we should be betting for value on the flop?


Not trying to be difficult, I'd just like to hear a thought process on it.

If we aren't value betting Qx here what are we going to bet? Air or a set? That kind of adjustment seems really really bad, and the adjustment really accomplishes what he wants to get out of us, which is passive play/obvious bluffs

It Polarizes our Cb'ing range a bit more to Bluffs or Big hands, but it balances our check behind range a lot too I think. It keeps our opponents guessing, and allows us to get thinner value on the turn and river, plus we make incorrect folds less, at the expense of giving free cards for weaker hands to catch up.

In general I check back a lot more flops against aggressive tricky opponents, when I hit, and when I miss, maybe it is a leak, I'm not sure. Against a straightforward or tight opponent, I am betting this flop 100% of the time, and in general cbetting a much higher percentage.


On the other hand, I play almost exclusively live poker these days, so I usually just stay out of the way of the good players anyway, since they are a relative rarity.