Live 2/4 NL
villain is a noticeably tricky-older-asian guy.
He's good, I've played with him before.
His weakness is he likes to gamble. He's not particularly aggro, but he always c-bets.
One other hand I played with him, I reraised big pf with 9s. flop 578, I push he calls with KsJs with one spade on the board. Can't imagine what he was thinking.

I've got ~500 and he's got ~900

Hero -- 6 6 UTG+1

fold, I make it 12, call, 2 folds, call, fold call(Villain in SB), fold

(~$50) flop: 6 4 Q

SB leads 10, I raise 30, fold fold call.

HU (~$110) turn: 9

SB checks. I check.

River: K

SB bets 60. I fold.


Comments?

I think most of the time in this situation you NEED to be betting the turn becuase you'll have no idea where you're at otherwise. You can always check behind on the river, but if you bet the turn and he check raises, then calc your odds, and fold if the odds are bad and you think he has a flush.

I am almost always betting this turn here because I NEED to know if he has the flush yet.

All of that being said, I think you gotta fold on the river. You're getting 3-1 or so on your money and you beat only a bluff, and even if he's bluffing, he still might have a heart under there which he thinks is no good.

Especially if he's shown that he's willing to put his chips in the pot when drawing thin, I think that you should probably fold. I don't think you'll win often enough to make it profitable.

Bet the turn to get more information. If the 4th hear doesn't fall, you're obviously calling.

Good input.

One thing I'm wondering is since
1. I might be inclined to put a made flush on the turn in his range of holdings (given the weak lead on the flop), and
2. if a non-board pairing, non-heart falls on the river I want a cheap showdown

checking behind keeps the pot small and does not put me in the compromising position of having to call two bets with a hand that's wa/wb.

while i'll gain more information by betting the turn, is it enough to conclusively fold to a raise? i'm not convinced. is this one of those situations sklansky talks about where getting more information worse in terms of EV?

Betting/checking the turn is meh. He'll fold a lot more hands to the flushed board than he will a non-flushed board, so we may check behind him and then see if we can pick off a river bluff, although you said he's not terribly aggressive. I think $25 would've been a good lay-it-out-there bet, and you have a tough decision if you get raised big.

If you bet the turn, what hands can he realistically check raise you with? After all, YOU could have the flush and now he's check raising?

Seems like he has a hand to me.

After checking the turn, you almost have to fold to the river bet because you really don't beat anything except a bluff with no hearts. You haven't put much in and should just let it go.

you really think he can put me on a flush?



Obviously I'm not folding on any river. You mean after checking the turn (ie pot is small) AND a fourth heart comes, I have to fold the river. Which is true.

The hand plays easily with the check behind on the turn.
I don't mean to defend the play, I'm trying to ask--how do you calculate that it's better EV to bet/fold here?

I liked how you played it except you raised WAY to little on the flop. I agree that if you think he might have flush, a check is good on turn to keep the small pot and draw to your FH for free. If oyu fill up, you can likely move in on the river and get paid agianst a flush.

BUT, what is this raising by to $30 when a proper pot sized raise would be $80? OTherwise, I think you played it pretty well. If you think he is really tricky you might even occasionally call the river, but *very* occasionaly, like almost never.

WRONG!

Do not bet the turn here. If you cannot withstand a raise then you do not want to be betting. Take the free card like you did and if the heart doesn't come then you can consider a call. Good laydown.

i agree w/donkslayer - betting the turn here is "meh" against this opponent.

it's quite possible the villain does have the flush here on the turn - he weak leads and calls a bet that's less than pot-sized. smells like he bought a draw. i don't think you worry as much here about giving a free card to a naked heart draw as well - only naked heart draw i can see that you would worry about here against a good opponent is one that comes with a Q, and it seems like he would lead for more than 1/5 the pot on the flop if he had one.

we only "need" to bet the turn here if
1. we don't know where we are in the hand, or
2. for value because the opponent's a donk that will hang around there with a Q and no redraw, or
3. to protect our hand from a naked heart draw

2 and 3 don't seem likely, and based on our knowledge of our opponent, i think we have a decent idea of where we are in the hand. no, we're not as sure as we would be if we bet and got raised, but i encourage people to think about how much extra information they're getting vs. how much extra they are paying for it. to me, the marginal utility of the extra info you get here appears to be less than it's marginal cost.

and yeah, raise that flop more.

He has no idea where he's at.

His flop riase is fine. Unless his opponent actually has the heart draw, he's probably drawing dead.




If I was in position, I'd raise with a heart draw and if my opponent called the raise, then I'd know that he has to have something, now wouldn't I? That would lead me to bet the turn for value with my flush.

I think it's very likely that you can have a made flush. You're repping a big hand or a big draw. Now that the draw gets there, what can he really play back at you with?

Sorry it was a b&m game so the HH isn't all that clear. We're 2nd to act out of 4 on the flop. Not a position I would typically raise with a flush draw.

You wrote it out pretty well.

I still sometimes raise here becuase it puts lots of pressure on people behind me and shows more strength to the intial bettor. Still, it's a matter of personal opinion.

Whether you would or not really isn't the question though, is it?



K, weak lead from villain, calling a raise callable with a draw. What other hand does he have here other than a flush draw?
A Queen? No, he either checks or leads for more than 1/5 the pot against a multiway field with a board showing a heart draw and a gutshot str8 draw (35 for OESD is possible, but not nearly as likely). The villain is good and somewhat tricky - he's not an idiot.

I suppose he could be donking right into us with a set or 2 pair - but if you think that it's possible for him to think that we can semibluff this board on a heart draw, then he should be reraising us on the flop.

You think he could be in there with something else? Then keep reading...

Regarding the flop raise - here's why it should be larger:


Let him - but make him pay more for it because he will.

Lastly, saying that he has no idea where he's at and saying that the flop raise is fine aren't really consistent positions. If you think he doesn't know where he's at, it would be because the flop raise isn't large enough to narrow his hand range. As a gambling man, villain probably still calls a pot raise with a heart draw, but isn't going to be hanging around with anything less than TPGK, which we can eliminate because he would've played it stronger.


Now, if villain had check-called the flop, then i would say that hero absolutely needs to bet the turn.

havent read replies,

was this a no max buyin? and what was the standard preflop raise like?

My Opinion, i dont always raise low PP out of position, sometimes to mix it up i will, but you were lucky this time.

good raise on the flop.

bet the turn. bet it big enough . I'd say 80 or so.

checking the turn is horrible.

P.S. any of you people who claim betting the turn is bad, did any of you even consider taking into account the villain? dont you think villain is likely to play this way with a Q of hearts?

TP, smooth calls the flop raise, its cheap for him so why not. turn brings a heart, all the sudden he changes gears and checks. rihgt now he's got TP and if its the Q of hearts, he has a flush draw. Villain didnt turn the flush, and thats a fact.

thanks

he is an idiot, he calls a push with 2 overs and 2 cards to come. something you might do for cheap, or as a short stack, but doesnt make sense. even he puts player on a bluff of some sort, he stil had nothing either.

and yes., playing this way with a Q in his hand is almost as stupid as a 10 dollar lead out bet into a 50 pot with a flush draw would be.
Hes probably putting you on a pair of 9's10's jack's. etc. maybe AK, AX etc..
your raise was pretty weak so he is waiting to see what you do on the turn.

Why can't he have top pair here? Just becuase YOU know to make pot sized bets, doesn't mean that other people do as well. Maybe he thought 10$ was a good bet. He could certainly have a Q here. By your logic, the ONLY POSSIBLE HAND that he can play this way is a flush draw.

If he's willing to gamble, how does a larger flop raise help us? If he's gonna call with his draw or made hand regardless, then raising more just means the pot is bigger. His raise was good, he needs to bet the turn.

He is an idiot. The OP stated that earlier. His range is huge, but the flop raise helps narrow it.

When I said we have no idea where he's at, it's because we checked the turn. We don't know if he called the flop raise with a straight draw, top pair, a flush draw or what he caleld with. We know he had something, that's about it. By betting the turn after the 3rd heart falls, you get to find out more about his hand. By checking, you have gathered no more information with which to interpret his river bet.

k, a lot of this depends on whether or not we think the villain's an idiot. i'm going by what the OP said at the top:



i'm assuming the OP views the KJ call as some kind of brain fart and that the guy is typically good. OP is welcome to step in at any time and clarify things.

if the villain's not a moron, i really think we can discount a Q here, unless maybe it's Qx of hearts. but in either case, the chances of him having the flush on the turn compared to TP is pretty close to guaranteed.


Based on your posts, I think you're more than good enough to know why, but I think you're not saying simply for the sake of argument. But for everyone else, it helps us b/c
1. If he's drawing, he pays way more for it and we also cut down his implied odds.
2. If he's got a made hand and we assume he is a good player that just happened to have f'ed up one hand, he's not leading so weakly with TP - he is only leading like that with a draw or set/2 pair, the latter of which is likely to reraise us. No, I don't 100% discount other possibilities than a draw, but it is far likelier than anything else. Yes the pot is bigger - but that is good because almost all of the made hands that he calls with are way behind us.



i already explained why anything other than a draw isn't likely here. could it be a str8 draw? i think 35 is doubtful (again assuming villain's not an idiot). maybe he called w/a gutter - which is again why we should be blasting the flop.

look, if the villain's really an idiot, then i agree, we bet the turn - but it has less to do with "finding out where we are" - we bet the turn for value b/c the idiot will call us with a lot less than a flush.

same thing regardless of villain's intelligence if he had check-called the flop - there is not much evidence that narrows his hand range for us in that case. the difference here is that his flop action gives us more information to act on. if you'd like to discount it, then i begin to wonder just how much betting information you need from the guy before you start making decision.

Lets lay out the facts.

Its 2/4 max @ 2/4 is usually 400. But, it could be more and it could be No max.

hero claims that he won a pushed pot off villain. meaning he doubled up somewhere, wether it was @ 200 or higher, we dont know. Hero could look like an amateur at this table.

Now villain. sitting with 900 after doubling up our hero at some point.
My guess now is either Hero mistakes villain for a good player because of the chips he wins by taking risks.
Or they are playing a No max buy in, in which case old asian guy has money to spend, and when players have money to spend, they call preflop with Q,x off

Has anyone said this small raise is bad?

There is $60 in the pot, and you only raise $30? Horrible play with flush draw out, make him pay, don't offer him good odds to call when he isn't going to fold to your small bet. I make it at least $60 to go (Raise of 60, not raise to $60).