Okay, frist time posting in the strat forum. PLaying 2-5 NL live, i straddled with 1500 in front of me, and a fairly agressive loose image. Middle position player goes to 25, get 4 callers) I look down at KK and make it 125, original raiser is the only caller, with 900 left after the raise. He has been playing fairly solid, havent seen im make any huge moves, but also, havent seen his cards in many pots, but he got a lot of chips when he coolered a guy with nut flush over second nut flush.

Flop comes 10 2 3, 2 hearts, i bet out 225, he raises to 600.

What now????????

shove

I also shove.... I would have raised it to more than 125 preflop also.

how certain are you he hold QQ or JJ?

i mean, at 2-5. 1800 dollar pot for a pair of kings is monster.

if this guy was drunk and loose, ok. do it.

I think i like to checking to villain to see what he does.

its too difficult now since he raised to 600. could be a set. could be Jacks - aces.

edit. I think with kings or aces he raises more preflop @ 2-5

when i played 2-5, standard raise was 25-30. so aces or kings could be even closer to 40-50

i dont find that much of a cooler, just some dumbasss who invested lots of chips with K high flush.

SO you are syaing htat i should raise to 125 preflop with kings, hit a ten high flop, and then CHECK?? i dont know about that. I dont see how i cant lead this board. i dont think checking is any sort of option, after the large reraise preflop.

its HU right? so play it like its HU.

If u arent a good HU player, you wont understand where i'm trying to come from.

You are supposed to study everyone at your table, and note the good the bad and the horrible.

Now when ur HU with a guy you say is solid. u gotta think, is he capable of a C-bet after i raised preflop? Does he lead when strong? or does he slow play?
what notes do you have?

if you check, does he fire out with a set? does he play back at aggression? what about a check/raise?

is he a loose enough player to raise to 600 with JJ or QQ? or chop with KK?

so thats where your preflop your knowledge, and now your postflop come into play.

My guess is AA or KK re-raises your aggression preflop. I know i would. if i think you're loose enough to make this same move with jacks.

if i hold 10's or jacks here i might play for set value. and assuming we put you on AA,KK or QQ if we hit, we have great implied odds to double up off you.

Only other thing is, if we do have Jacks, and we missed the flop but its 10 high, are our jacks good?

so you C-bet the pot. maybe u have AK? i raise to 600. ur stuck with a huge choice now.?? is that basically what u thought that he migt think?

which is why i like checking, to see what his line is.

For my own sake, i'm gonna imagine that you pushed, he called and he had AK hearts.

which is pretty friggin lame if thats the case, because No decent player plays in such a way.

i can almost tell by the way you worded this post that its probably the case

lol i 3bet/checkflop with this hand like never


i woulda made it like 150 preflop. and bet like 300 after flop. checking here is just bad

LOL there was no 3 bet. like OMG it was a live straddle

Ok. so you've narrowed him down to like JJ and QQ like totally right? cuz like. betting 300 and pushing out AK is like the best play, and getting raised from 10,10 and AA and then having to shove is like the best play also?

cuz like. its totally easy to tell that this guy has JJ or QQ, like OMG so obvious right? lets lead out, make him raise and then we shove, cuz you know, check raising a guy with JJ or QQ here wouldnt be effective at all. Even though, supposedly, you know you're ahead so why bother playing like we know.


In all seriousness though,

The guy straddled at 2-5NL, so its 10 right away dark. nothing out of the norm.

MP raises to 25 a weak weak bet at 2-5.

so when he just calls the 125 raise, its pretty obv to put him on low PP or some kind of suited conncting, Ax suited type garbage.

I see it everyday, my guess is he caught a set . but I can only imagine that this is a bad beat flush chase post

I am a fairly good HU player. Checking after you 3 bet preflop KK p-flop on a 1023 board with a possible flush draw seems pretty bad though. There is 350 in the pot with original raiser having 900 behind. We're playing a big pot for stacks now and we put a lot of money in preflop which means less play postflop. A 1023 board with a flush draw means we are most likely ahead but there is no reason to check a huge 3 bet pot. If he checks and a scare card hits (Ace, flush card, maybe a J or Q since JJ and QQ are defintley in his range) we could either lose action because of it or lose the pot by allowing him to catch up if the card hits his hand.

If he is loose/tricky/agressive I might check to induce a bluff but only with the intention of check-raising. If he is a normal TAG then only hands I see him beating us with here is 1010. Most players won't raise 22 or 33 so I'm not as concerned with them. I think this is much more likely JJ-QQ or even a middle PP. Maybe he is putting you on a squeeze play. You might even see a retarded hand like A10 or air. A flush draw is also very possible. Bottom line is you are ahead much more often then not in this situation.

For those who advocate checking, why? If he pot bets it we have less info then we do now. Is he potting it because we checked? Does he have a hand? Would he pot it with a monster or slowplay? Check/Folding=Horrible and checking with the intention to call or raise is bad simply because we don't have a read of him being aggressive or anything to lead us to believe he would fire a pot hard after we 3 bet and then check. Maybe with some extra reads I would check but not here. I think you're ahead of his range here by A LOT. Push.

given the preflop action I cannot see any othermove than shoving, he pot commited himself and I can't see a fold here with an overpair and this flop.
I'm also voting for cbet since a check-check flop action could lead to a catastrophe like allowing him to catch up for free or folding the best hand later on

QUOTE (Royal_Tour @ Friday, May 11th, 2007, 12:26 AM)

do you know what a 3bet is? straddle was 10, dude raised to $25, hero 3-bet to $125.

Also, the only hand we should be reasonably scared of is TT. Villain won't normally play AA like this. 22 and 33 are pretty low to raise/call for >%10 of stacks. If you're seriously saying that checking KK on a T23 with two hearts board is better than betting, im going to be very surprised. Hero's image is a bit loosey goosey. i don't know why you're saying a bet would automatically force villain to fold QQ and JJ and stay in only with AA/TT.

AQh and AKh and other flush draws are more likely holdings than TT. Also, an ace on the turn would be awful. Checking accomplishes nothing. What are you going to do if he checks behind? assume we're ahead? assume we're beat? Are you going to bet most turns? what about a 3rd heart? what about an ace turn? what about a ten? or queen or jack?

imo you're asking a lot of villain. youre assuming he only raises our flop bet when were behind, always folds to our bet when we're ahead, always bets the flop when checked to when we're ahead, and doesn't bet the flop when we're behind. because if you check to him and he bets, are you just calling? no, you're raising. and at that point you're not gonna get away from it anymore.

you're more likely to make a mistake by checking and allowing villain to catch up than by just betting your hand. you're almost never going to get away from this cheaply if youre behind. worse hands (QQ/JJ/hands with 2 hearts/the occasional top pair) will put money in after the flop if you bet. checking isnt going to magically gain tons of value out of them.

edit: lavitz post is good

You don't think getting stacked with K9c to A2c on a QcTc5c6dJh board is a cooler?

I would raise more preflop. There's 6 x 25 = 150 in the pot after your call, so a pot-sized raise is to 175.

As played, I think it's clear that your opponent is calling the last of his money. So the question here is, are your kings still good here a third of the time?

350 in preflop + our 225 + his 900 = 1475
1475 : (900 - 225) = 2.2 : 1



We're a coin flip to a pretty narrow range. If we fold here, it's because we don't think our opponent raises with hands that aren't sets. Given our reputation, I don't think that's very likely.

It would be nice to know that he didn't have 22 or 33. If we make it 200 preflop, I'd feel pretty confident about pushing this flop.

OK, well i agreed with everyone but royal, cause i still say checking here is just not an option, and a bad play. I shoved, he goes "you got 10 10 you win" and showws me 33, oh well. I just had a feeling like he was bigger preflop to not have a set here, guess i was wrong.

The important thing here is your image. As a LAG, straddling and raising, the villain is going to put you on a huge range and respond accordingly. This makes his range a lot wider than TT+ AKh (against which you are still a favourite)

Preflop: Raise more. You have a loose image and are therefore expected to try to steal out of the straddle. We can rule out villain as holding AA given that he has 4 players behind, your re-raise is small enough that him calling will drag others in and you've labelled him as solid.

On the flop, checking this co-ordinated board would be the most donktastic move possible. From a LAG it screams strength and a solid player will take his infinite implied odds and check behind.

Once he raises the flop, hands that beat you are TT, 33, 22. Hands that will make this raise against your image that you are beating are 44-99 (granted a lot less likely on the smaller pairs), JJ-QQ, AT, JT, 9T or any 2 hearts and some real long shots like 45 or A4, A5. ie Your equity against his range is massive and you are getting better than 3-1 to call. Your not folding. With 300 behind the rest of the villains money is going in almost always which does effectively reduce your pot odds, probably to about 9/4 but it's still +EV.

Shovel time





Preflop: Middle position raises to 25 (2-bet), Hero reraises to 125 (3-bet).

Get in your time machine, go back to preflop and make it $250 to go.

But now that you're here, go ahead and shove.

Let's figure this whole hand from the villains perspective at the point when he faces your raise. Assume that he always gets all-in with the hero if he hits a set or better and always folds if he doesn't.

11.8% of the time he hits and wins 81.8% of those pots.

The total pot is 250 + 900 x 2 = 2050.
His equity in this pot is 2050 x 0.818 = 1677.
He traded 1,000 for this equity, so his EV is +677.

88.3% of the time he misses and folds.
His EV in this case is -100.

(0.118)($677) + (0.882)(-$100) = -$8.66

So the villain is making a very small mistake by calling. I think we should encourage him to make a big mistake by raising more.

As everyone said, I'd be raising more preflop. On the flop, I'd be pushing but I wouldn't really be worrying about 22 or 33 since they seem kind of small for him to show up with. Apparently I am wrong though, but that happens.

That's a good point. Hero is going to get a ton of action from medium pairs and AQ+.

Even disregarding the straddle aspect, this is an excellent (and apparent) chance to squeeze since we are last to act and a whole herd of people just called the raise. Smart opponents should be suspicious that the hero is raising light here.

so Royal is correct, but no one agrees with him.

Super systems works wonders, until your realize that a lot of people play poker their own way.

its up to you to find out who is who.

like i said. small raise to 25 and then smooth call should tell you right away he is playing for set value or suited connnectors.

and Folks.

where i come from, our live NL games are capped after the 3rd raise. so its raise, re-raise re-raise again and its capped. a live straddle is not considered a bet since the straddle will be last to act.

Check lets you see what kind of bet villain shoves out there. 10,10, 3,3, 2,2 obv wants action. A,X might make a bet to see what you hold, and wil fold to a strong raise.
JJ,QQ would probably also do a similar type play.
He's already a tight player, he will believe you. I dont like the idea of investing a pot size bet here this deep after that preflop action.
only good news is he had air and folds. which he does to a check raise also, or if its checked through he does to a turn bet.

I gotta be honest here, I think checking in this spot would be absolutely retarded. He easily has QQ or JJ here. He might go crazy with a medium pair figuring that the flop didn't help us. The only hands I'm worried about being beaten by are TT and a flush draw (unless of course the villain actually has 33) but it's hard to play pots like this and not go broke because you have created a big pot OOP against an opponent who you know is unlikely to think you have a big hand (making it more likely that he will play back at you with lesser holdings) when you actually do have a very big hand here.

Nobody is worried about the straddle. It's irrelevant.

You said a reraise by the hero wasn't a 3-bet. For the sake of consistent terminology: it is.




Its a $350+ (70BB) pot, you have a great hand and you are recommending:

not building a bigger pot when we are likely to be in front
giving away potential free cards

this post makes absolutely no sense.



So you're check/raising when he bets, which pot commits you. How is this any better than just betting out? You're acting like checking will allow you to fold when you're beat, and it wont.



Wrong --- he's a "solid" player, which means he is observant of those around him and plays accordingly. if Hero's image is LAGish, then villain won't just automuck QQ to a flop c-bet here. So there's a LOT of good news other than just collecting the pot on the flop. If the flop checks through, that's a disaster. Villain's range is fairly wide, and almost any turn card can be reasonably scary to us, especially a Q, J, T, or Ace. Also, since our image is LAG, we want to keep our hand looking as "bluffish" as possible. Checking the flop doesn't do that and fails to extract value from lower pairs and flush draws.

What it comes down to, i think, is that you think villain is a magical player that will only invest another penny when WE bet when he has TT,33, or 22... and will ALWAYS bet when we're ahead of him if we check to him on the flop. and that just isn't reasonable at all.


edit: by the way...

SB/BB/Straddle = 1bet
preflop raiser = 2bet
Hero's re-raise = 3bet

(post about villain having 33 and stacking hero)



No. NO.

results do NOT matter. most of the time people post hands they lost and you know this, stop trying to validate your terrible advice based on the results. saying youre right and everyone else is wrong is something id expect from someone who has no idea what a "range" is and has never read a poker strategy forum before.

Dear Royal, your above statements make no sesne, you say his raise, then smooth call of the re-raise suggests he has a smaller pair or suited connectors, YET you then suggest I check a not overly dangerous board, which he could easily check behind to draw to a flush, a striaght, (by your standards, 45 is not out of the question) or to hit his set. And if he does bet, I suppose i have to check raise, therefore committing myself, and having the same result as leading out except with LESS information.

For the record, with a LAG style of play, when one straddles, gets a raise, and looks down at KK, this is a dream situation. So yes, he could be holding QQ or JJ and think that he is wayyyy ahead here, and hence play them in this manner. Basically i got unlucky that he hit a set, cause otherwise I am winning a very large pot here if he has QQ or JJ like he is supposed to. and the raise to 25 does in no way mean he doesnt have these hands, i play live 30-40 hours a week and see that raise from that hand time and time again.

I do understand what Royal's saying here. That preflop raise certainly looks more like a pot builder than a big hand. I'm not sure if I play this any differently, but wouldn't you think JJ or QQ would want to raise more than 2.5xstraddle?

Not if he thinks the villain has been aggressive and will reraise from the straddle. Also, are we sure that he saw it was a straddle. I know that's always a consideration in the live games that I play in.

That happens quite frequently in my really bad drug dealer 2/5 game as well.

What is this obsession with QQ & JJ? There are a ton of different hands that play exactly the same way that we still beat.

It's basic 3rd level thinking - what does he think I have.

Hero is LAG and re-raising out of a straddle. A competent villain's range is massive.

Well, the only read we have on the guy is that he's fairly solid, not making many moves. I'm sure if the OP had said "I'm sitting across from Gus Hansen", we can make his range much larger.

That said, maybe 88 thinking you have AK or AQ? I don't think the range here is huge.

Thank you Kramit. And to answer above, yes he knew it was a straddle, as I had been doing it for the better part of 6 hours. And hammered quite a few of them earlier in the day. He easily could of had complete air with his raise, or something like 10 J or A 10. even 99-44. I basically just wanted to confrim that i didnt do something stupid in this hand to dump a 2K+ pot. In hindsight i should of bumped it a bit more preflop and just shut him down there, cause we were both fairly deepstacked. Thanks for the advice guys, i think you will be hearing from me more often.

Any Ax heart, KQh, any pair, AT, JT, even air will play this way if the villain thinks hero is raising light

EDIT: Sorry Ganador, I've essentially just double-posted you

I don't think anyone here thinks you played the hand stupidly. This isn't a bad board to go broke with KK on.

Sometimes you must have really misplayed a hand to go broke with KK here. In this situation, considering all of the variables, there's not much that can be done about it.

Wrong.
Villain is solid. villain doesnt raise to 25 from a straddle to 10, in a 2-5NL game unless he wants a pot builder for set value etc.. sometimes suited connectors work too.






Wrong. I stated my opinions before the results. To me results do matter because I know I dont put villain on QQ JJ here with such a weird preflop bet. and then smooth call of the raise.




Dear Ganador
Your raise to 125 is weaksauce. I didnt bother to comment on that because i'm playing it now as is.
And of course 4,5 is out of his range. I said his range is set value, or a big trap. I'm sure he thought he would get a few callers, look to flop a set or big draw with a juiced up pot. But then you re-raised to 125. theres a fair bit in the pot. ur laggy, he's got position. Why not make a loose call with low pockets

And, why would a tight player with QQ or JJ not want to re-raise a LAG player who straddles then raises? If you're really telling us the story on how it went down. My thought wuld be the "solid" player might put you on weak pockets, or A,x in which case QQ comes over the top.

I think the fact that he cant get away from KK here misplayed.

If I'm playing deep stacks NL and I go broke with KK just because its a low unconnecting board, I'd have to re-evaluate my game.

I really dont like the looks of my KK after the raise. and i especially dont like it if he comes over the top of a check/raise

There is no coming over the top of a check/raise then folding for us. A check/raise not only commits you, it puts so much money in the pot that it becomes HORRIBLE to fold. We're not getting away from this and if we do it'd be by doing something like betting half pot and then being able to fold to a reraise which seems like scared poker. Also, a check raise would basically put opponent all in anyways so he can't come over the top with anything significant.

I'm going to reinforce that his raise to 25 doesn't mean suited connectors or small PP. A raise to 5BB is low with the straddle but you can't immediately put him on a hand because of it. Also, JJ/QQ play this the same, almost always. If OP's image is LAG then his hand range is even BIGGER here because he could be seeing our 3 bet as a move or correctly putting our 3 betting range as quite large and not necessarily strong.

Why even play KK man if you are gonna play it so scared on a completely uncoordinated board such as 1023? Do you play KK/AA for set value only or something?

Thats only if villain bets out pot. villain doesnt bet out pot with a set. lets be honest here. if we're trully LAG, we should be firing with any PP here right?

So yes, if we do check /raise a pot sized bet, i'm confident to invest. because I do not think our villain would call a check/raise. Why? because if we do check raise, it means villain made a bet when we showed weakness. Which is why i eliminate the set. and lead more to 99,88 or maybe JJ

Also, in a live 2-5 game like OP is talking about, YES a raise of 3BB's is horrible for QQ,JJ.

And NO. i dont play KK or AA for set value. But I play cash games, much differently than tournaments. I dont always invest my stack with AA or KK just because its a board lower than Q. I'm there for hours without any increasing blinds, or short handed situations.

1 more thing.

I also dont stay at a table with 300BB's for long. It might sound weak, but in my current situation, building a BR and staying fresh for everyhand i'm at the table, i usually leave if i triple or more my buy in.

I play cash games primarily and obviously I know not to overvalue overpairs. This situation is one of those cases where I am "overvaluing" it. We just put a LARGE amount of money in preflop which means once again less play postflop. We also got the best flop we could hope for. Basically you're hinting if he bets we check-raise all in because he wouldn't bet a set. I think this is completely wrong but I will entertain it for a minute. What do we do if he checks? Automatically assume he has a monster? If he checks we go to the turn are we supposed to check our overpair again?? That is obviously wrong. Also, if we bet pot on turn and he reraises then do we give him credit for a monster or do we even take into account he is probably doing this because we showed huge weakness on the flop and bet the turn? I think we're getting too close to Fancy Play Syndrome here when the correct way to play the hand is simple.

I don't think so. I have played several guys who always raise to ~10x from EP with medium pairs but make smaller raises with everything else. They're easily read.

But is this the case??


And duuudes! please,

before you guys continue to hammer your only point of "villain could have QQ or JJ" and "KK has to bet and push this all day everyday". before you guys keep going on the same route, at least do me the favor and answer me this.

what hands does villain raise to 25, then smooth call 125 with, but checks the flop if checked too?

For my sake, god forbid. but some people have said, villain could check behind or blah blah. but what types of hands is he checking behind after the preflop action and now this board?

royal, your posts are getting worse and worse.

do you think its a coincidence that everyone else here thinks a check is terrible? you said yourself that suited connectors are in his range --- with 2 hearts and a couple connected cards on the flop, a check is bad.

and also, you're saying that villain will NOT bet pot with us beat. why do you think that? and why will he ALWAYS bet the flop if we check? he wont. you're wrong. if he has two hearts, he'll probably check behind, which is a disaster for us. if he has an ace, seeing the turn for free is a disaster. if he has a lower pair than us, the turn is a disaster because he's able to catch up and beat us or get scared by a turn and not pay us like he would have on the flop. your reasoning may be correct against a very specific opponent on whom you have a terrific read, but in this case it's absolutely insane.

Some random points:

1. This isn't a deep-stacked situation after the straddle is on. It's like any garden variety 5/10.
2. OP should anticipate this tough situation preflop. Three cards are going to come on every flop, any one of which can make the villain(s) a set. We have to look at least one move ahead.
3. There's really no plausible line for which the set doesn't get our stack. Even if we check-call all the way, we're calling something like 200 on the flop, 300 on the turn, and 300 on the river. Where can we fold our overpair? Given that, we have to construct a post flop strategy that extracts the most when we're ahead.

you guys havent given any sort of strategy to this hand. So far, the majority say. bet / get raised / shove. This is supposed to be the norm?

Plus, most of you say i'm stupid for saying small PP or suited connectors. but now ur saying that if he has 2 hearts its a disaster? what happend to his JJ or QQ story?

and what about us? we dont know which kings we have, OP didnt say if we have a heart or not.

If you agree that we have to lead this flop 100% of the time. what do you do if we get raised? what do u do if we get called?

thank you.

finally someone who wants to talk strategy to making big laydowns on occasions, instead of just ABC shove KK all day down by the bay.


Oh and, PS. yes i like your line on a garden variety 5/10 , this really proves on the point of making a larger raise preflop.

No. No one ever said he always has JJ/QQ. it's just a very reasonable part of his range. Hero is LAG, and Villain could be putting Hero on a squeeze from the straddle, so there are many hands that villain can be playing here... such as

QQ/JJ/TT/99/88/AK/AQ/AJ/AT/other low pairs/an occasional suited connector.

With that range, checking the flop is very, very bad. A lot of those hands, he'll never put more money in until he has a pair of kings beaten. therefore, we don't want to allow him to draw cheaply with those. Other hands in that range that might pay us, are most likely to pay us on the flop while...

A - our hand can still look a little bluffish
B - there isn't much for QQ/JJ/99 to be scared of if theyre not giving us credit for a big pair
C - he is drawing to a flush or straight and will pay to draw. we need to charge him for this and take away his odds/implied odds.

if we check to him and he checks behind, we now know absolutely nothing and unless the turn is a king that is not a heart, the value of our hand has decreased and the value of our opponent's hand is completely unknown --- he could check behind with a set, with a flush draw, with 88--QQ, AK, etc --- and all the hands we beat can improve to beat us for free or get scared and not pay us on the turn when we bet as they would have on the flop.

There. i dont know why you think our posts are devoid of strategy. its yours that are devoid of any kind of rational thought.

Also, with a LAG image, i AM betting this almost 100% of the time. if we get raised im probably shoveling since a solid player would raise a LAG with many hands that we are ahead of here if he isn't giving us much credit. (QQ,JJ,99,AT,AK, a flush draw, other pairs, whatever.) if we get called, the turn card determines my action but i cant imagine getting away from this very easily once we have half our stack invested. it's not like checking the flop through makes the turn any easier than betting and getting called. there's a huuuuge difference in stacking off badly with KK and a tight image and nearly unavoidable stackoffs with a LAG image.