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Hand Review #5
SteveBlay
Here is a very tricky spot submitted by user AverageMatt.
I admit I'm still not sure of my turn/river advice on this one, since there is definitely merit in just getting to the river and letting the LAG player bluff off his chips. What do you think?
Comments
I actually like a click-back on flop in these situations something like $225 or $240. Most opponents won't be able to control themselves and will raise you right away with trips. Saves lots in the long run this way because you can then get away and fold easily. Downside is by doing this you do kill the chance of you hitting turn or river ace to get a bigger full house. In the blinds he can certainly have a lot of 4s especially since Hero laid him such a great price by betting too small PF. Overall except for even playing ATo in this position I like the way Hero played this hand.
The advice not to play ATo to begin with is usually the rule of thumb here. But once in awhile we have to throw some chips into the middle when we've been card dead, just to market our future premium hands. So we have to be able to navigate these difficult situations. That being said we should use our standard bet or otherwise balance it like Steve said when we play these hands to avoid playing face up. Also the min-raise gave villan the odds to play any hand, making the streets even harder for us to play.
I don't know if there's any good way to play the turn here. Villan's pre-flop call taught us nothing about his hand. Villan's donk bet on the flop only made an uncertain situation more expensive. Villan's check on the turn might be setting us up for a check raise, which could be a bluff or for value. Faced with all this uncertainty I would likely have checked behind like averagematt did here, especially if it were in a tournament. I'm not saying that's correct, it's just what my underdeveloped instincts might have led me to.
In addition to giving villan great odds to call our preflop min-raise from the big blind, we allowed villan to steal the initiative from us on the streets. Villan dictated all the action post-flop, in spite of our positional advantage.
It seems to me that another teachable moment in this hand was villan's actions. He had 5:1 expressed odds to call with 42o, and he called. Using the APT Odds Calculator I figured villan's hand had about 19% equity in this multiway situation, even if our own range were not capped. If the SB had folded, villan would still have 3.5:1 expressed odds to make this call with about 26% equity against a strong range. In both situations the BB has sufficient equity in the hand to make the call. Add to that the huge implied odds of 42o. Two-pair or trips are almost completely disguised if flopped. If a straight draw is flopped, it is unlikely to be beaten by a better straight. Given all this, a min-raise is simply not enough to keep the BB out of the hand with these deep stacks. If we've been capping our range with these min-raises, it gives the BB even more incentive to play.
It would be a different story for villan in the later phase of a tournament with stack sizes of around 20BB or less. A call in that case too easily risks getting pot-committed with any action on the flop.
Steve talked about fear of a check-raise bluff on the turn being a potential downside to betting half pot when it is checked to us. However, in this case, now that we have seen the cards, we were being setup for a check-raise value bet. So my question is just for clarification. Are we saying that we'd fold to a check raise here every single time?
Against most typical players, yes. Bet-Flop then Check-Raise-Bluff-Turn would be a very unexpected line for an amateur to take. And, we block the flush draw.
Agreed on the preflop play. I tend to play loose in early positions with a deep stack. I tend to splash around with lots of hands. That is a leak I need to fix. I get stuck calling marginal hands like this in a spot where its hard to play post flop out of position. Yes the preflop size bet was small. I do tend to vary my preflop raise bets according to hand strength but do try to balance those out in the long run. I played the hand very passively as the BB does have a very wide range defend. I suppose a check/raise on flop could have identified the trips earlier for me and thus either saved chips or lost the same amount without playing all streets. The bet sizing from villian should have been a bigger flag as well. 100 into 120 and 300 into 340 is considered very nutting or very high valued. Are bluff sizing tend to be like this or not? I usually over bet pot size for value to throw off villians as to rep a bluff? i dont seem to get many calls tho (off topic, sorry) The turn check was just that. controlling pot and i think i already decided to call the river bet and the Q just allowed a chop to sway me to call. I dont really think I put a 4 in his hand at all to be honest. The min raise allows for that tho. Maybe a 3x or bigger might have folded out the 24o. Definitely a learning spot. Thank you everyone for the comments!!! Thanks Steve for the review. That is what i was looking for from this site. Appreciate it!