100NL - Top Two facing flop raise

[Stacks]

Villain is 38/17/inf over 26 hands. I haven't even noticed him up till this point.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
9 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG Hero ($118.50)
UTG+1 LoggerRythym ($101.20)
MP1 oilers119911 ($166.30)
MP2 Sandhop ($107.50)
MP3 M10F ($123.80)
CO PlayOnDrugs ($167.80)
BTN hyipfan ($100.00)
SB kpdoc ($99.00)
BB knicksiny2k ($85.55)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 9 players) Hero is UTG
Hero raises to $4, 3 folds, M10F calls $4, 4 folds

Flop: ($9.50, 2 players)
Hero bets $8, M10F raises to $20, $12 to Hero ($106.50)?



Pretty torn here. My first instinct was to 3bet shove, as this particular villain could potentially have AT/QT in his range, as well has hands like KdQd, QdJd, Jd9d, 9d8d, and could even be doing this with hands like AJ, AK. However, I'm wondering the merits of calling flop raise, and evaluating turn, and what our plan would be on different turn cards.

Also, someone I talked this hand over with said to likely bet/fold. Thoughts?

[Stacks]

Bump.

No thoughts here? Well I'll give my thoughts and analysis anyways then.

Shove
If we shove we are risking $106.5 into a pot of what will be $238.50. In order for this shove to be breakeven, assuming villain never folds, we need 44.7% equity.

If we can assign villain a range of {AA, QQ, TT, AQs, ATs, KdQd, KJs, Kd9d, QdJd, QTs, Jd9d, 9d8d, AQo, ATo, KJo, QTo} and assume he always raises those hands, and calls a shove, then we have 45.2% equity against his range, thereby making a shove +EV. The EV of the shove is:

EVshove = (0.452)(238.5) - (106.5)
EVshove = $1.30

However, even though the range I assigned to villain consists of all 2 pairs, sets, and combo draws, I think it still may be a bit too optimistic. Without a clear understanding on his tendencies and play, I have to conclude that he will not be playing these hands in this manner with 100% frequency. And actually that he would more than likely tend to be passive with the majority of those hands, such as KdQd, Jd9d, 9d8d, and maybe even QT, AT.

If this is the case, and his range for raising is weighted more towards KJ, TT than a worse two pair, draws (as I believe it is), that makes shoving here a -EV play.

Call
To be honest, I'm not 100% sure how to actually determine the EV of a call in this spot, or if it's even possible. Namely because there will be action on the turn and river that I can't accurately foresee.

However, I do know that if we call here, intending to fold on any diamond, K, J turn, then we are looking at 15 cards we will be c/folding to. In which case we will be left calling the flop bet to check/fold and not to get to showdown over 50% of the time.

Not to mention that since we are OOP, we can potentially be playing pretty poorly against villains range. In the sense, that if we call flop, and check/call a safe turn, villains could potentially only be betting his value hands, and checking back his draws to take a free cards. In which case, we get no more value from his draws, and get valuepwned by his nut hands.

Also, I think bet/calling, then check/shoving turn looks a bit stronger than bet/3betting flop. Not that I think this particular villain will notice that though.

Fold
Well if we conclude that bet/calling, and bet/shoving is incorrect, then bet/folding becomes our option. At first I was like adamantly set that we do not fold in this spot to this villain like ever. We flopped top two against a fairly fishy player, bet/folding just sounds so counter-intuitive.

However, it has it's merits. For one, since villain is practically unknown, or at least his postflop tendencies are, we somewhat have to group him into the category with the rest of the unknowns at this stake. Which would effectively put him a bit on the passive side postflop, as well as not being able to value bet/raise thinnly. He is more than likely to play his draws in a more passive manner, as well as his made, but not nut, hands.

It is because of this, I think that his raising range, especially to the sizing he chose, is more heavily weighted towards TT/KJ/AQ, than it is towards QT, AT, and combo draws. If this assumption is true, then our equity drops drastically, and therefore a fold becomes correct.

Also, to look at it from a reciprocality perspective, 99% of the player pool at 100NL is looking to get the money in with this hand, against this player, on this particular flop. Therefore, if I join the masses, and do so, then there is no affect in my winrate in this spot. However, if I fold, and it is a correct fold, my winrate increases.

So pretty much I conclude that I believe bet/folding is likely the way to go. But I do believe it's pretty close between all options.

As far as the hand went, I bet/3bet. Just a fwiw.

So now... Are there any thoughts???

cool analysis. my 2c is that every time this happens and i'm like 'but my hand is almost the nuts!' i get super pwned.

b/c flop, b/f turn and hate life !

[Fnord]

Lead for $5 into flops like this.

[KillsAids]

Also, to look at it from a reciprocality perspective, 99% of the player pool at 100NL is looking to get the money in with this hand, against this player, on this particular flop. Therefore, if I join the masses, and do so, then there is no affect in my winrate in this spot. However, if I fold, and it is a correct fold, my winrate increases.

Not sure you can apply this here, because if you fold and the fold is not the right thing to do, then you're losing money from the reciprocality perspective.

Back to the hand, I def bet smaller on the flop with most of my range here, esp against a fishy player capable of calling with the AX/QX/TX that he would fold to bigger flop bets. As played, I don't think I can ever fold in the heat of the moment. I'd probably call and donk half pot on turn and fold to raise.

[Miffed22001]

Staxx - was the b/f line you were given about betting flop folding to raise or 3betting here folding to shove?

Fwiw, i muck in this spot because this flop smacked our range and we only get action from hands that beat us when our perceived range on this flop is so strong/weak.

I also think there are 'better' spots to make decisions - in other words if i had to think about the decision in a nitty FR game i should have folded already if my stack is under threat

ofc all of the above assumes my opponent isnt a tool - if hes tagg/unknown i muck, if hes a tool then i bet/3bet

[badgers]

Why is everyone advocating betting smaller on the flop I feel like it's really results oriented.. We are getting value from SO MUCH here when we bet $8 and if the plan is to bet/fold then at least we are limiting the number of times we get semibluff raised off the pot.

Those suggesting betting smaller, is it so that you can 3bet/ call a raise?

[Stacks]

Yeah not really sure about the smaller betsize. This villain is 37/17. We get a shitload of value by betting this flop hard. And as badgers stated, we do limit the number of times we get semibluffed/bluffed, making a fold become more correct.

Killaids: I think bet/folding is likely best because villain's range is going to be weighted more towards TT/KJ. However, I think a close second would be to bet/call, then bet/fold the turn, as yaawn suggested. I forgot to put that in my analysis mainly because I fail at changing intiative in alot of spots.

The problem I usually have with donking the turn, which is some villain's shoving over draws, I doubt applies here. If he is semi-bluffing flop, we can be pretty sure he simply calls a turn with his draws, and probably other non-nut hands.

Miffed: The bet/fold advice was to fold to the flop raise. And well, it came from a pretty reputable FTR source. At first I thought folding was out of the question, but seems more and more appropriate.

If this is against someone competent, then yeah it's a bet/fold, for the reason you stated about our range being pretty strong. However, I doubt this villain will take that into consideration.

[BankItDrew]

flop size is good vs this laggy villain. i'd prolly make it $38 ish then shove turn or call flop shove vs this lagtard.

he's laggy, lots of hands he could have here.

[Sir Pawnalot]

Very good analysis.

Folding here makes me 4-bet bluff t5s 3 hands later. I generally like to get my money in with strong hands, and we cannot assume thsi villain is thinking too much about how the flop hit your range after 26 hands.

But in general I think IF we have to fold here- our metagame is weak. With a strong metagame this is a fistpump shove. Maybe metagame doesnt apply that much to FR and everything is pretty much hand to hand basis.

For example I had a FR session last night with vpip 60% and flops won 55%. If I had top pair ppl would stack off with just about anything. But with a clean solid image we must be much more wary of getting it in.

Its also good for our future fold equity on c-bets if we show we have 2 pair here.

In short- I dont think bet folding is big mistake, but i feel our game is weak if we cant profitably get it in here.

Very good analysis.

Folding here makes me 4-bet bluff t5s 3 hands later. I generally like to get my money in with strong hands, and we cannot assume thsi villain is thinking too much about how the flop hit your range after 26 hands.

4b bluffing T5s 3 hands later is probably spewy.

But in general I think IF we have to fold here- our metagame is weak. With a strong metagame this is a fistpump shove. Maybe metagame doesnt apply that much to FR and everything is pretty much hand to hand basis.

Since when do we need metagame v morons?

For example I had a FR session last night with vpip 60% and flops won 55%. If I had top pair ppl would stack off with just about anything. But with a clean solid image we must be much more wary of getting it in.

Grats, I don't see see how this benefits the thread. Maybe you should hop over to 2p2 and make a bbv post about this?

Its also good for our future fold equity on c-bets if we show we have 2 pair here.

In short- I dont think bet folding is big mistake, but i feel our game is weak if we cant profitably get it in here.

K, so you can't assume he's thinking about ranges but you can assume he's going to remember that we c-bet 2pair here? This is simply brilliant!

Edited for: Typo

[spoonitnow]

That's a bit harsh.

[Miffed22001]

Why is everyone advocating betting smaller on the flop I feel like it's really results oriented.. We are getting value from SO MUCH here when we bet $8 and if the plan is to bet/fold then at least we are limiting the number of times we get semibluff raised off the pot.

Those suggesting betting smaller, is it so that you can 3bet/ call a raise?

IM +1 this - i think what maybe wasnt added was that if we bet our hand hard our opponent will probably play their hand face up - so top two pot bet vs raise = scary

[Sir Pawnalot]

Just gave my 2 cents dude.

Making money out of players who dont pay attention seems like a boring grind. Thats why I prefer to sit down with the best players at my stakes.

[Miffed22001]

flop size is good vs this laggy villain. i'd prolly make it $38 ish then shove turn or call flop shove vs this lagtard.

he's laggy, lots of hands he could have here.

Ok im going to say what was said in IRC the other day to me re not using a HUD 24 tabling

your hud stat is meaningless - its a 26 hand sample. You know zero about this villain and as we blindly read our HUD we actually have no clue how this opponent plays but are making a solid assumption based on those stats - which are next to useless!
All of your assumptions on how you play this hand are based upon bad or false information - hence you should be treating villain as an unknown and further you should be mucking as an unknown is probably playing straightforward at these stakes unless he has 3k hands on you - and you would naturally have some on him if this were the case.

Very good analysis.

Folding here makes me 4-bet bluff t5s 3 hands later. I generally like to get my money in with strong hands, and we cannot assume thsi villain is thinking too much about how the flop hit your range after 26 hands.

But in general I think IF we have to fold here- our metagame is weak. With a strong metagame this is a fistpump shove. Maybe metagame doesnt apply that much to FR and everything is pretty much hand to hand basis.

For example I had a FR session last night with vpip 60% and flops won 55%. If I had top pair ppl would stack off with just about anything. But with a clean solid image we must be much more wary of getting it in.

Its also good for our future fold equity on c-bets if we show we have 2 pair here.

In short- I dont think bet folding is big mistake, but i feel our game is weak if we cant profitably get it in here.

Also, this is probably the dumbest shit ive ever read. Do you even play full ring on stars?

[Sir Pawnalot]

Miffed-

No, I play on a small site where I play the same players over and over.

Thank you for letting me know how dumb I am. Its easy to forget when you keep on winning.

[bikes]

inb4 hu4rolls

[Sir Pawnalot]

Do you really think he would want that? Hell, I would be shit scared to play myself HU.

[killerkebab]

Do you really think he would want that? Hell, I would be shit scared to play myself HU.

That is some good smack talk we have here, keep it up sir.

hu4rollz, get money on stars and we'll do like 10k-50k hands of HU until some1 bustos ezgame

[pokerfan]

Lead for $5 into flops like this.

I like a smaller bet with AK or AJ on this specific flop.

[Sir Pawnalot]

I would love to play you. Not 50k hands, because thats way more than I play in a year.

If u come to merge we can play 100 NL HU, but I cant deposit that much onto a stars account right now.

[BankItDrew]

26 hands is enough hands to know how laggy they want to play at this table.

AT, QT, AK, AJ, QJd, QKd, KJ, TT, are all hands that this idiot may love to raise this flop. I can't believe anyone would actually fold to a raise after flopping top two vs this player.

It's so easy sometimes to say 'ez fold' when we see threads like this because most hands posted are losing ones. I think those who say fold this strong of a hand to this type of player are actually being results oriented.

So your an amazing player who doesn't even play 4k hands in a month? I'm not playing on your rigged site when you know your going to get T5s in x amount of hands and plan on 4bing it. Sounds shady to me. You come to stars and we can talk business. Amirite?


Edited for: more typoz

[KillsAids]

Not 50k hands, because thats way more than I play in a year.

So you play way less than 4k hands a month? And you're a huge winner that everyone should fear? IDK how this computes

[fat-b]

but he wins 55% of the flops and is an excellent metagame player

[pokerfan]

it sounds to me like he is playing against a bunch of tourists at casino.
I guess 66% vpip is going to destroy any FR players on stars. What an amazing player on the planet!!

[badgers]

But in general I think IF we have to fold here- our metagame is weak. With a strong metagame this is a fistpump shove. Maybe metagame doesnt apply that much to FR and everything is pretty much hand to hand basis.

[Deanglow]

Hey Sir Pwnalot and Instant Aces - Stop posting this dumb shit in the Full Ring forum. Take it somewhere else.

As for the hand, call and see the turn. Not folding on most cards.

[Sir Pawnalot]

Thats cool Dean, but is it ok to constantly beat on me? I mean, I have told u guys many times that I have poor social skills.

I find the comments very funny, but sometimes I feel its an attempt to hurt me or something. I dunno.

poor social skills will only be corrected with practice and feedback. This is feedback, you did something wrong and it made people's opinion of you go down.

If you can't figure it out it's that you gave bad advice/said something that makes us think you're stupid (66/50 is a winning game! I don't play 50k in a year) while sounding self-righteous and boastful.

The right thing to do is apologize and don't be a loudmouth in the future. Walk softly, and don't get loud until AFTER you can back up your boasts, if ever.

[bigspenda73]

haven't read thread, still think calling down is better, who knows, you might even get a cheap showdown w/ like 1/3 the deck or be able to bluff J/K cards, oh the funzorz

[KillsAids]

Back to the bet smaller on the flop topic, you guys said that betting bigger will discourage him from raising, basically polarizing his range. However, do we want him to have a polarized range with a hand that we're not willing to stack off with? If you bet smaller, you're still ahead of his raising range and you also get calls from a lot of hands that would fold to a bigger bet. Also, you'd balance that with all the marginal hands you could have (especially when stealing from LP with like A3).

Also, if this guy is really bad, I'm not folding the 5th nuts on the flop to a raise. If he doesnt have KJ in his range, our hand becomes obv stronger and we're beat realistically only by TT. If he does have KJ in his range, then he also has AT/QT/J9 and whatever other stuff he decided to call pre, and this also makes our hand stronger.

[badgers]

Back to the bet smaller on the flop topic, you guys said that betting bigger will discourage him from raising, basically polarizing his range. However, do we want him to have a polarized range with a hand that we're not willing to stack off with?

That wasn't really what I meant. The main reason I want to bet larger is that there is so much value to be had, betting smaller is simply making his mistakes less bad when he has a draw or a weak ace (actually he wouldn't be making a mistake at all facing a small bet unless he just a gutshot..)

As a side effect, it also forces him into a much narrower value range. I don't really agree that it's polarised, since the villain would be a lunatic to bluff this board facing a large bet. Basically it just means that any raise is really heavily weighted towards the nuts...

That said, I agree that it's really really hard to bet/fold this board...

[Stacks]

Back to the bet smaller on the flop topic, you guys said that betting bigger will discourage him from raising, basically polarizing his range. However, do we want him to have a polarized range with a hand that we're not willing to stack off with?

That wasn't really what I meant. The main reason I want to bet larger is that there is so much value to be had, betting smaller is simply making his mistakes less bad when he has a draw or a weak ace (actually he wouldn't be making a mistake at all facing a small bet unless he just a gutshot..)

As a side effect, it also forces him into a much narrower value range. I don't really agree that it's polarised, since the villain would be a lunatic to bluff this board facing a large bet. Basically it just means that any raise is really heavily weighted towards the nuts...

That said, I agree that it's really really hard to bet/fold this board...

The bold expresses my thoughts on the flop betsizing well. Let's face it, this guy isn't that great. And while that may mean that bet/folding isn't a great option, there is loads of value to be had by betting larger on this flop. I don't the extra $3 will change his calling range at all really. So we build a larger pot against his calling range, a range that we have dominate equity against.

Basically it really just comes down to his raising range. I happen to think that an unknown's raising range is more than likely weighted towards nut hands, and he would be more willing to call his draws/marginal hands, which mind you is probably optimal in this spot since this board smashes our range.