77

[ed cooper]

what should i do here?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 6.5 Tournament, 25/50 Blinds (7 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG (t1455)
MP1 (t2350)
MP2 (t1645)
Hero (CO) (t2140)
Button (t1465)
SB (t1475)
BB (t2970)

Hero's M: 28.53

Preflop: Hero is CO with ,
3 folds, Hero bets t150, 1 fold, SB calls t125, 1 fold

Flop: (t350) , , (2 players)
SB bets t250 hero???

[taipan168]

Any reads on SB?

How about flat calling and seeing what he does on the turn, if the turn comes a blank and he fires again then it's close but I lean towards folding.

[ed cooper]

no reads, he seemed taggy.

the pot size is awkward. a flat call makes an 850 pot and leaves him with about 1000.

what constitutes a blank here? anything below a 10?

whats the psychology behind the call? just to slow him down? with so many potential scare cards to come, we re just looking for a cheap showdown, right?

[taipan168]

the pot size is awkward. a flat call makes an 850 pot and leaves him with about 1000.

That's ok, if he fires again on the turn then you can let it go unless it's a stupid little bet that is smaller than his flop bet or something.

what constitutes a blank here? anything below a 10?

Good question, there aren't actually many blanks here for our hand. It probably doesn't even matter that much what comes on the turn (unless it's a 7 of course).

whats the psychology behind the call? just to slow him down? with so many potential scare cards to come, we re just looking for a cheap showdown, right?

Well, a lot of players will donkbet into a raiser when they are first to act with hands like missed overcards. If you call and he has in fact done this, he is very unlikely to bet on the turn without a real hand so you can check behind and get a street closer to showdown. If he bets again, you can fold (mostly) confident in the knowledge that you're most likely beat.

[TLR]

I think calling is bad here, you get 0 info on his hand and give him a free shot to hit a draw, i think is is raise/fold spot and i would raise, i think FD and PP<7 as well as A4 are definitly in his range

[fulksy]

i would raise as well, i think majority of over pairs are 3 betting pre, 6.50's are really soft, i agree with TLR i think their are worse hands that will call. i really think calling is spewing chips since were calling to fold most turns (even when villain misses i think he fires out a pretty good % of the time)

[ed cooper]

well, for the reasons stated thats why i asked what the reasoning was behind only flatting. i guess tai thinks we can 'afford' to just call. whether this is optimal or not i dont know as with what hands does he play this the way he has?

a4-aj, 44-88/99?

with stronger hands hes shoving on me.

so assuming he hasnt hit trip 4s the only part of his range im losing to is the very top, ie 88 or 99.

of course he may have 10s + but from this perpective isnt not raising too tight?

[fulksy]

at 6.50's i think he would do this way wider, then A4-AJ/ 44-88, 99. i say he could have A3+ 33+ (probably slow play a set though on this board), K10+ Q10+ J10 maybe even some other random FD's. and i still think hes calling with worse hands

[taipan168]

The reason I suggested flat calling is that if opp shoves over then we're pretty much priced in to call considering SB's stack. Whilst I agree with the point about letting opp potentially drawing cheaper, I don't agree that we can't get information by just flat calling because we have position. If opp is donk betting into us with overcards, it's unlikely that he/she will bet again on the turn.

[TLR]

The reason I suggested flat calling is that if opp shoves over then we're pretty much priced in to call considering SB's stack. Whilst I agree with the point about letting opp potentially drawing cheaper, I don't agree that we can't get information by just flat calling because we have position. If opp is donk betting into us with overcards, it's unlikely that he/she will bet again on the turn.

He could have 2 overcards (6 outs to improve) a FD (9 outs) or a combination of them
I am not so sure he will not fire a 2nd bullet if a blank comes, villian can easily put hero on FD and fire if the flush does not hit

[ed cooper]

so in this hand we dont know exactly where we are. but, when we (think we) are in front, we bet for value.

i understand that a raise on the flop will be committing us both, but, assuming were in front, isnt a call -ev?
i mean by only flatting the flop, we inadvertently allow ourselves NOT to bet on the turn/river, (and thereby extract more value) as most cards that come dont benefit us, and in all likeliness, well be folding to any action.

hope this is clear what im getting at...

[coolercash]

you kind of have to think about how you would play the hand if you were in his shoes and given his actions and timing, what kind of hands would act this way with?

55-99 is possible. 88-99 may raise more preflop but what have his tendencies been so far

this information is missing and it all part of the puzzle when you are trying to put your man on a hand
the blinds are small so i am assuming you have not seen many showdown with this opponent. you have little to go on. watching the other tables you are not playing at is also a good tactic to pick up tells on the other players you have yet to play. you cannot do this live..why not do it online?

it will be hard to assign him a hand range without some more play with him but based on what has been written here it appears that he is a small ball type of player with some TAG type of attributes. I would not put him on a big pair since he was in the SB and just called you preflop. He is out of position and if he does have a great hand he will want to put more chips in before the flop while being OOP.

he could have diamonds and is looking to see a cheap turn. the logic is this. if he does have a big pair he will probably not fold in the face of a raise...if they have a flush draw they prob wont fold either unless you do something crazy like go all in..which would make no sense

so whats makes the most sense... you want value and protection...just call
see what develops on the turn....you have position...use some logic here
if it blanks.... maybe some mid card non diamond. maybe even a J or Q you could fire and get a better read.

the goal is protecting your chips while getting value

[drmcboy]

call and give up to any reasonable bet OTT, taggy players are not stacking off on this flop with worse than 77, nor are they likely to try and two barrel you. If we raise he's jamming everything better plus FDs that will be a flip vs us and folding anything we have crushed. So I guess we get info about his hand but it's going to be a letter with bad news in it.

depending on reads I think pre flop is close, there are not a lot of good things that can happen with these stacks besides everyone folding. I mean this is a terrific flop and all of your options are pretty bad. If you would not steal with 50% plus here I think it's better to just fold.

[fulksy]

i defiantly think you guys are giving a little to much credit to villain here, 6.50's are super soft and a "no reads, he seems taggy" isn't a good enough read, i think hes calling with worse much more then you give him credit for, as well i think he fires on the turn way higher % then your thinking here. so if I'm folding the turn to a bet then i'm just folding the flop, if not i think your spewing. you also have to worry about a river bet if the turn goes c/c.

[fulksy]

depending on reads I think pre flop is close, there are not a lot of good things that can happen with these stacks besides everyone folding. I mean this is a terrific flop and all of your options are pretty bad. If you would not steal with 50% plus here I think it's better to just fold.

thanks for this, never really thought about preflop like this, but makes total sense, i would raise 7's here almost 100% of the time, but if were folding or just calling this flop then raising pre is pointless unless your just stealing.

[drmcboy]

if he's firing twice with air regardless of turn I wouldn't call him super soft.

Basically we're hoping he has 33/55-66/4x more than 88-AA and flush draws, and he'll call with all the bad hands. that may be true but it can't be super true

[fulksy]

your probably right and i might be thinking about this wrong but this is my thinking and i would defiantly like to me proven wrong cause this could be a big leak in my game:

wouldn't 1010+ Raise Pre, so 88/99 and 44 have us beat. where we beat 33,55,66,4x (i have seen tons of players call with AK, AQ here to, but we will assume he never does)
i'll call FD/overs a wash. FD + overs would be a 50/50 . but i assume if we knew he had a FD we would get it in with the dead money in the pot. our equity vs 33-99 and A4 is 58%. of course this is assuming he gets it in with these hands ( which at 6.50's i think is pretty reasonable), plus you still might have some FE against a FD.

i still would call them soft players when they fire out a second time, they see a call figure you have nothing and fire again, it might be the right play a lot of the time but they do it without thinking and way to often, which is easily exploitable.

isn't their some merit in protecting your hand against over cards?

[drmcboy]

First, I think it's close and like I said I don't like any option, we are just trying to chose the best bad one. so it's not a big leak if it is one. You also know more about 6.5 players than I do so don't discount your standard read.

He won't have bigger pairs a lot but you can't eliminate them, at least add AA into his range.

If they are going to fire a lot with nothing OTT, why not call and let them do that? By raising you take that play away. Raising only makes sense if you think they will call with worse hands or fold flips, and I don't think anyone will bet/fold a flush draw here. If you're ahead they only have 5-6 outs so if they always bet those hands OTT you'll usually still be way ahead. When we ship the flop, at best we're the 60% or you mention. If we are wrong and he folds 33,4x and 55 we drop to 32%.

If he's going to call a raise on the flop with naked overs, the hand still plays the same if you call the flop, except that you could fold if something horrible like a big D came, and again you give him another chance to bluff if he misses. He does have some equity with those overs so it's a OK result if he folds, but not as good as getting another bluff out of him.

[baudib]

raising is definitely the worst option here without a solid read that he would always look to c-r bigger overpairs.

[fulksy]

If he's going to call a raise on the flop with naked overs, the hand still plays the same if you call the flop, except that you could fold if something horrible like a big D came, and again you give him another chance to bluff if he misses. He does have some equity with those overs so it's a OK result if he folds, but not as good as getting another bluff out of him.

thanks, this is actually helping me quite a bit.

i agree, i like calling if your willing to call most turns (cause like i said, i think he fires quite often). but as you said since all options are pretty bad, then I'm agreeing with u in just folding this pre. unless I've been stealing lots.