Top set on wet turn

Here's a hand I didn't play the other day, but have been thinking about none-the-less. After calling this flop, are we still strong enough to raise the turn when the straight comes?

Villain is a future version of FTR TAG seven-deuce and will probably fold less than TP or strong draws if we raise the flop. He probably valuebets/calls/folds/bluffs at exactly optimal frequencies. Is our turn value raise range just 9Ts?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.com

SB ($48.85)
BB ($62.25)
UTG ($25)
MP ($61.60)
Hero (CO) ($32.25)
Button ($67.95)

Preflop: Hero is CO with J, J
1 fold, MP raises to $1, Hero calls $1, 3 folds

Flop: ($2.35) 3, 8, J (2 players)
MP bets $1.75, Hero calls $1.75

Turn: ($5.85) 7 (2 players)
MP bets $4.40, Hero raises/calls?

O.O don't you think you will at the very least get value out of and cooler 88,77 and 33?

Easy flop raise with it being two tone. Unless he's the kind of nitty reg who folds Jx QQ-AA I see no reason for not just raising flop.

As played I'd certainly raise/call the turn. T9s is 4 combos. [ 33 88] is 6 combos alone then there are flush draws and 87s, AA stuff that might not fold. I'd also bluff this turn a good bit.

Originally Posted by Carroters

As played I'd certainly raise/call the turn. T9s is 4 combos. [ 33 88] is 6 combos alone

Part of what got me thinking about it was the number of people folding 33 preflop. You're right that there are plenty of other combos that make strong hands on this turn including 77 and 78 though.

On boards where your value raising is narrow, you should definitely be raising your strong hands.

Raise flop all day.

Its really hard for him to have Jx on this flop. I'm certainly raising 88 though.

It sounds like you guys agree about raising turn as played, which is good.

Originally Posted by Pelion

Its really hard for him to have Jx on this flop. I'm certainly raising 88 though.

It sounds like you guys agree about raising turn as played, which is good.

It's harder for him to have Jx yeah but he has AJ KJ QJs JTs which is still 14 combos you can get value from. Then there are 18 overpair combos, 6 set combos and some amount of FD combos to nom, OM NOM NOM NOM. You can't nom many of these on spade turns, J turns or 4 straight run outs.

There aren't many hands you're going to get lots of later street value from that don't fall into the above.

Originally Posted by Carroters

It's harder for him to have Jx yeah but he has AJ KJ QJs JTs which is still 14 combos you can get value from.

Thats only 10 combos, and thats IF he raises KJo from MP which is a bit of a stretch. It's more likely going to be 7 combos of AJ, KJs-JTs or maybe J9s + some FDs. It's probably not bad given that there are overpairs as well, but I don't think it's a no brainer at all.

Note: I'm not ever thinking of folding the flop or anything. It's just if we want to sometimes slowplay to protect our weak range of calling hands on blank turns, then I don't think this is a bad hand to do it with.

Originally Posted by Pelion

Note:I'm not ever thinking of folding the flop or anything. It's just if we want to sometimes slowplay to protect our weak range of calling hands on blank turns, then I don't think this is a bad hand to do it with.

This is true if you ever want a set here in your calling range then this is the one to have. However, if you ever want to raise the flop your value range becomes [88] if you don't raise this hand. I'm not really worrying about any of that here though. This is generally not a board people are going to attack too light in my experience, hits your range pretty well etc so I wouldn't worry about protecting your calling range here at 25NL

Thanks for pointing out my combos error, been counting them all day working on ranges etc and still managed to somehow mess up.

Instead of calling the flop with JJ here to help balance our weaker range of flop calling hands, why don't we just raise our entire continuing range on the flop? If he is folding less than TP and strong draws on the flop to a raise, our flop raising range is going to have decent equity vs his continuing range and we will have position on him should he call

Also no one has discussed yet what our flatting range pre should be in this spot, some people's may be different/wider than others

But then our raising range becomes incredibly bluff heavy and spewy, or we just fold way too much and are highly vulnerable to cbets. Either way seems really bad.

The logic of calling JJ is that we block so many of villains strong 3-street combos, that we probably don't lose much anyway. i.e. the EVs of calling and raising are probably not a million miles apart. I don't see why we'd want to overplay the entire rest of our range just so we can blow villain off his middle pairs and gutshots when we hold top set.

Do you think adding 3 combos to our calling range is better for us than not baring in mind the damage that does to our raising range.

I think on many dry boards, the EV of flatting top set is higher than the EV of raising top set. I think on this particular board they probably run pretty close together as there are a few draws about.

I'm not really sure what you mean by "damaging" our raising range. It's pretty easy to find a balanced raising range of sets/combo draws and weak equity bluffs here after flatting JJ. I would think that dropping JJ from our raising range on the flop will have a much smaller effect than capping our flatting range on blank (i.e. half the deck) turns/rivers against good aggressive players.

Anyway, as I said before, I think either raising or calling flop is fine. I don't think it's a no brainer either way. I think raising our entire continuing range is pretty much a no brainer no though, especially as we probably only have 5-10 or so combos of legitimate value raising hands here.

Originally Posted by Pelion

Anyway, as I said before, I think either raising or calling flop is fine. I don't think it's a no brainer either way. I think raising our entire continuing range is pretty much a no brainer no though, especially as we probably only have 5-10 or so combos of legitimate value raising hands here.

I mentioned raising our entire flop continuing range and you seemed to disagree, unless I am misinterpreting something...

Originally Posted by caddie444

I mentioned raising our entire flop continuing range and you seemed to disagree, unless I am misinterpreting something...

I don't see why we'd ever do any one line 100% of the time on any board.

So you want to raise 88,99,TT,JT,QJ on this flop?

Originally Posted by caddie444

I mentioned raising our entire flop continuing range and you seemed to disagree, unless I am misinterpreting something...

Yeah, I strongly disagree.

"pretty much a no brainer no though"

k understand now

I realize that raising 100% of our continuing range is not optimal. I guess I was just toying with the idea that if we are raising JJ on this flop, we can add some weaker hands as well.

If villains aren't thinking about our ranges then there is no reason for us to think about them. The recent BC threads are really weird how people talk more about their own ranges than villain's.

Originally Posted by abelardx

If villains aren't thinking about our ranges then there is no reason for us to think about them. The recent BC threads are really weird how people talk more about their own ranges than villain's.

Meh, I agree to a large extent - I don't think balance is necessary or optimal at BC levels. I'm also really in favour of adjusting really quick and approximate based on non-stats reads like limping, minraising all that sort of thing.

What I do think is interesting, and I am doing myself now, is to look at every hand in my own range in different spots, and see how it fits as part of that range, so I'm not really balancing, I'm more looking at which hands work best as bluffs, bluffcatchers, value bets etc.

Also, like Pelion said, let's say we have looked at our own range and figured out that we have a very capped flatting range in a spot, then by strengthening that range, we give ourselves more chances to call down semibluffs and thin value bets from aggressive players. Those aggressive players may not be thinking too much about our range, they might just be semibluffing and thin value betting with roughly sensible frequencies - they aren't necessarily handreading us really well, but we can still improve our play against them by having a flatting range with some strong hands.

Originally Posted by abelardx

If villains aren't thinking about our ranges then there is no reason for us to think about them. The recent BC threads are really weird how people talk more about their own ranges than villain's.

Yeah, I agree to some extent. I never actually played this hand, it's just a spot I've been thinking about from a theory point of view. In actual play at microstakes villains will often be making such obvious and huge errors that I believe we should be making big adjustments early and often to exploit them. Let's not turn this into that other thread debating it though.