Top Pair, Rotten Kicker in the Big Blind

Binion's Horseshoe $15-$30 game last Monday, not terribly long before I had to leave to catch my plane.


I'm in the big blind, as the subject line says, holding K6o. Four other players limp in, small blind folds, I knuckle the table.


The flop comes K 7 3 rainbow. I've got top pair with an absolutely sucky kicker, plus a lot of players in the hand. I check to see where I'm at.


It's checked around to the last player to act, in the cutoff seat. He bets.


If I were facing a single bet from a player in earlier position, I might check-and-call or check-and-fold. But I will often check-raise a bet from the last player to act, hoping he's trying to take the pot down with A7 or 88 or something like that. If he's got a hand like KT? Well, I still have outs.... So I check-raise. The players between us drop out of the way, and he calls.


I spike my miracle card on the turn: the diamond six, giving me two pair and putting two diamonds on the board (the other diamond is the king). I bet, the cutoff seat calls.


River is the diamond ten, making a runner-runner flush possible (but if my opponent started with Kx he wouldn't have a flush). I decide that I'm more likely to get a call from a worse hand than a better one, so I bet. My opponent calls. He's got KTo, and spiked a better two pair on the river.


Did I play this one badly? Did I play it well and just get unlucky? Comments wanted.


Top pair, weak kicker in the blind has always been a tricky hand for me to play. I'm including a link to an old r.g.p. post of mine about it; the responses I got, particularly Abdul Jalib's and Dan Negreanu's, have a lot of impact about how I currently play such hands.

The only thing I would have done differently is not bet the river. I can't think of any hands your opponent would play on the button, call the whole way, and not beat you with.


If he didn't have you beat, there's nothing he could have that would justify a call on the end.


DC

I can't think of any hands your opponent would play on the button, call the whole way, and not beat you with.


KJo is very possible. I probably wouldn't raise pre-flop with KQo so that's possible too. And, I'd at least call down with both.


I think Alan played the hand perfectly including the river bet.

I think you played the hand fine, and I think you are pretty much spot on with your thinking. You have to at least test the player who takes a stab from it on the button. If someone leads into the field from early position with that ragged board, then I would tend to favor folding on the flop (or sometimes taking a card off depending upon the pot size and exact circumstances).


I also think you were absolutely correct to bet the river. Once your opponent calls you on the turn it is reasonable to put him on a king, so you would expect to get paid off. If he bets, you have to call, so you don't save anything by checking.

With KJ or KQ, I put in one more raise on the flop if I'm the late-position bettor, for the very purpose of stopping the possible Kx in the blind.


The fact that there wasn't another raise on the flop indicates (to me, at least) that my opponent probably wasn't on a big King.


DC

Yes, and every other hold'em player on the planet thinks exactly like you do, so it is wise to assume that because you would do this they would also.