10-20: Trouble brewing on the flop!

One limper to me 3 off the button. I raise with AcQd. Cutoff, who had posted, calls, button folds and blinds come along. 5 to the flop.


Flop: 7c Ts Jc Checked to me, I bet. Button folds, SB raises, BB 3-bets. Limper folds and now its on me.


Your play?

It looks like you're drawing to a 5-outer (3 Kings and runner-runner clubs) with someone possibly having a redraw to a full-house.


There are 8 big bets in the pot. You've got to call 1 big bet with the possibility of it getting 4-bet behind you.


Hell, I don't need to do the math here. I'd fold. You're beat by something and probably drawing very slim.

You're getting 4-1, and the SB may still make it 4 bets. You have 3-4 clean outs with a king, assuming you're not up against 2 clubs. An ace or queen could easily make a second place hand. You're 25-1 to hit a runner-runner nut flush that will be expensive to draw to. The BB might have Q-K or a pair to the 10 with a club draw, but most likely has at least 2 pair. Fold.

Fold. It is very easy to get into a compounding error situation with this hand by catching an Ace or a Queen, which may well help your one of your opponents more than it helps you. Your only clean out is a king; the king of clubs could make a flush (albeit giving you a redraw), and even a non-club king would still leave an opponent holding clubs with a redraw.

You never mentioned the skill level of your opponents, or their playing styles so I'm going to take a wild shot in the dark and tell you how I read it Mr Clarkmeister. SB has AJo, BB has two pair KJ. The K is most likely a club.


Or something like that. One of them has you beat at the moment, quite likely both of them do.


I think you should fold. Or, if you're feeling frisky and real clever and want to give 'em a glimpse of your walnuts, reraise.


I'd fold but I'm a long term loser. Best of luck to you. LTL

I think this is an easy call, given the size of the pot. The SB doesn't rate to have anything better than a pair most of the time given his play to eliminate the BB on the flop, which means you are unlikely to face any more raises from him and are getting 8:1 to see a J or club on the turn, completely ignoring the fact that an A or Q might suffice as well. If the BB is reasonable he doesn't have much either, as the most sensible play with a big hand for him is to wait until the turn to raise, which gives the preflop raiser a chance to hit an overcard and extracts more money from the SB. His play to eliminate Clark with a reraise on the flop says he may be afraid of an overcard, which is further indication he may not really be all that strong.


I would guess these guys are in there with pairs and/or draws, of which every conceivable combo is available on this flop. If you are feeling a little frisky, it might not be a bad play to put in the 4th bet yourself and go for a free turn card (which also gives you the information you might need to fold if you finish with a pair and get played at). If I recall correctly, Mason wrote an essay on what a check reraiser on the flop might hold, and he concluded that it's usually not a very strong hand.

why you not take a free card

With 2 clubs on board I'd peel one off. One of your opponents could have a big hand because of the 2 flush and decided to play it fast now. A club on the turn might slow down the action.

I think the position you put yourself in is an easy fold. However, i think the flop could have been played differently. You have one person after you that you don't know much about, since he just posted. I know you raised preflop, but you are not REQUIRED to bet the flop. Ideally, the poster would bet, a few folds, you check-raise and the poster would lay down his hand. UNLESS someone has a strong hand, which you would also find out quickly. if you check, poster bets behind you, and someone in early position check-raises him, that's a different story than when you get check-raised. I would have put you on AK or AQ and check-raised you with AJ or KJ. If they don't care who they are check-raising, they probably have a powerful hand, so you could have saved yourself a bet and a sticky situation by knuckling it to hte poster on the flop. That's just my opinion which is like my asshole, sometimes it stinks and sometimes it blows.

Mikey f

fold. I can eke out a call based on pot odds, but

there could be another raise.


I would stay out of this raising war.

Why in heaven's name did you bet that flop, into a crowd? You very likely don't have the best hand, and a three-outer to the nut straight and a virtual two-outer to the nut flush don't comprise the likely best draw. The flop is coordinated, and in the playing zone.


Check, and hope to get a free card. Any club on the turn means you're going to see the river, and you might catch your miracle king.

Gee - I'm surprised to see so much interest in this post. This is the least interesting post that Clarkmeister has put up in my memory (they're usually quite good).


You call. You've got three outs to the nuts, and if the Kc clubs comes, you either have the nuts or seven outs to the nuts. You don't like it if it goes five bets on the flop, but you call the raises.


Furthermore, the general landscape around this decision isn't particularly interesting either. If you don't have the Ac, you're done. If the board is rainbow, the call is easy (your king could easily put you ahead of a straight and a set). If the board pairs on the turn, you're done, even if you picked up the flush draw.


Ho-hum, next case.


Regards, Lee

I'm even more surprised that so many want to fold on the flop after the reraise. Given all the dissent, I think the post is not so uninteresting after all. What do you think of putting in the 4th bet yourself to try and get to the river for free?

I don't know who I agree with, thats why I posted it.


I do think that it is much closer than people think between calling and folding. I am very surprised that only Coilean and Lee think that calling (or maybe 4-betting) is correct.


I also can see the case to be made for checking the flop. But my preferred method in these cases is to bet and take the free card on the turn. Also, I hate taking the freebie, hitting an ace on the turn, and getting checkraised because I never bothered to find out if someone flopped top pair, top kicker.


The problem is that frequently the 3-bettor is 3-betting precisely because he knows I have a slew of outs against him. I would guess that many times either the A or Q is live here as well as the K. If you were the BB, wouldn't you 3-bet with AJ, KJ or QJ to get out the big overcards, or maybe even bully out an overpair? I sure would.


I think this is much closer than most seem to think.

I think one of your overcards is an out often enough to make this a fairly routine call given the now bloated pot. Guys making raises designed to knock players out are usually trying to protect a pair, which means you are more worried about sharing side cards (e.g. QJ or AJ) than about facing two pair (or better) already.

I called, SB called. 3 to the turn with 9.5BBs in the pot.


Turn: [7c Ts Jc] 9c


SB checks, BB bets. Those who advocated folding will love the fact that I hit my best possible non-king card and I *still* have a tough choice.


Call or raise?

Now I would raise. King or a club, plus the occasional stray ace give you outs.

Plus you might win the pot right there.

Think I would've called on the flop, and now, hitting my backdoor flush draw, in addition to my straight draw and overcards, I'd raise. I doubt the BB was on clubs, but why don't we just find out, eh?! Same for the SB...if he's planning to check-raise with a completed club draw, you still have outs against him. If he doesn't, he probably doesn't call and you've got it heads up against the BB...if he folds thinking you've made your hand, fine. If he calls or raises, you still have outs. I like this play even more if you've got a tight-aggressive image at the table.


Back to battle,


Riker

I called the turn. The SB called and we went 3-way to the river for 12.5BBs.


Final board: [7c Ts Jc 9c] 6d.


Checked around.


Once I check, BB flips over 8h9d for the flopped straight and takes it down.


Thought I was faced with a lot of marginal choices on this one and wasn't comfortable with my play of the hand on the flop and turn. Don't know if it was poor play, I just thought that at the very least it was questionable. Thanks for the feedback and ideas.

Once you look at the results, you will see that your idea of 4-betting the flop for a free turn was the "results oriented" best play.


I wish we could get some others to debate the pros and cons of that flop 4-bet. Calling could easily be the worst option on the flop.

What I found most disturbing about the "Fold" school was the comment (that I saw at least twice), "You're beaten - fold." That's fuzzy thinking ((TM) Slansky). First, even if you think your ace or queen outs don't count, you might not be sure enough, given that you only have to be wrong one out of eight times. And two, 8:1 is just about plenty giving that you're drawing to the nuts against what might be big hands.


I don't like putting in the fourth bet because Clark lives in the bizarro-world of Vegas which permits collu^H^H^H^H^Hfive bets. If he four-bets and it gets five-bet, he's sorry he four-bet. And he's building a big pot that might force him to stay in with the above-mentioned marginal outs of an ace or queen. If I had AcQc I'd four-bet in a nanosecond and hope it got capped, but this is a little too slim for my tastes.


Having written that paragraph, I'll add this caveat: if it's a bunch of folks who will freak because he puts in the fourth bet (i.e. because it's Vegas and not California) and give him a free river card even if the turn is blank, then it might be worth it. And I might try it in California because we have a four-bet cap and they can't be completely sure what I'm up to at that point.


But calling in the first place is not the least bit marginal, IMHO. Pay a little attention to implied odds and this is a drop-dead easy call.


Regards, Lee

You had 14 outs on the turn. You missed /images/frown.gif

He rides in to prop up my ego at just the right time!


AcQc wouldn't have been posted. I would have capped, steamed it through, missed and said "oh well".


But in this case, I honestly came out of the hand with no real clue how I should have played it.

Raising is out of the question. Do you think you're going to win this pot without the best hand? Any eight is a straight, and if there are only three clubs on the board, that straight is going to call (and should). Any made flush is going to call. This is not no-limit (or Omaha) and you can't put the "naked ace of trump" play on them.


You've got a lot of outs - maybe nine, maybe seven, whatever. Get your ego (I typed something else first) off the table and call.


I was about to say that your only difficulty is if an eight or king comes without the club. But I think you call one bet there and fold to two cold.


Regards, Lee

I guess the only part that surprises me is that the BB didn't bet the river - what a wuss.


Before and after watching this whole progression, I'm absolutely persuaded that not only did you play it correctly, but any alternative is substantially poorer. And I don't usually think it's that cut and dried about most hands that are posted here. Definitely not yours.


Regards, Lee

There may be 14 outs. A double gutshot plus a club. Maybe raise is overaggressive, but the turn

is an excellent scare card.

You'll scare the best hand right into calling.


Regards, Lee

Thanks.


FWIW, the Girlfriend loves your book. I'm hand-picking her literature and yours is the first book I'm letting her read from cover to cover. (I had her read the first few "Poker FAQ" chapters in Carson's book, then transfer to yours for actual play advice.)


OK, enough of the love-fest.

The only thing to recommend a raise is that you might blow the SB off QJ or AJ and create a few extra outs for yourself. But that requires a kind of parlay that hitting a pair will beat the BB and that the SB holds one of those hands, which I think is not worth it given you open the door to a reraise (although that shouldn't be too likely given you hold the club trump). There's no way you are buying this pot. Just call and pray for a club.

I remain convinced that your best play on the flop would have been to check when the action was checked to you.


Having bet, and seeing both a check-raise and a check-reraise, I am very much not in love with my three-outer-plus-backdoor-nut-flush-draw.


Calling in that spot is marginal IF you don't think the small blind is going to reraise. By marginal I mean *marginal* -- the odds the pot is laying pretty close to exactly the fair price for continuing to play.


I really don't like reraising in that spot. In Las Vegas it gives the big blind, the presumed 900-pound gorilla given the action on the flop, the opportunity to cap.


Suppose you had checked on the flop, and the button bet. Small blind raises and big blind reraises. Now you're only getting 5:1 on an 8:1 proposition, and it's an easy laydown.


The only reason that calling the additional two bets is reasonable is because you got suckered into paying three bets on the installment plan. The flop SCREAMS "don't bet into me!" There are simply too many possible holdings any of the players ahead of you might have that either have you badly beat on the flop or drawing fairly thin.

You've got real draws to the nuts, but they aren't strong draws. Sure you're the preflop raiser, but the guy holding AJ, the guy holding TJ, the guy holding 98, and the guy holding Tc9c would all be expecting you to bet and each one of them would be delighted to check-raise you.


Don't put yourself in the position of having to call a double-checkraise like that. In a crowd of five players, your hand is worth either a check-and-call or a check-and-fold, depending on how heavy the action is after you check.


In a smaller field, it would be another matter. Heads up, the bet is automatic. It's a reasonable bet against two opponents. Against three, maybe you ought to slow down. Against four opponents, you definitely ought to be thinking about taking the offered free card on the flop instead of the turn.

I agree that being 5 bet is not much fun, but I disagree it forces you to hang in there if you hit an A or Q. Quite the opposite, I think it lets you escape if you hit the A or Q as the action now says 1 pair is no good (maybe with the freak exception of someone jamming a monster draw like KcQc). If the action stops at 3 bets on the flop, I think you are left more in the dark about whether pairing can win. I feel like the information gained is going to outweigh your increased pot odds in the you-make-a-pair scenario.

Fold on the flop and stay out of trouble--great post.