Raise and fold on the turn

I enter the game on the big blind and I get a break when the player on my right quits on his small blind. So I post the big blind, one left of the button (and fold to a raise) and that's why I have a small blind on the button on this hand:


I get QJ. The player on my right (RHO) is a new player and he posts. All fold to him and he raises. On another day I might fold here, it being my first button and all, just getting settled in, but having a live small blind on the button attracted more of my chips, and I reraised. Small blind folds, and the big blind calls two cold. RHO calls. It's threeway with me last. We all know each other well.


The flop comes A-10-5 rainbow. They check, I bet, they both call.


The turn pairs the five. The big blind bets out. RHO calls.


What I've noticed in my own play is that if I am in the middle, as the RHO is here, and I call the turn bet, and now the last player raises, I almost never call. There are so very few hands I could have that I would not raise the turn with, and then call a raise with from the last player. I've also noticed time and time again that others fold to this kind of raise as well, coming from the last player, who raises on the turn after a non-raised flop.


Typically if anyone calls this turn raise, it's the first player, in this case, the big blind. And because of how this particular player plays, I know that his turn bet could be done with a range of hands. It could be a "this is my last money in the pot" bet, with, say, a pocket pair.


So, on the turn, I raised, feeling good about my chances of taking the pot right there.


The big blind folded like a shot. RHO thinks for a moment, which often means trouble, and finally he reraises. Now it's my turn to fold like a shot, comforted slightly by RHO's tendency to show uncalled hands when uncalled for. He shows A-5, full house.


My afterthoughts were to give credit to RHO for a very smooth call on the turn, and to myself for staying alert to a rare opportunity. Comments?


Tommy

Comments?


Are you crazy? Or just a great poker player?


Vince

The problem I see me is that it is very unlikely the guy in the middle doesn't have an ace. If he is a reasonable player, how can he call the turn with a hand like JJ. It just reeks of an ace that is scared. I don't try to move many people off top pair, but people tell me it can be done.

Preflop, if you are going to play, then 3-betting is absolutely right in this situation. My preference is to fold queen-jack offsuit rather than pay 3 full bets to take a flop with it. You are a dog to king-high.


Having 3-bet preflop, of course you bet the flop when checked to. It is common courtesy to give your opponents a chance to fold and end this before anyone gets hurt. But when you get called by both opponents, you know you are beat, playing a gutshot in many cases, to win.


Your logic and subsequent play on the turn when it goes bet then call is simply beyond me. I guess you play people and I play cards. Perhaps the "right answer" is somewhere in between. In my book, you have an easy fold now. You are almost certainly reduced to playing a gutshot and would require about 22 small bets in the pot to merit playing on and this assumes you win 100% of the time when you hit. Raising is simply obscene.


"My afterthoughts" are that you blew off two big double bets here. I hope it was worth it to you.

Aren't you the guy that told me that Tommy Angelo is a great poker player? What gives?


Vince

Well, Vince I guess a great poker player can afford to piss away a couple of bets once and awhile. Great players think at much higher levels I have been told. I have been reviewing some hands Stu Ungar played and they certainly mystify me. But everyone tells me that Stuey was the greatest player ever, so what do I know?

"The problem I see is that it is very unlikely the guy in the middle doesn't have an ace. If he is a reasonable player, how can he call the turn with a hand like JJ."


And likewise, how could he not raise the turn with an ace? I thought he had worse than JJ. Second pair tops, and maybe not even that, maybe a gutshot like I had, given the way he played the flop and when he just called on the turn. That's why when he triple-slowplayed and finally made a move by reraising the turn, I was sure enough that he had a full house to not even think about trying to catch my straight.


"I don't try to move many people off top pair,..."


Me either. It might seem like it sometimes but that's not from overplaying, it's from undertrusting.


Tommy

Glad you replied, Jim.


"Preflop, if you are going to play, then 3-betting is absolutely right in this situation. My preference is to fold queen-jack offsuit rather than pay 3 full bets to take a flop with it."


Well, it was a mere 2.5 bets (with my live small blind money on the button) and I did happen to be suited. And the guy who had open-raised preflop had posted. Would that change your mind? Even with all that, I still think folding is okay. The small blind money is what tipped the scales at the time.


(I guess I should mention suitedness or not. I leave it out when it doesn't come into play. Bad posting policy?)


"You are a dog to king-high."


I don't think so. Give the posting raiser K-x suited, a hand this guy would openraise with, and I like havine QJ because I overlay his lower card twice, and if we both miss and I play it right, I win.


"Having 3-bet preflop, of course you bet the flop when checked to. It is common courtesy to give your opponents a chance to fold and end this before anyone gets hurt. But when you get called by both opponents, you know you are beat, playing a gutshot in many cases, to win."


Hmmm. I don't know I'm beat yet on the flop unless you mean beat by king-high and I don't count that. Let's just talk decent midlimit players in general, which both opponents on this hand were. Don't they tend to bet or checkraise with a ten or an ace on this flop? When neither opponent breathes at the flop, and the board now pairs the five on the turn, if they check to you, don't you like your chances of betting and winning the pot? I do. I don't think the fact that I happen to have queen-high matters anymore when a routine bet-the-flop-and-bet-the-turn-and-take-it situation arises, does it?


"Your logic and subsequent play on the turn when it goes bet then call is simply beyond me."


I've given much thought to this precise situation because of trends I've noticed in my play and others. The situation is, three players, and the player who is last to act had been the final aggressor on the flop, meaning, it went either check-check-bet-call-call on the flop, or, bet-call-raise-call-call.


Both these situations suggest trepidation to me. Now, on the turn, the first player bets out, and the second player just calls. So far the third player hasn't promised much. But when the third player raises the turn, this, to me, screams monster, as in real big. As one of the other players, I will fold some mighty strong hands here. And I see players who rarely bet and/or call a turn bet and then fold on the same round fold in these spots, and rightly so.


What I noticed is how often I win the pot right there, raising on the turn, last to act. Thing, is, I usually have such a big hand that I wish they would call! So now what I've been doing is raising in situations like this: I've got A-x and an ace flops. They check and call the flop, and on the turn, the first player bets out and the second one calls. I'll go ahead and raise with just top pair and I think it shows huge strength because I'm protected by their being two players, and it's amazing how often they fold, or at most one player calls, allowing the usual check-check on the river if I want, as if it had been a heads up turn raise.


Jim, tell me I'm not totally out to lunch here!


Tommy

But Tommy, they are checking to you on the flop because you are the preflop 3-bettor marked with a good hand. They don't know you like to pump the pot on air. They are not getting off their top pair but they will show some respect and simply check-call you. That is why you bet the flop so you get to see what happens. When you get called in both spots, you have to realize you are beat and the guy with a top pair of aces is not going anywhere.


When the big blind comes out betting after the board pairs small and he gets called by the other guy, the show is over for you. After getting called on the flop, you were hoping to hit your gutshot or get a free ride to the river. Neither of these things happened. Now is the time to duck out of this and save your remaining chips for the next hand.

"But Tommy, they are checking to you on the flop because you are the preflop 3-bettor marked with a good hand."


Just for fun I'll try to narrow down where we disagree.


If it's right for a player who posts behind the button to open-raise with many marginal hands, doesn't it then become reasonable for an aggressive button player (me) to reraise him with hands as weak as QJ? If yes, that it's reasonable, then doesn't it continue to be reasonable for the button to bet when checked to on the flop, especially with an ace on board? (I'm pretty sure we agree so far.)


So, when they check the flop to me, it could be for one of three reasons, they have nothing, or one of them plans to checkraise with an ace (or maybe any pair), or they want to checkcall with a gutshot. I don't think either player would checkcall the flop with top pair. And I think that's where all other disagreement comes from.


I wonder if you were to pretend that we agree that neither of them flopped an ace, if the turn raise would still be a hopeless waste of chips.


(I wasn't trying to get an ace to fold when I raised the turn. A ten, which is the best I thought they might have, yes, I thought either or both players was sufficiently likely to fold a ten on the turn (plus their no-pair hands and pocket pair hands) to justify the turn raise.)


Tommy

"If it is right for a player who posts behind the button to open-raise with many marginal hands, doesn't it seem reasonable to reraise with hands as weak as QJ."


No. These are two entirely different situations. When everyone folds to you and you have posted a late position blind, you are raising because: 1) No one has shown any strength, 2)you are getting 2.5-to-1 pot odds on your raise, and 3) You may get the button to fold since the button's pot odds have been reduced from 2.5-to-1 to 1.75-to-1 and he knows he cannot win the pot outright regardless of what he does.


In this situation, someone has shown some strength. While it is true the raiser may have a wider range of hands than normal because of his position and the situation, he still can have a premium hand which badly dominates yours or a wide range of hands that are simply much better than yours. Furthermore, it is costing more money and you are playing against at least one person who has a better hand than you in all likelihood. Finally, you have no chance of winning the pot outright by 3-betting. You are probably going to have to make the best hand in order to win the pot.


"..doesn't it continue to be reasonable for the button to bet the flop when checked to on the flop, especially with an ace on board.?"


Of course. But that is because you have represented a better hand than what you have and you can represent a top pair of aces with credibility. By betting the flop you are giving yourself a chance to win the pot outright for one small bet. This will happen often enough at this stage for betting the flop to be correct. How players would react holding a top pair of aces in the face of a preflop 3-bettor is highly debateable. Some would bet out. Some would check-raise. Some might simply check-call all the way hoping to get you to bet off your chips with a worse hand and they are hoping to minimize thier loss when the 3-bettor has a better ace. Who knows?


But you are really trying to "throw a rock and then run" which is okay. But to sit there and stubbornly keep dumping money in the pot in a desperate attempt to get a better hand to fold doesn't feel right to me.


As an aside, there is an outside chance the turn bettor has made trip fives and is simply betting his hand.

I can't think of any examples just now, but I can remember remembering many situations in both draw and hold 'em where I thought a guy either had a wing-and-a-prayer, i.e., very little or less, or a monster monster. We tend to remember when they have the monster monsters but the vast majority of the time they have snow.


I think this might be one of those situations. I think your logic was, to quote skp, splendid. Very unlikely BB has a hand with a 5 in it since he called two cold pre-flop. And since the guy in the middle only check-called the flop and then checked again, it is reasonable to assume he's got the wing-and-a-prayer. This just happenend to be one of the times he had the monster monster.


The only flaw in your argument might be (with an emphasis on might ) that although you do indeed fold to this kind of raise a lot because

there are very few hands you would not yourself raise with that you could call a raise, maybe others don't fold quite as often as you think in this situation. However, you say you know RHO very well so benefit of the doubt to you here for sure.


The most diappointing part of this thread, despite the intelligent poker discussion between you and Jim, is that no one has seen fit to comment on your comment that "Now it's my turn to fold like a shot, comforted slightly by RHO's tendency to show uncalled hands when uncalled for." Splendid sentence throughout.