Five-handed $15/30 hand

I have just joined the game on a Monday morning. Everyone else has been playing all night. I've played a few orbits and have been seeing a lot of 52o, T3o, so I haven't been able to get involved much yet. I think that I have the appearance of not adjusting at all from my regular ring game strategy. There is a young woman who also seems to be playing too tight for a five-handed game.


I get KQo under the gun and raise. Only the blinds call. The woman mentioned above is in the small blind. The flop comes something to the general effect of Q94r. In any event, it is Queen-high and ragged. SB checks, BB checks, I bet, she raises, BB folds, I three-bet. Turn is a 7 or something. She checks, I bet, she calls. River is a Q. She bets out, I raise, and she calls. Comments?

Well played.

I don't understand why you raised her on the river. Based on her betting up to that point, she could have had a JT, in which case there would be no point in raising. On the other hand, if she had a hand good enough to call your raise, you're not likely to be in good shape. A raise would make sense if you had a good enough hand that you would be likely to beat most of the hands she would call you with, or a bad enough hand that she might lay down a better hand. Here it seems likely she would lay down a worse hand or call with a better hand. Based on how you had been playing, she'd have to be pretty much of a dolt to put you on a hand worse than KQ, so it's hard to imagine you were raising for value. What hand did you put her on, and why did you raise?


I'm also curious as to why you played the flop and turn as you did. That would make sense if you put her on a draw or lower pair or Qx with bad kicker. But again, she'd have to be a pretty poor player to put you on a hand worse than KQ given that you hadn't been playing any hands, raised UTG, led out and re-raised on the flop. So to play the way she did, she would either have to have a draw (in which case your play makes sense at the flop and turn, but not on the river), a hand that could beat yours (in which case your play on the river and turn doesn't make sense), or be stupid (in which case your play might make sense).

"I've played a few orbits and have been seeing a lot of 52o, T3o, so I haven't been able to get involved much yet."


I'm a bit surprised by this statement. You see a lot of crap hands, and that is the reason why you havent been involved much. If I see a lot of crap hands, I would be much more tempted to isolate with weaker range hands than I normally would.


"In any event, it is Queen-high and ragged."


A Q94r board isnt ragged. It's fairly well coordinated with even an open ended straight possibilty and more gutshot possibilities. I see lots of differences between a Q94 or a Q84 board.


For the play of the hand: Preflop default play and flop bet is standard.


Then after her check-raise there are more possibilities. Would she check-raise here with a draw that would most likely get the other player out? If so, she would most likely also bet the turn, because her reasons would probably be that she feels that she could pick up the pot with a turn bet. Furthermore, if she has a weaker queen (which is likely, since AQ would probably 3-bet preflop), than why slow here down here by 3-betting. Also with a draw she would go in check-call mode unimproved. You also give away your hand here if she's being aggressive with 2nd pair or a medium pocket pair. I would just call the raise here, and planning to raise the turn; putting maximum pressure on a draw and most likely will still get paid of by top pair weaker kicker. Even lots of players will pay of with less, if you're knows to be tricky with draws. Remember that it's shorthanded.


Turn play is obvious the way you played the flop.


On the river you should raise as you did. She most likely has a weaker queen and will pay you of with that. You will win more than 50% to make that raise a value bet IMO.


Regards

Nice post.


Since he said she was a tight player herself, and he hadn't been playing any hands (which would make him appear tight, even if he's not), my thinking would be that she would put him on hand that would beat Q/weak kicker. But your analysis makes sense. The hand you would be most worried about, AQ, would most likely have been 3 bet.


Her leading out on the river is the hardest part to figure out. That would be typical of a missed draw trying a last chance bluff. Or a good hand masquerading as a missed draw (she'd have to be a good player to think of this). I suppose another possibility is she had Q/weak kicker and hoped a sudden show of strength would get him to lay down a better hand, and then when he raised, she called because she was afraid she might have the best hand.

I think that her bet on the river typically indicates a weak queen, and most times not a missed draw or something since a river bet would almost never win it here against even the smallest pairs; they will all call. IMO she suddenly sees that queen appear on the river, and she concludes (mistakenly) that her hand has gone up in strength (she's only partly right, because the chance that he holds a queen has mathematically gone down, but her read should indicate to her that he has a good queen). So she doesnt want the river go check-check if he has a medium pair or something, and thinks it's a value bet, not a bet to lay him down a better hand IMO. I would be surprised if she has another hand than a weaker queen, and would be eager to hear the results if I'm right or wrong. I am mostly so sure of this read because of the riverbet, and if I'm wrong I might have to do some thinking ;-)


Regards

What you're saying crossed my mind. This would be in the "stupid" option I laid out. QQ with weak kicker loses to QQQ with better kicker, and QQ beats medium pair just as much as QQQ does. So the Q couldn't possibly help her, unless she was against 2 pair. So maybe that's a possibility. Maybe she was afraid of 2 pair, and now that she has a set, she's afraid he won't bet, so she bets out.


Another possibility would be if she had AQ and didn't raise it pre-flop. Then her play would have been quite skillful (from the flop on).


I've seen that bet-bluff tried on the river, but it's usually to a board that's more obviously a drawing board, where an inferior draw can beat another drawing hand.

If she has JT, I don't gain anything by betting the river, but I don't lose anything by betting either. I don't think she would have check-raised a draw. The big blind would (and did on a later hand). I had her on a weaker Queen the whole way. AQ would three-bet before the flop in a five-handed game, right? When she only called the flop three-bet, I felt that she thought that either she had kicker problems or I had an overpair. When the second Queen hit the board, it makes an overpair more likely, so she bet for value.

O.K. Thanks for the explanation.


If she had a Q with a weak kicker, and thought you had an overpair, why didn't she fold when you 3 bet her? (This is a rhetorical question). If I had a Q/weak kicker, and someone who chips were getting dusty all of a sudden starts betting strongly, it would be hard for me to put him on a hand worse than mine. If you had been playing other hands, that would be a different story. I guess I was giving her too much credit.

I think you misunderstood. I was dealt a lot of crap hands, and while I am usually pretty loose and very aggressive in short-handed games, this does not extend to T3o.


Your point about the texture of the board is well-taken.


I tend to play most of my hands fast, and while waiting until the turn to pop her might make me an extra half-bet, that isn't my usual MO.

"If she had a Q with a weak kicker, and thought you had an overpair, why didn't she fold when you 3 bet her?"


At this point, the pot is big enough for her to try to suck out, I believe.

To my considerable surprise, she had AQ. I had played with this woman once before, and in that game, which was a full game (actually we both started at $8/16 and moved to $15/30), she had shown down some less-than-stellar values. I shared the hand with a friend, expressing surprise that she hadn't three-bet pre-flop with AQ, and he wasn't surprised at all.

If I counted right, at the flop there were 15 SB in the pot. It's about 7-1 against her helping on the turn, so she would have odds to take a card if she were very confident you had an overpair. On the turn, assuming you bet, there would be 8.5 BB, so once again she has odds to take another card.


However, assuming she has Q/small kicker, she's in big trouble if you have Q/bigger kicker (and even worse trouble if you have QQ). If we assume there's a 50/50 chance you have overpair vs. Q/higer kicker, there's no way she can take a card. There's too much chance she's drawing dead or nearly drawing dead. She can catch the card she's hoping for, and still lose (which looks to be what happened), so she should have folded.


It looks like you did a nice job reading her.

She played the hand very well, although it looks like it may have been by luck. In many games it turns out the expert and lesser player make the same play, but for different reasons.


An expert could play the hand the way she did to get more bets out of you by playing deceptively. It looks like she got you to over-bet by accident, by not re-raising pre-flop out of passivity rather than misdirection.


That was a very interesting hand. Glad you posted it.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.


I dont say a turnraise is usual, but in this situation I think it´s the best play. But in general, I think that shorthanded play is a game full of deception and large parts of your profit comes from let opponents make incorrect laydowns or let them incorrectly call (duh).


But the way to do that is often wait to the turn IMO, because there are lots of hands to raise the flop with, but far less to raise the turn. Therefore IMO you need to add more hands to raise the turn with, to add far more deception to your turnraise. To do it only with draws or very big hands (two pair or better) is not the way to go IMO. So, I think that this situation is an excellent one to add deception to a general turnraise. Because of this, better players will more often call down (and you will be harder to read), and lesser players will probably not notice the difference because they dont adjust properly (and the situations added are probably not significant enough for them).


Another advantage is that a meak flop call when bet into means far less than if you almost always fastplay the flop. So, in general, I believe that against lesser players you will be able to make the same moves as if you fastplayed, but against better, observant players, you will often be able to extract an extra SB. In shorthanded, with lots of hands played in an hour, I think these maybe seemingly small edges (because it´s even debatable if it´s more profitable, but I strongly believe so) add lots to your winrate. Shorthanded is the game of taking every small edge you can.


But there´s ofcourse one very important consideration. That is, make these turnraises if you have position. Playing position well is probably the most important part in shorthanded hold´em, and possibly the hardest part too completely master.


Regards

A very important fact to keep in mind; so count AQ next time in when making your read. I still think though that your river raise is a good one, because I still believe that you will win more than 50% of the times when you are called.


Regards

You played it exactly as I would. Hey Andy, my nick on Paradise is Rounder07. I can't remember, but are you the one that knocked me out in the semifinals of last year's heads up tourney ?


Enrique

Hey Rounder,


Yes, that was me. I've survived Day 1 of this year's tournament. Sorry to see that you probably won't be around tomorrow.