Nut Flush Draw; 3-Bet Turn Against a vTAG

[Catt]

After approximately 60 hands,

MP1 is LP-P (VP$IP 36.6%, PFR 4.1%; TotAG 0.40%; WentSD 36%) – although passive, doesn’t get to showdowns much so I think he’s folding on the turn or river frequently without a made hand.

Villain is vTA-A (VP$IP 12.8%, PFR 6.5%; TotAG 3.1%; WentSD 21%)

Party Poker 1/2 Hold'em (8 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A/images/graemlins/spade.gif, 4/images/graemlins/spade.gif.
UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, MP1 calls, CO folds, <font color="#CC3333">Button raises</font>, SB calls, Hero calls, MP1 calls.

Flop: (8 SB) T/images/graemlins/spade.gif, J/images/graemlins/spade.gif, A/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="#0000FF">(5 players)</font>
SB checks, <font color="#CC3333">Hero bets</font>, MP1 calls, <font color="#CC3333">Button raises</font>, SB folds, Hero calls, MP1 calls.

Turn: (7 BB) 3/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(4 players)</font>
Hero checks, MP1 checks, <font color="#CC3333">Button bets</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises</font>, MP1 folds, <font color="#CC3333">Button 3-bets</font>, Hero calls.

My turn thinking: raise for value. I put Villain on AA – TT, AK – AJ suited or off, KQ suited or off (possibly any suited broadways, but a fair deal less likely in my mind), meaning I’m behind to almost all hands. I have 9 outs to the nut flush (with a small chance that the 9/images/graemlins/spade.gif completes a straight flush for Villain) meaning I have 4 to 1 to improve on the river. The pot is laying 8 to 1 on Villain’s bet, I suspect MP1 may not stick around even for 1 bet if I just call, so I go ahead and check-raise. Making it two bets on the turn still lays 4.5 to 1 to me for my 4 to 1 draw and may induce Villain to believe I’m playing TP dominated, encouraging action on the river.

When Villain 3-bets me, my pot odds end up at only 3.3 to 1 for the turn, but I can’t lay this down for one more bet.

What do you think of my turn raise? A mistake, given that a 3-bet wrecks my drawing odds and action from Villain may dry up on the river if a spade falls? A neutral play – call or raise makes little difference given the action thus far? Or a good aggressive play by me (countered by another good aggressive play from Villain)?

Thanks.

[davelin]

I'd 3-bet the flop. If you think you're behind on the turn, just check/call, you don't have the equity to make this raise.

[K C]

Don't want to sound too critical here, but keep in mind we're talking about a tight player here. Even tighter than I am, and you don't see that much /images/graemlins/smile.gif

This guy only plays the good stuff, and you have to throw away junk like this for sure when you have to cold call a PF raise from a tight player like this. And the only time I'm cold calling a raise with Ace baby is if most of the whole table is in the pot, I'm in LP, and they are all drunk /images/graemlins/smile.gif

I'm not crazy about the bet into the raiser on the flop with only a draw. Sure enough, he raises you, and now you've reduced your pot odds. There's times when you want to bet draws, with people in the pot already and in LP, but not early into a very aggressive previous round raiser.

Check raising on the turn does the same thing. The only real value here is to buy the pot, and honestly, the chances of doing that were mighty slim. Sure enough, he re-raises. You're shooting your pot odds in the foot here. You have to call at this point though, and cross your fingers for a spade at the river.

This sort of play, again, has its advantages when you have some real fold equity to work with. In this hand, I don't see it. Better to slow down I'd say.

KC
http://kingcobrapoker.com

[charlie_t_jr]

It seems your turn c/r is knocking out the player you want to keep in. You should be wanting to collect bets from MP1, while drawing against the suspected made hand of the button.

[charlie_t_jr]

[ QUOTE ]
This guy only plays the good stuff, and you have to throw away junk like this for sure when you have to cold call a PF raise from a tight player like this.

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[ QUOTE ]
Preflop: Hero is BB with A /images/graemlins/spade.gif4 /images/graemlins/spade.gif.

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[Sarge85]

Jam the flop, not the turn.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you put a lot of thought into a hand that doesn't need it. You want to get as many bets in the flop as you can from all players.

On the turn, the CR was weird. Pushing out MP1 was a mistake, because you want his bets to pay you of if you hit.

I think it's safe to say your pair of Aces aren't likely good alone, so your banking on your flush to pay off. There isn't much reason to force MP1 out.

Sarge/images/graemlins/diamond.gif

[Catt]

[ QUOTE ]
Don't want to sound too critical here . . .

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Don't worry about that - if I didn't want criticism and feedback I wouldn't have posted it.

[ QUOTE ]
This guy only plays the good stuff, and you have to throw away junk like this for sure when you have to cold call a PF raise from a tight player like this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Even from the BB (i.e., only one more bet to me) with the SB in and MP1 likely to call the raise?

Thanks.

[Catt]

[ QUOTE ]
On the turn, the CR was weird. Pushing out MP1 was a mistake, because you want his bets to pay you of if you hit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I hear folks on the CR and I considered calling instead, but I felt MP1 was likely folding to even one bet given the limited stats and observation I had on him and the aggression shown in the hand thus far. If MP1 would've stayed in for one bet, this was a bad play by me (and leading out might have trapped MP1 between my bet and a raise from Villain).

Appreciate all feedback.

[davelin]

Your pre-flop call is fine.

[DeathDonkey]

Someone can surely explain it better than me. But your mathematically reasoning on the turn is wrong. Basically its wrong because while the pot is laying you like 8:1 to call or whatever, you can't use those numbers when considering raising. You say yourself you are behind on the turn, and I agree that you are. Raising should not factor into the equation unless you think you will get him to fold a better hand, or you have the best hand. In this case neither is true.

The way to think about math with flush draws is like this. You are getting about 4:1 on the turn to hit a spade on the river. So if you put in one dollar, and 4 opponents also put in one dollar, then you are breaking even on that dolllar and it wouldn't matter if it was one dollar or 100. In this case you only have a value raise on the turn against 4 or more opponents who you expect to call a raise.

Please someone correct me if I'm mistaken about any of this but you are misunderstanding an important concept here. Though you do use a good analysis of said concept to make a decision, which makes me think you will get it figured out quickly and be successful /images/graemlins/smile.gif

-DeathDonkey

[Catt]

[ QUOTE ]
Someone can surely explain it better than me. But your mathematically reasoning on the turn is wrong. Basically its wrong because while the pot is laying you like 8:1 to call or whatever, you can't use those numbers when considering raising. You say yourself you are behind on the turn, and I agree that you are. Raising should not factor into the equation unless you think you will get him to fold a better hand, or you have the best hand. In this case neither is true.

The way to think about math with flush draws is like this. You are getting about 4:1 on the turn to hit a spade on the river. So if you put in one dollar, and 4 opponents also put in one dollar, then you are breaking even on that dolllar and it wouldn't matter if it was one dollar or 100. In this case you only have a value raise on the turn against 4 or more opponents who you expect to call a raise.

Please someone correct me if I'm mistaken about any of this but you are misunderstanding an important concept here. Though you do use a good analysis of said concept to make a decision, which makes me think you will get it figured out quickly and be successful /images/graemlins/smile.gif

-DeathDonkey

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks. This is why the hand is bothering me so much and its such a basic concept I don't know hwo I got off track with it. After I played the hand I was thinking to myself "Why did I raise the turn without considering a 3-bet might come back at me?" As I pondered that, I started thinking "Why did I raise the turn at all? How can this be a raise for value if I'm behind in the hand and he's not folding?" (I wasn't overly worried about knocking out MP1 so much because I figured he was gone already). It just didn't feel right to raise the turn at all, but then I somehow convinced myself that the raise had proper pot odds (which I was thinking when I played the hand . . . late at night . . . after a few beers . . .). Anyway, it just felt like something was seriously off in my play / thinking.

I went in circles for 12 hours because it still felt wrong, but I was so focused on pot odds / implied odds. Hence de-lurking to post!

All the time I was making the very basic error of confusing odds-to-call versus equity-to-bet/raise. POKAR IS EASY!!11!

Thanks for all the feedback.

[SeeWillie]

The call for odds vs. bet/raise for value distinction was probably the first concept explained to many of us budding 2+2ers. Keep hanging around and posting hands, more to come . . .
Bill