ugly KJs from EP

[maynard]

Ok, I'm finally analyzing some old hands, about damn time to post one or two. Here's a typical situation I find myself in - facing a turn raise from a not-too-aggressive opponent with a certain second-best hand, finding a couple outs to call with, then missing and making a crying call on the river in a big pot, but wishing I could find ANY good reason not too. Opponent here is fishy... 52/7/1 in 90 hands.

Party Poker 3/6 Hold'em (9 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with J/images/graemlins/heart.gif, K/images/graemlins/heart.gif.
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, Hero calls, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, MP2 calls, <font color="#CC3333">MP3 raises</font>, <font color="#666666">4 folds</font>, Hero calls, MP2 calls.

Flop: (7.33 SB) 6/images/graemlins/spade.gif, J/images/graemlins/spade.gif, 2/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
Hero checks, MP2 checks, <font color="#CC3333">MP3 bets</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises</font>, MP2 calls, MP3 calls.

Turn: (6.66 BB) Q/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets</font>, MP2 folds, <font color="#CC3333">MP3 raises</font>, Hero calls.

River: (10.66 BB) 9/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
Hero checks, <font color="#CC3333">MP3 bets</font>, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 12.66 BB

[einbert]

Raise preflop.

Fold to the turn raise. I don't think all five of your outs are good enough of the time to call this, especially since he's loose-passive. He could be on QQ, KQ, AQ, to a lesser extent JJ, AJ. Against this range of hands you don't have enough equity to call.

[wrto4556]

[ QUOTE ]
Raise preflop.

[/ QUOTE ]

KJs isn't worth a raise from EP, imo.


[ QUOTE ]

Fold to the turn raise. I don't think all five of your outs are good enough of the time to call this, especially since he's loose-passive. He could be on QQ, KQ, AQ, to a lesser extent JJ, AJ. Against this range of hands you don't have enough equity to call.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with that.

[adamstewart]

Hmmmm...

I'm going to differ from einbert and say that I limp with KJs from EP as well.

I'm also gonna differ and say don't fold to the turn raise. Call it, but fold the river unimproved. (Getting 9.5:1 for calling the turn raise, you have the odds to try to improve to two pair or trips, the odds of which are 8:1).


Adam

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
Raise preflop.

Fold to the turn raise. I don't think all five of your outs are good enough of the time to call this, especially since he's loose-passive. He could be on QQ, KQ, AQ, to a lesser extent JJ, AJ. Against this range of hands you don't have enough equity to call.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Nick C]

I make turn calls like this sometimes too, thinking my ordinarily passive postflop opponent is all of a sudden getting feisty. The "1" in the 52/7/1 is deceptive, after all, since Villain sees so many hands.

Really, though, you need all five outs. Usually you won't have them. How often will you have something like 31 outs instead? Probably not often enough.

I fall into the same trap sometimes myself, though, and find myself calling on the turn hoping to improve and then again on the river hoping my opponent was semi-bluffing and missed.

[einbert]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm going to differ from einbert and say that I limp with KJs from EP as well.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well this is UTG+1 in a 9-handed game. That's only BTN-6. For me KTo is a raise UTG in a 6-handed game, which is BTN-3. I think the logical progression makes this a raise, but I agree that's it's close.
I generally don't like limping first in, I especially hate it when I limp first in and it's folded all the way to the big blind who checks. Makes me feel like I just gave up a profitable blind steal. And if the table is loose, a lot of people will coldcall your raise with dominated hands anyway.

[ QUOTE ]
Call it, but fold the river unimproved. (Getting 9.5:1 for calling the turn raise, you have the odds to try to improve to two pair or trips, the odds of which are 8:1).

[/ QUOTE ]
He does have odds to draw to this, BUT I don't think his outs are always live. A lot of the time villian will have KQ, QQ, or QJ (or possibly a somewhat slowplayed JJ) and against those hands you have less than five outs.

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>Text results appended to pokerstove.txt
1,496 games 0.005 secs 299,200 games/sec
Board: 6s Js 2d Qh
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) / tie (%)
Hand 1: 07.5535 % [ 00.08 00.00 ] { KhJh }
Hand 2: 92.4465 % [ 00.92 00.00 ] { AA-JJ, AQs, KQs, AQo, KQo }</pre><hr />

I'm not entirely sure about that hand range, but I think it somewhat resembles his actual hand range. According to that hand range you would need 13-1 for the call of this raise to be break-even.

Omitting AA, KK from the hand range (though I think they are somewhat possible):

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>Text results appended to pokerstove.txt
1,100 games 0.005 secs 220,000 games/sec
Board: 6s Js 2d Qh
Dead:
equity (%) win (%) / tie (%)
Hand 1: 07.0000 % [ 00.07 00.00 ] { KhJh }
Hand 2: 93.0000 % [ 00.93 00.00 ] { QQ-JJ, AQs, KQs, AQo, KQo }
</pre><hr />

EDIT: Forgot to add QJ to the hand ranges but that obviously just makes things worse for hero.

However, if you throw in the possibility that villian is semibluffing with KT, you have almost 1/3 pot equity and are forced to call down. I think this is very unlikely, however, considering our read.

[adamstewart]

True.

With either of our preflop and turn suggestions, I don't think there's much difference in EV either way.


Adam

[nef]

I would raise with KJs pre-flop here.

Good flop check raise.

To call your opponent down without improving you would need for your hand to be good about 20% of the time. Could your opponent ever have something like As2s, or be bluffing? Also, against some of his hands you have a decent chance to improve.

I think the turn call is easy. You have a pretty good shot at beating some 2-pair combos, he might be raising a worse hand he thinks is good or bluffing, and sometimes he will check the river with a better hand. Personally, in this spot I usually call them down.