A slightly less embarassing QQ hand

[DavidC]

Is there any way to prevent myself from losing my stack here? Just curious. This isn't a bad beat post; it's an area i need to work on.

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Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ BB (10 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

saw flop|<font color="#C00000">saw showdown</font>

<font color="#C00000">BB ($41)</font>
UTG ($27.4)
UTG+1 ($24.1)
UTG+2 ($20.4)
MP1 ($24.53)
<font color="#C00000">MP2 ($0)</font>
MP3 ($24.75)
CO ($46.82)
Button ($7.41)
<font color="#C00000">Hero ($23.25)</font>

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, Q/images/graemlins/club.gif. Hero posts a blind of $0.1.
<font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, UTG+2 calls $0.25, MP1 calls $0.25, <font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero (poster) raises to $0.9</font>, BB calls $0.75, UTG+2 calls $0.75, MP1 calls $0.75.

Flop: ($4) 3/images/graemlins/heart.gif, 7/images/graemlins/spade.gif, 2/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(5 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets $3</font>, BB calls $3, UTG+2 folds, MP1 folds.

Turn: ($10) 2/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets $6</font>, BB calls $6.

River: ($22) 5/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
Hero checks, <font color="#CC3333">BB bets $13.25</font>, Hero calls $13.25 (All-In).

Final Pot: $48.50

[DavidC]

I'm curious if I should check through the turn in order to control the size of the pot.

Also, should I bother calling the river push? I mean, his hand is pretty much defined by the turn.

On the flop, I see my hand as beating JJ and AK. On the turn, I see it beating JJ.

[crazygoose]

Again you would be able to put people on hands easier if you bet more preflop. If against AA or KK they would have reraised preflop. Don't check the turn to give a free card to two hearts or AK, AQ, AJ. Maybe bet like 3/4 the pot on the turn. You look pretty safe by the river here and I think you have to call that.

[DavidC]

[ QUOTE ]
Again you would be able to put people on hands easier if you bet more preflop. If against AA or KK they would have reraised preflop. Don't check the turn to give a free card to two hearts or AK, AQ, AJ. Maybe bet like 3/4 the pot on the turn. You look pretty safe by the river here and I think you have to call that.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right about raising more PF, esp in the SB when you'll have to face tough decisions post-flop.

If I bet 3/4 pot on the turn and he pushes or calls and then pushes the river... I have to call?

The reason I changed this hand to the 5c rather than the Ac was just to make it more cut-and-dried.

--Dave.

[xorbie]

I would check/call the turn and then blocking bet the river.

[DavidC]

[ QUOTE ]
I would check/call the turn and then blocking bet the river.

[/ QUOTE ]

Cool. How much do you guys put into a blocking bet?

On the turn, the pot's 10 and I've got $20 left. He's got me covered.

Let's say I check and he bets 6 and I call.

Now there's 13 in my stack and 22 in the pot.

How much do I block for, and how do I respond to a push? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[xorbie]

In that situation, you may as well push. In general though, if you have more than the pot left on the river, just make a normal sized bet. Half potsize, whatever. Something you can get away from if they come over the top (in a situation that means them coming over the top must be a better hand), but enough so that a lesser hand can call and give you value.

[DavidC]

[ QUOTE ]
In that situation, you may as well push. In general though, if you have more than the pot left on the river, just make a normal sized bet. Half potsize, whatever. Something you can get away from if they come over the top (in a situation that means them coming over the top must be a better hand), but enough so that a lesser hand can call and give you value.

[/ QUOTE ]

In this situation, if I may as well push, should I just checkraise the turn all-in instead of calling and then pushing?

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Thanks for the help on the river betting strategy though. This is an area I need to work on.

--Dave.

[xorbie]

I don't like pushing the turn. Think about it this way. There are no real draws out there. The hands that are behind you, are drawing to a max of five outs (A7 or something like that), and more likely 2 outs (88). The way you played it is actually pretty good, fire out two barrels then look like you've given up. I don't know if you lost or not, but I think you will see a mid PP here often enough to make your line pretty profitable.

What you don't want to do is push the turn and put TT to a hard decision, and only keep 77 around.

[DavidC]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't like pushing the turn. Think about it this way. There are no real draws out there. The hands that are behind you, are drawing to a max of five outs (A7 or something like that), and more likely 2 outs (88). The way you played it is actually pretty good, fire out two barrels then look like you've given up. I don't know if you lost or not, but I think you will see a mid PP here often enough to make your line pretty profitable.

What you don't want to do is push the turn and put TT to a hard decision, and only keep 77 around.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well... I did lose the hand to a boat, but I haven't seen a lot of instances of TT calling down.

The thing that we're talking about here, though, is if you should be betting the river at all, I guess. If you're trying to induce a bluff.

As soon as I'm called on that flop, I'm not comfortable with the hand. As soon as he calls the second shot, I know I'm in trouble. After all, wouldn't TPTK try to take down the pot right there vs that weak turn bet?

Why is the guy just calling me?

I haven't seen many people slowly call down to the river with TT overpair, or 88... However, you could be right about the "give up" line being more profitable... I just haven't seen a lot of mid PP's do this on my small sample (17k hands).

I've seen it, but I don't really know how often...

[DavidC]

A certain someone (ahem, Wayfarer) commented about a similar post (ahem, the real hand):

[ QUOTE ]
Your problem in this hand is stack sizes. You're in the SB facing two limpers and the BB. You are likely to get one or two callers preflop and one on the flop. You then want to be able to push the turn. $1.50 preflop, bet the full pot, or perhaps slightly more, on the flop, push the turn should do it. You definitely don't want to be stuck with less than a pot-sized bet on the river. That is just poor betting. If he is drawing, you want him to put his whole stack in BEFORE he misses on the river. Even with your preflop raise size (which I think is too small, but whatever) you can bet $5 on the flop (remember with your bet size, once the first person calls, the second caller is getting better than 3:1 on his call and the last caller better than 4:1). Then you can push your remaining $17 into the $14 pot on the turn. Much better than your route.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wayfarer, the reason that I bet so little on this flop is that a player would have to have a very narrow range of hands to call me.

Furthermore, when I bet small on this kind of flop with QQ, it lets me do the same with AQ, which makes my continuation bets cheaper over the long run.

However, if I overbet the flop, and I'm called or raised, then can I check-fold through the rest of the hand?

That being said, I really really really like how you take apart the betting by its proportion of how big the pot will be in relation to your stack by the time you get to the river. Thanks a lot!

--Dave.