A basic KJo hand

[Luke]

My opponent in this hand is loose preflop with reasonable aggression, but he's not overly loose postflop. Here are some of my stats on him over a somewhat small sample size (H: 81 - V: 37 - R: 9 - WTS: 33).

All comments are welcome but my main question is about my turn/river line.

Anyone check behind here on the turn in an attempt to induce a river bluff? You dodge a CR but a better king or a four and there aren't a lot free cards that worry you. But you do miss a big bet from worse kings and pocket pairs.

Would some of you *consider* this line here but reserve it for situations against tighter players or when you have a worse kicker with your king or ace top pair? Also, how certain would you need to be that this guy will take a shot at you on the turn.

Let me know what you think...

Party Poker 5/10 Hold'em (10 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

Preflop: Hero is Button with K/images/graemlins/club.gif, J/images/graemlins/heart.gif. UTG posts a blind of $5.
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, UTG+2 calls, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, MP3 calls, CO (Villain) calls, Hero calls, SB completes, UTG (poster) checks.

Flop: (6 SB) K/images/graemlins/spade.gif, 4/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 4/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(7 players)</font>
SB checks, UTG checks, UTG+2 checks, MP3 checks, <font color="#CC3333">Villain bets</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises</font>, SB folds, UTG folds, UTG+2 folds, MP3 folds, Villain calls.

Turn: (5 BB) 3/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
Villain checks, <font color="#CC3333">Hero bets</font>, Villain...

Final Pot: 6 BB

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Raise preflop, especially with the extra dead money in the pot.

Flop: fine

Turn: No draws on the board and there's no reason to think he has a 4, just keep betting

River: Fine

[27offsooot]

Since i think u can fold to a c/r from this opponent and he will call u down with a worse king and likely would have raised a better one PF, i don't know why u wouldn't want to extract 2 bb from him. I would just bet the turn.

[27offsooot]

I don't think that this is a raise PF, unless the other two limpers suck.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

&lt;shrug&gt; I like KJo less with 6 opponents for 1 bet than with 3 opponents for 2.

Now, if the blinds are real loose callers, I'd just call preflop.

[flair1239]

Depending on the players, I am probably not going to raise pre-flop. If I knew I could knock out the blinds I would raise. Also if all the limpers were pretty loose I would probably do a value raise.

However, at this point, we are not going to keep the pot short handed and although we probably do have a edge in PF equity, I don't think it is such a large edge that we are giving up much by not raising.

Flop: good.

Turn. This is certainly a bet. If you get check raised, I would call down.

[sweetjazz]

[ QUOTE ]
Turn. This is certainly a bet. If you get check raised, I would call down.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can't fold to a check-raise here, because he will check-raise with hands you beat (KT, K9) and there aren't very many hands he is likely to have that beat you. Since he didn't raise preflop, that makes it very unlikely he has AA, KK, or AK, and pretty unlikely he doesn't have KQ. Reasonable hands to put him on here are A4s, maybe K4s, 44, and maybe 54s or 43s. Without doing the math, most of these hands are pretty unlikely given that 2 4's and 2 K's are accounted for. Given the pot size, calling down a check-raise on the turn seems right to me.

[PotatoStew]

[ QUOTE ]
If I knew I could knock out the blinds I would raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

You certainly won't knock them out with a limp. I think I'd raise PF here as well. No one has shown strength, and you have position.

[Fat Nicky]

just bet the turn, they will call with worse hands much more than you will get check raised.

[flair1239]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If I knew I could knock out the blinds I would raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

You certainly won't knock them out with a limp. I think I'd raise PF here as well. No one has shown strength, and you have position.

[/ QUOTE ]

And if you think it is unlikely that you will knock them out with a raise, then you should be less likely to raise.

[MRBAA]

A definite raise on the button with three blinds behind, to me.

And yeah, I bet the turn, call a raise and call the river. Sure he'll probably show me A4s or AK he didn't raise, but I only have to win about one in 4.5 times to make it worthwhile.

[Luke]

Just to clarify - I'm not sure how or why but the converter misread my hand. There was no poster at all (outside the blinds) and there were 6, not 7, players to the flop. So that made 3 limpers to me on the button with KJo.

2 of those limpers were on the tighter side which led me to just limp but I can certainly understand some posters' desires to raise in this spot.

Luke

[PotatoStew]

[ QUOTE ]
And if you think it is unlikely that you will knock them out with a raise, then you should be less likely to raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

True, but as this hand is presented, what makes you think a raise is unlikely to knock them out? Additionally, if they have a hand that they *should* be folding to a raise, but they don't, isn't that also good to make them pay extra to stay in with a crappy hand out of position?

[MRBAA]

Your hand plays well against two limpers from the button. If these guys are decent, they'd be raising KQ and AK. If they are being tricky with AA/KK, so be it. It's not likely. So you're likely up against hands like 66 or JTs from the limpers, not hands that dominate yours.

Raising can knockout the blinds or make them defend out of position. It's always possible one of them has a big hand, but odds are they don't.

Once you do raise, you can bet the flop if checked to on almost any board -- and you may win on an Ace high flop if no one has an ace.

You can often take a free card on the turn. And you can get away from your hand cheaply on all streets if you miss and there's action.

KJ is a good limp in EP/MP in passive games. But here it's a much better raise, IMHO.

[PotatoStew]

Well said.

[Luke]

Villain folded to my turn bet.

I considered checking behind on the turn, not so much to dodge a CR from a 4 as there's little reason to believe he has one, but to avoid folding weak hands that are drawing slim against me and might improve on the river or decide to take a stab at the pot on the river.

I felt that Villain's range here could be pretty wide when he bet the flop, including worse kings, pocket pairs, a four, and random crap like QTo.

Given that a range, I believed a check was at least worth consideration and wondered what the forum thought - thanks.

Luke

[MRBAA]

unless it's short-handed and hyper aggro, I don't usually get tricky with just top pair.