Blind steal gone bad

[pokerjunky]

Not sure if I played this correctly: Villain is a TA-N. I'd been stealing the blinds quite a bit so I wasn't sure if he was just playing back at me or not.

Party 2/4.

Folded to me on the button with Q/images/graemlins/club.gifT/images/graemlins/heart.gif, I raise, SB 3-bets, BB folds, I call.

Flop comes: Q/images/graemlins/diamond.gifA/images/graemlins/club.gif4/images/graemlins/spade.gif
SB bets, I call.

Turn: 7/images/graemlins/heart.gif
SB bets, I call.

River: A/images/graemlins/diamond.gif
SB bets, I call.

[wildwood]

My thinking is fold or raise the flop, but don't call. If he doesn't 3bet the flop and checks to you on the turn, take the free card. fwiw

[TStoneMBD]

i play it exactly the same way.

[wildwood]

Is the free card play not correct here because of SB's PF 3bet? Thanks

[Moneyline]

I prefer raising on the flop. If SB calls my plan would be to bet the turn and check behind on the river. If SB 3bets the flop I'd call and fold on the turn if I don't improve.

I prefer raising to calling down because raising might get the SB to fold a better queen. In addition, if you're behind you end up paying off the whole way when you call down, but if you're ahead your opponent will give up if you choose to value bet. By raising you lose less when you're behind, and win almost as much as when you're ahead

[Malcom Reynolds]

Look well played to me.

[Moneyline]

[ QUOTE ]
Is the free card play not correct here because of SB's PF 3bet? Thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

IMO, raisning and then taking a free card is not a bad play here, but if you do raise and get a free card you should almost certainly call a river bet. The reason is that your check showed weakness and your opponent may be tempted to bluff. I think just betting the turn is a better play, however, for the reasons I oulined in my other post.

[wildwood]

I agree completely that you have to call the river if you get a free card on the turn. And I also think raising the flop and betting the turn is ok.
What I don't understand is the call, call, call line? What is the reasoning there? Are we just inducing a bluff because we think he's on a resteal? Thanks

[thejameser]

[ QUOTE ]
i play it exactly the same way.

[/ QUOTE ]

[W. Deranged]

I think this is a very bad approach here.

1. Free card to what? We have a pair and a very lame backdoor straight draw. We do not have a large draw here. This hand is not strong enough to play on the strength of its "drawing value."

2. Be realistic: Your opponent was aggressive enough to three-bet you out of the little blind. He is going to three-bet your flop raise a significant portion of the time. Often he will in fact have an ace, and if he three-bets you you are simply spewing.

2a. If your opponent is simply very aggro and trying to make a power-play/resteal, the board does not present many cards which can hurt you, and it is actually better to let your opponent proceed with his misguided bluff. Raising the flop may just cause a bluffer to slow down and actually minimize winnings.

III. [Logical tangent] Say you raise the flop and don't get three-bet, then your opponent checks to you on the turn. Your hand will often be good here! Betting is probably better than checking unless you have a very specific reason to believe your opponent will fold the turn but always bluff the river and doesn't have many live draws worth charging.

D. [Other logical tangent] If you are raising the flop here, you are doing it more as a cheap-showdown line than as a free card play.

[wildwood]

[ QUOTE ]
2. Be realistic: Your opponent was aggressive enough to three-bet you out of the little blind. He is going to three-bet your flop raise a significant portion of the time. Often he will in fact have an ace, and if he three-bets you you are simply spewing.



[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks for your reply. If hero raises the flop and gets 3bet, then it's a safe bet hero is behind and can fold the turn if he doesn't hit his 5 outer (as moneyline pointed out). In this way, we don't have to put as much $ in the pot to find out we are beat. I can't see anything wrong with that? but what do I know?
edit: If villian has a ace and hero calls him down, doesn't hero lose more money? Isn't that spewing?

[W. Deranged]

Wildwood, good question.

The way I see it is this: If you raise the flop and get three-bet, you pay 1.5 BB to see just the turn.

If you simply call down, you pay 1.5 BB to see the turn and the river.

The problem is this is a heads-up pot and raising the flop might not actually give you that much information. Your opponent may do a bunch of different things/have a bunch of different hands based on any given route we take. About the only situation for which your hand does better than the line of the OP is exactly the one where villain three-bets with a better hand, we miss on the turn and fold cheaply. If villain is behind and would keep bluffing, we cost ourselves bets. If villain is behind and wouldn't keep bluffing, it's probably a push (depending on whether he folds the flop). If villain is behind and three-bets us anyway, it's a disaster. If villain is ahead and chooses some other route than three-betting the flop, it costs the same number of bets or more. You get the idea.

In certain situations I would advocate such a line (I did in an earlier post today...) but it just doesn't apply here. We are either way ahead or way behind, and the optimum move is to figure out how to maximize when ahead and minimize when behind. Whatever information we get will be noisy, and won't likely ever allow us to make a clear decision. Thus, instead of playing in order to get information we simply accept that we can't know with enough certainty and determine the best course from there.

[wildwood]

[ QUOTE ]
If you simply call down, you pay 1.5 BB to see the turn and the river.


[/ QUOTE ]
This is true if you fold UI to the villian's river bet. But if I was going to do that, I would have folded the flop rather than chase a 5 outer.

[W. Deranged]

Certainly. Good point. What is was getting at is simply that "keeping it cheap" by gaining information on the flop comes with a substantial price, namely a card. I'm advocating calling down with the intent to call the river. I simply gave the 1.5 number for purposes of comparison.

My main feeling is that you are making somewhat contradictory arguments for your flop-raise line. If your primary purpose for raising is informational, then you need to use the information and probably bet the turn if you are not raised on the flop, or, you argue, fold the turn if the flop is three-bet. You can see that this reason for raising tends to contradict the cheap showdown/free card reason you gave earlier: your line will often in fact mean you cannot see a fifth card.

The fact that there exists two different reasons for raising the flop doesn't mean they are additive. You must be consistent with your reasoning and follow through on the turn/river with actions consistent with your flop bet.

[wildwood]

I concede that it probably is better here to bet the turn instead of taking the free card if hero raises the flop, villian calls and then villian checks to the hero on the turn. Hero is probably ahead.