A basic conceptual problem: AK heads up, rag flop.

[Ortho]

I have problems with this kind of situation. Villain is clearly tight preflop, but hasn't played enough hands postflop for me to have a good postflop read on him. I have him pegged as tight-weak but I don't have a lot of confidence in the read. The problem in this hand is that I don't know if he's making a move on me or not.

I'm not that interested in table-selection advice. I play in games this tight for the crypto monthly bonuses, and there's not that much I can do about it until I'm comfortable playing 6-max. So, given that I'm at a table this tight, how should I play this?

I'm UTG with A/images/graemlins/heart.gifK/images/graemlins/spade.gif and raise. Folded around to villain in BB who calls.

(4.5 sb, 2 players). Flop: 8/images/graemlins/heart.gif5/images/graemlins/club.gif2/images/graemlins/spade.gif

Villain bets.

Okay. I see the flop is rags. I know he's smart enough to see the flop is rags. I know that he probably didn't hit this flop because he's tight enough that I don't think he's calling with low cards. I think he would call with a medium pair but not with a big pair. Still, he's betting and he hasn't gotten out of line since I've been playing.

If I had a middle pair in villain's spot, I'd like to check-raise in this spot, but I don't think that he's tricky enough to make this move, so he could just be betting a pair. However, is he tricky enough to bet with nothing? There's a flaw in my thinking somewhere.

I should also point out that villain has seen me make what probably looked like him to be autobets postflop on several occasions.

So, what to do? Strictly speaking, I don't have enough odds to call for my 6-outer (I think it's reasonable to assume I have pretty close to six). My implied odds against this player aren't very good, and I'm not even sure he'll pay off my one pair. However, if there is some chance my hand is best, I have an easy call.

I could raise, trying for a free card on the turn, but I think that the free card play would work against this player 50% of the time. I think he'd stop and go or check-raise me some percentage of the time.

I could fold, giving him credit as a tight player for having either played a pair or hit the board, but there are two problems with this: 1) it might be incorrect in this hand; 2) it might encourage him or others to autobet at me after I raise preflop on subsequent hands.

Anyway, this is a very common situation for me, and I'm not very comfortable with it.

[Village Idiot]

If it's micro limits and you are looking for info. on this guy I'm inclined to raise and see what his response is.

You haven't seen him get out of line. Ok. Have you seen him showdown any hand ?
Do you think he would be betting out trips like this ?

If he doesn't have trips and isn't bluffing my most likely hands to put him on are Ax where he has either top pair or second pair with the Ace kicker.

If that's the case it's true you don't have the odds to call. But, if you want info. on him then maybe you do raise trying for the free river card.

[Ortho]

[ QUOTE ]
You haven't seen him get out of line. Ok. Have you seen him showdown any hand ?
Do you think he would be betting out trips like this ?

[/ QUOTE ]

He's generic Crypto weak-tight. I've seen him play top pair aggressively, and I haven't seen him show down anything odd for his position.

I'm almost certain he would not bet trips like this, because I tend to be regarded as a betting station postflop by anyone who's paying attention in these games. He would slowplay and raise me on the turn, or maybe even on the river.

I'm pretty comfortable he doesn't have a big pair or trips. There aren't any draws. I'm putting him on, as you say, a pair with an ace kicker, a medium pair, or a bluff.

[Village Idiot]

Then assuming you have 3 outs this is an easy fold.
Unless you think gaining the info. on him here is worth investing some bets.

Plus the possibility that you may be able to move him off of the pot if/after an overcard to the board hits the turn or river and it isn't an Ace.

[@bsolute_luck]

thinking that you have only 3 outs HU on this flop is very very limiting. you easily could have full 6.

there are certain hands where it is worth while to go to war for the blinds and your PFR even if you don't make your hand or lose to A/Kx- this is one of those hands IMO.

you can't just assume you have the worst of it from the get go and fold when UI just because you don't hit. not only you'll lose a lot of $$ with this thinking, you won't gain as much as people will automatically fold when you continuation bet because they know you only bet when you hit.

[Ortho]

[ QUOTE ]
thinking that you have only 3 outs HU on this flop is very very limiting. you easily could have full 6.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do think that I have 6 most of the time, simply because top pair ace kicker on this board is a small portion of his holdings. The other poster is more concerned about reverse domination than I am.


[ QUOTE ]
there are certain hands where it is worth while to go to war for the blinds and your PFR even if you don't make your hand or lose to A/Kx- this is one of those hands IMO.

you can't just assume you have the worst of it from the get go and fold when UI just because you don't hit. not only you'll lose a lot of $$ with this thinking, you won't gain as much as people will automatically fold when you continuation bet because they know you only bet when you hit.

[/ QUOTE ]

If it gets checked to me, I'm surely betting. And I agree with you that it seems weak to simply fold here, but if I don't, how should I play the hand?

[@bsolute_luck]

well, i've been reading a post by Nate da Great about raising UI overcards, and a post to unlearn the "raising for a free card" move.

really i think i've come to the point that calling would actually make me more nervous if i was in BB. UI overcards are obviously raising with nothing scary on the board, and High pocket pairs should be waiting until later streets to raise, but i don't know if your opponent is a thinking player or not or if the free card move would work or not.

all that thinking to say: call /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[mojobluesman]

This is the type of hand that used to drive me crazy. Now I just fold. The pot is too small to get worked up over.

As a general rule, I think when someone bets into a pre-flop raiser like this they have "something", usually a pair. I guess it's possible he played something like 67s or 23s from the big blind and is betting his draw, but I sort of doubt it.

I think you have 6 outs "at best", but you may be reverse dominated (is that the term?) because he may have played Ax and hit a pair. That kills your A.

If the pot was bigger it might be worth playing.

[Aaron W.]

[ QUOTE ]
I have problems with this kind of situation. Villain is clearly tight preflop, but hasn't played enough hands postflop for me to have a good postflop read on him. I have him pegged as tight-weak but I don't have a lot of confidence in the read. The problem in this hand is that I don't know if he's making a move on me or not.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would go slow the first time he does this. Call a flop bet, fold the turn UI. If I haven't seen him play games with anyone else postflop, why should I believe he's starting to play games now? And weak-tight players might be willing to bet a ragged flop, but have a tougher time betting the turn if they have nothing.

If it happens again, then you can start to play back at him (raise the flop, or wait until the turn to raise, or maybe just call-call-call if you don't think he'll fold to a raise but will keep betting blanks -- watch him play in other hands to see which might be best).

I have the same ego problem sometimes in heads up situations. I think everybody is out to make a fool of me (whether they show it or not), and I want to defend my playing ability by outplaying them. That just leads to costly mistakes. The pot isn't that large, your chances of having the best hand are somewhat dubious (the first time you see him do this, anyway). There's nothing wrong with just letting it go.

[McGahee]

Aaron nailed this one. Ego can cost you $ HU, when you start to get paranoid about Mr. 'hasn't bluffed since 1986' making a play on you.

The fun part about being in position is that you have so many different options if you do think villian is tricky:
Raise flop, bet turn, check river
Call flop, raise turn, check river
Raise flop, check turn,
Call flop, call turn

Not being a huge free card guy, I prefer one of the first two. Of course call flop, fold turn is UI is always a good option vs. predictable foes.

OP mentioned how he'd normally C/R the flop w/ a pair when OOP. That's fine, but FWIW I'd rather get C/R'd than donkbet w/ overs when I'm in position.

[jrz1972]

This is an excellent situation in which to mix up your game a bit. As others have noted, there are a bunch of possible lines one could adopt, all of which are at least reasonable against an opponent who has some dim awareness of what is going on.

Depending on my mood, I might raise this flop or I might just call. Either is a perfectly fine option. Then I could see myself folding/calling/betting/checking the turn depending on my mood and what happened on the flop. Depending on how the play goes and what cards come off on the other streets, I might very well call the river if I get there.

HU is when you really don't want to be too easily predictable, so it's important to mix up your HU play. Fortunately, it's easy to do.

[Ortho]

Thanks very much for all the replies. I think it being an ego thing is on the mark. The problem is that I've been a tight-weak player and so much of my ego is involved in not getting run over. I've typically been just folding this, but last week I folded when a tight-passive player bet into me in this spot and he said "that was easy. what a weak player." I originally assumed that he was upset he hadn't gotten any action on a big hand, but it made me wonder...

[Rev. Good Will]

Why is everyone giving hero only 3 outs? overcars outs are typically discounted if villian has Ax (suited or not) and might possibly be reverse dominating hero.

I give you 6.5 outs(full 6 on overs, .5 for BDIS) and if villian is tight, I don't think the stuff he's defending with would connect with this crap ass board.

Semi-bluff raise time.

EDIT - please note I'm not raising for information or a free card here, also edited to fix typos in body

[Mroberts3]

to me this play seems totally dependant on your read of the player, what you think his read of you is, and your playing style. It is obvious there is no clear answer, otherwise this thread would be only one or two responses. With this in mind, I think you should conciously mix it up. It works out as a good randomizer to your play and really doesnt win or lose you money since IMO most choices presented here have similar EV. IF I could chose one had that my oppenents didnt know how I played, it would be high cards. This is because they come along so much more often than other premium hands. If your opponents didn't know how you played AA, it wouldnt matter because they would only see it once in a while, but with high cards you can induce mistakes from your opponents. If this particular hand came up 5 times in the course of one session, and you took a totally different approch each time, it would be very difficult for your opponent to make the correct decision every time. In short, do whatever you like, because it is not going to affect your EV much, and will make you harder to read. (Don't take my advice to mean that you should ignore information presented to you. Always consider the situation carefully, but if you are in serious doubt then just try mixing it up.)

[string4]

*in the dark, critique welcome*

I usually let the size of the pot make a lot of calls here. Since your looking at a rather small pot (5.5 sb) so far against somebody you don't have a real clear read on, i fold. If it was a larger pot, i'm raising.

[Absolution]

However, I would add that eventually you want to get away from simply randomly mixing it up. Eventually you might like to try some game theory or atleast present an image to your thinking opponents (else they will use game theory against your randomness). Even while I'm learning in micros I like to try and think about these things so that I can use them when I'm faced with better opponents as I move up. But, I agree that mixing it up is obviously better than becoming a fit-or-fold or an autobetter. Even mildly aware opponents will catch on to that.

For micro though most players aren't even that aware. Until I've seen otherwise I assume most micro players are betting when they have something, especially if they start donk betting me (the new favorite term) - and that something could be 72s hitting trips on the river after calling my preflop raise cold :P

[cfjr2]

I disagree

I don't think 6 full outs plus the .5 for BDIS is reasonable. We have to assume that 1/2 the time this player will hold an A or a K therefore we discount 3 outs to 1.5 and the BDIS to .25 for the split.

That gives 1.5 + 3 + .25 = 4.75 call it 5.

From pure EV the pot is to small to call if we are drawing. So are we ahead 50% of the time against this player? OP doesn't make it seem so. We are behind to all reasonable BB pairs (66+) and drawing almost dead if he made trips.

So we have 11% chance to draw a winning out and 20%? we are ahead. If we are ahead villan could improve as often as we can so we have maybe 20-25% chance at pot(?).

there are 5.5 bets in the pot. If we have a 20% (4-1) chance to win we should bet (pot odds 5-1) but if we are ahead less often than 18% of the time (5.5-1) we should fold (unless there is 2.5 BB of value in seeing this river - I don't think so).
If we do not hit on Turn it will be 4.25 BB to use and we would have to fold as I do not think we will have the odds to call again.

also, I don't think a raise is for value here - if we only have 20% chance of being ahead / winning.

Bluff raise? Is a weak tight player betting a bluff here? Unless read is wrong this is unlikely.

not sure a 5 sb pot is worth fighting for w/o a decent draw and likely behind.

My conclusion - call / fold, fold turn UI.

[GrunchCan]

I'll raise. Hero could have the best hand here.

[aces_dad]

"We have to assume that 1/2 the time this player will hold an A or a K"

What are we basing this assumption on? Seems much too pessimistic to me. Random holdings will have A or K approx 2/13 times, you really think calling a bet from BB pushes that to 1/2?

[Rev. Good Will]

[ QUOTE ]

I disagree

I don't think 6 full outs plus the .5 for BDIS is reasonable. We have to assume that 1/2 the time this player will hold an A or a K therefore we discount 3 outs to 1.5 and the BDIS to .25 for the split.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why do we have to assume that? so this player will bet whiffed overs?

[cfjr2]

My assumption is based on OP read.
Villain is clearly tight preflop...I have him pegged as tight-weak.

Allowing for this read to be off a little and pocket pairs i did a quick guess at 50% A or K and 50% 66-AA.

66/77/99/TT/JJ/QQ (6x6=36)
88/KK/AA (3)
Axs (3x12=24)
Kxs (3x12=24)

so 51 A or K vs 36 other my quick estimate is off rather than 50% chance for A or K it is 58%. Eliminate some of the less likely Ax Kx holdings and call it 36 to 36 or 50%.

So i attempted to give credit for spliting the 6 AK outs maybe I should have said
6 outs 50% + 6/2 (split) outs 50% = 4.5 outs + .5 = 5 outs ?

Do you disagree with my read that weak tight villan is not calling PF raise and leading flop with less than these holdings? (I don't think he bet weaker overs - he probably won't even call the PF raise with them)

Regards,
Charles