$109s - Boring AK Hand

[Unarmed]

Nothing too interesting.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t15 (10 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

UTG+1 (t806)
UTG+2 (t1154)
MP1 (t1000)
MP2 (t1000)
Hero (t990)
CO (t1015)
Button (t1600)
SB (t435)
BB (t1000)
UTG (t1000)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with K/images/graemlins/spade.gif, A/images/graemlins/club.gif.
<font color="#CC3333">UTG raises to t60</font>, <font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, MP2 calls t60, Hero calls t60, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, SB calls t50, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>.

Flop: (t255) T/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, K/images/graemlins/club.gif, 4/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(4 players)</font>
SB checks, UTG checks, MP2 checks, <font color="#CC3333">Hero bets t200</font>, SB folds, UTG calls t200, MP2 folds.

Turn: (t655) 4/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
UTG checks, Hero checks.

River: (t655) Q/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
UTG checks, <font color="#CC3333">Hero has 730 behind and bets how much?

[Isura]

You're definitely ahead on the river. 200?

Why did you check the turn? I have him on a draw and you gave him a free look at it. He didn't make it here either, though, so I would put out another 200 and expect him to fold.

[TheSalche]

wondering why check the turn here and give him a free card at a possible flush draw?

other than that, good idea to bet 200 - 300 on the river i suppose

CORRECTION: I shouldn't say I have him on a draw, but I am suspicious.

[Jakob]

Why don't you bet the turn?


Note to myself: (it is only the donks at 22 that will call you with nothing)

By the way, since this is $109 I'm going to give villain some credit here. If he has flopped a monster, isn't he worried about YOU drawing out a flush? If so, wouldn't he re-raise the flop? I think the call of the flop indicates you have the best hand and you should therefore continue value-betting the turn.

[The Yugoslavian]

[ QUOTE ]
By the way, since this is $109 I'm going to give villain some credit here. If he has flopped a monster, isn't he worried about YOU drawing out a flush? If so, wouldn't he re-raise the flop? I think the call of the flop indicates you have the best hand and you should therefore continue value-betting the turn.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sometimes value-checking is more profitable.

Here, probably not. But...I wasn't playing vs. villian...

Yugoslav

[adanthar]

I put him on JJ here (or maybe AT plus some other crap if he's retarded) and push because if he calls 300 he'll call a push.

[Irieguy]

If you're going to check the turn (which I like, btw), you have to just check-down the river when the queen comes.

The reason why that's such a bad card is because there aren't many hands the opponent can have that didn't improve on the river, but with which he would be willing to call any significant bet on the end.

Nothing wrong with taking a 655 chip pot here with no further risk. The reason why this isn't weak-tight is because of how nicely the hand plays out when a more innocuous card comes on the river, and how often he'll bluff at you (or incorrectly value bet with an under pair) on the river.

The nice thing about the way you played the hand is that you'll get paid off by QQ, and may get bluffed at by A-Js all the times the queen doesn't hit on the river.

So, good line. But if you're going to play poker like this you have to be able to simply check down the river even though it seems too weak-tight. Not going broke here against QQ is what separates post flop players from "oh-sheet-the-turn's-coming-in-a-second-and-i'm-probably-ahead-right-now-so-I-better-just-shove-em-in" players.

Irieguy

[Gramps]

If UTG raised PF to 60, then check-called 200 on the flop, why wouldn't he have just led with a hand that beats yours? Why wouldn't he have made a continuation bet with his draw if it's worthy enough to call a big flop bet?

(a) He's a loose bad foolio who's misplaying his draw/worse hand;
(b) He is ahead on the flop and trying to trap someone into betting.

If you bet the River, you'll get a couple extra hundred from player (a) the times he doesn't have QQ, but has (in his mind) a strong enough hand to call (not 100% of the time he's beat, but a decent amount). Against player (b) or player (a) with QQ, you're donating valuable chips (difference bewteen like 750 and 500 or so), and it's not the easiest thing to fold to a C/R esp. in level 1 where there is a % chance someone is just making a play against you with a worse hand - thus, your River bet loses the pot(600 chips + chips bet on River) for you a % of the time (albeit somewhat small) that you have the best hand - the few times you lose 800-900 chips with the best hand really cuts into your River +CEV the times your opponent is beat and calls your smallish River bet (and then factor in the times you're beat, etc., etc.).

In (additional) addition, those couple hundred extra chips you'd win have significantly less tangible value per chip than the ones you're putting at risk with a River bet (IMO at least), I'd just check behind at that point (esp. with the Q hitting the River). No shame in playing protection at Level 1 when a check-behind-with-best-hand means you have 1,500 chips, no shame in that. And if UTG had the best hand, keeping yourself around 750 is huge as well - you're not forced to start pushing semi-crappy hands til 50/100 at the earliest.

At a lower buy-in level, betting becomes better than it is here (probably betting the Turn as well).

[adanthar]

If he has QQ I think he almost always bets the river and the times he pays off JJ are far more frequent than the times he checks queens.

[psyduck]

Wouldn't JJ or QQ re-raise preflop?

I think this was weakly played. I bet 2/3 pot on turn or push, and hope I'm called by KQ or a flush draw.

As you played it, I think I check the river.

But what do I know?

[fnord_too]

200-250, villain has 530 I think, so he may call that.

Against some players I just check behind. If villain won't call with a worse hand, I kind of like showing this down at the end to 1. see what he raises with UTG, 2. let the table see that I flat called with AK pre flop and 3. not feel stupid when he raises with his TT.

Without reads or if I know hes a loose caller 200-250.

[Michael C.]

[ QUOTE ]
I put him on JJ here (or maybe AT plus some other crap if he's retarded) and push because if he calls 300 he'll call a push.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you put him on JJ, do you really think he'd call a push as easily as, say, 225 or something? Maybe, if he's the type of player who could pick up your push as indicating potential weakness (i.e. missing a draw and pushing). But wouldn't most players with JJ be a lot more willing to call for the pot odds if you bet 200 or so, but fold to a push?

[ChrisV]

I'm torn between $200 and $0. It's possible you'll get a call out of something like AQ. A checkraise would be pretty unwelcome though. Most of the time if you bet he's going to fold, so I think you want to be careful about squeezing equity out of this hand when your bet size is going to invite a checkraise and you aren't going to be able to call that checkraise.

[Isura]

[ QUOTE ]
(b) He is ahead on the flop and trying to trap someone into betting.


[/ QUOTE ]

Do you think someone ahead on that flop, is checking both the turn and river?

[curtains]

Edit - Sorry misread hand, ignore my previous post

[Gramps]

Not that often, but I see it happen more that occasionally, especially in level one (usually bad players who bet with nothing, but "overtrap" when they flop trips or something like that). The fact that there was a PF raise, followed by a C/C of a pot-sized bet on the flop is the exact thing a player trying to do this would do (followed by further checking).

[adanthar]

[ QUOTE ]
If you put him on JJ, do you really think he'd call a push as easily as, say, 225 or something?

[/ QUOTE ]

He'll certainly call 730 more than 1/3 as often as he'll call 225.

[fisherman112]

[ QUOTE ]
By the way, since this is $109 I'm going to give villain some credit here.

[/ QUOTE ]

no you dont.

the turn check is fine as an occassional move, especially considering how ragged the board is. i think you're getting a little more money out of some people who will dump their tpck to a turn bet for fear of having to call a huge portion of their stack on the river.

i like a smaller bet, say 200 or 250. although that is a crappy river considering the action up to now.

[Jason Strasser]

Irieguy,

How on earth can you justify checking behind on this river after checking the turn?? Only a very select few players will check to you QQQ or a better hand than AK here, that I almost think you have to almost assume you are ahead here. I dunno, if I make a value bet and get raised here I probably go broke but it just happens so rarely.

I think the key point that you made is that Ireguy noted that the opponent likely doesnt have a hand that can pay off a typical value bet most of the time. What you need to do here is either make a small bet that many weaker players will see 3 or 4 - 1 and call with all sorts of crap, or you need to shove in all your chips as messily as you can and hope your opponent figures you either have a monster or absolute [censored] and calls with a worse one pair hand. A middle size value bet is just so believable and I think your opponents will probably play very correctly if you decide to bet 1/2 pot or something.

-Jason

[Jason Strasser]

Gramps given the action how often is AK behind on this river?

-Jason

[bennies]

I assume Irieguys arguement goes for KQ as well as QQ?