Deteriorating Nut

[yct]

Loose game. MP1 limps. I limp with A9s in mp. Button and SB limps. BB raises. All call.

Flop comes Ad Ah 9h. Not a bad flop. BB bets. MP1 folds. I call. Button calls. SB folds. 3 players.

Turn comes Th. BB checks. I check. Button bets. BB calls. I raise. Button 3 bets! BB calls. I capped it. Both call.

River comes Qc. BB checks. I bet. Button just calls. BB springs to life with a check raise!?! What do you think my opponents have? 3 bet here or just call?

[Nottom]

I'd call and hope to get the overcall from the button's flush. To me it looks like BB has a hard time letting go of queens, but AQ is certainly a strong posiblity as well.

[Zag]

From his point of view, you came alive when the flush card hit, so he might have you on the flush. Of course, so did he, and equally of course, he might have been slowplaying something good. Here are, I think, all the possible hands for a check-raise on the river:

Kxh (feh), AQ, A9, AT, QQ, TT, 99. Only AQ and AT scare you.

This depends on your knowledge of him preflop. He limped on the button after two limpers. I think that this eliminates QQ and AQ, and possibly even AT, depending on the player. Therefore, I put him on TT or 99, and I feel he should be punished.

[elysium]

hi yct
this is a little complicated, but you must stop and ask what your objectives are and what are the risks in achieveing the objectives.

here, possibly want to three-bet to get more money in the pot. and the answer to the question 'how much more money in the pot do we want?', guides us in our decision. you need to look at 'what happens when'; you need to become 'what happens when-ish'.

how are you going to get more money in the pot? 3-bet!! ok, let's see what happens when you 3-bet. well, the first thing that will happen is the weaker opponent will fold. whenever you use the leverage of hand strength to get more bets into the pot, the weaker opponent will usually fold. what happens when the weaker opponent folds? the stronger opponent will call or raise. what happens when he raises? well, if you 3-bet and he reraises, he knows you have a strong hand and he knows you will call. all of this knowledge that your opponent has represents negative ev for you when your opponent acts upon it. if he doesn't use this knowledge against you, that's positive ev.; so, if he calls your 3-bet, doesn't raise it, you're happy. when he raises, you're not happy, unless it's a raise made on a misapplication of the knowledge you have given him. you can give an opponent a lot of info, but if he makes an erroneous conclusion, often he would have been better off without it. so, if you 3-bet with the nuts and your opponent erroneously concludes otherwise and 4 bets you, that's positive ev. here, you don't have the nuts, but a 4 bet would indicate that your opponent does have the nuts, so you want your 3 bet called, not raised. and since the weaker opponent, the button, will fold if you 3 bet, you do want more money in the pot, specifically 1 big bet. you do not want to get 2 big bets in the pot in the very likely event that the button folds. you want only 1 big bet. period. this helps us greatly here in guiding us into making the correct decision. we want more money in the pot, but not more than a single big bet.

what happens when you call? when you call, the button will also call. you're using the leverage of pot odds and giving the button the opportunity to close the action. a call induces the button to call AND close the action, just like the BB call would. it also prevents us from getting more money in the pot than we want. remember, we do not want 2 big bets in the pot.

if we were HU against the BB, we would raise to get that extra bet in there. we would use the leverage of our hand strength rather than the leverage of odds and inducements. but we would only make that raise if we were a 2-1 favorite since we could be reraised.

clearly then, in this instance you should use the carrot vs. the stick approach. if you had the nuts, you should then reraise to get more than 1 bet back when you 3 bet. and then you like the BB not being shut-out and you like the round open. so you would like to use the stick with the nuts. but without the nuts, use the carrot approach and induce the weaker player to put in that exactly 1 and only 1 big bet you seek, and stop the BB from putting in 2 big bets. remember, you are looking to put only a fixed amount into the pot of exactly one bet. whenever you seek to put a fixed amount in the pot, get that fixed amount from the weakest opponent. when you want an unlimited amount, get it from the strongest opponent. here, this is a must call situation. you must not 3 bet here.

in the heat of battle, just remember that if you have the option to 3 bet, but there are over-callers, do not 3 bet but rather call, unless you have the nuts. call even if you're appx. 2-1 favorite over the strong opponent when raising will drive out the weaker. since this is addressing only times that you're facing a decision about whether to call or reraise a raise, the weaker opponent is always acting after you do and the stronger is always acting before you do in these situations.

[bernie]

i dont see what's deteriorating. you have the nuts the whole way .

raise the river. you dont have enough players behind you for overcalls. even if the guy behind you folds, the bettor will call. but he may even raise given his play so far.

btw...one thing i wouldnt do is go for a strong move on the turn with the nuts. it's a good action killer. though the flush card really helps. but if that card isnt a flush card it's too, you can lose some chips with it. id have bet out on the hand. however, these guys sound like morons so it worked for you this time. but more obwervant opponents will recognize the 'wake up and bet' move and wont pay you off. something to watch for.

b

[baseball38]

I would guess the check raiser probably has a flush, and the other??? Trip aces???? or aces over???? I am curious myself, let us know!

baseball38 /forums/images/icons/spade.gif

[Nottom]

The check-raiser was the BB who raised pre-flop, which is exactly why I tend to think he has a QQ he couldn't let go.

[Zag]

Right. I didn't follow the hand carefully enough. I had thought that it was the button raising on the river. I think this read (QQ) is the only thing he could have for a pre-flop raise from BB, and then no noise until a river check-raise.

Hmmm. Some slight possibility he has AQ, slowplayed the flop, planned to check-raise the turn but when it came back to him, only the player on his right had bet, so he decided just to call and "keep you in."

Naaaaaaaaah! He has queens. Hurt him.

[yct]

Good analysis. My thoughts were similar to yours. I just call and the button calls. BB has QQ. Button has A5o. My hand was good.