Betting station?

[Vehn]

$15/$30. Very passive player who frequently lets other players do his betting for him open raises on the button. I feel he has normal button raising requirements. Tightish SB calls. I 3-bet from the BB with pocket queens and both call. The flop comes down A-A-J rainbow. The SB checks, I bet, button calls, and SB folds. The turn is a blank. Now lets assume a couple things which are true in my experience with this player.

1) My opponent has either an ace or jack here for sure.

2) My opponent will always and only call the turn and river if I continue to bet with both an ace and a jack, and will only raise if he has an ace and fills.

3) If I check, my opponent will always bet an ace or jack on the turn, and an ace on the river. I would say the chances he bets a jack on the river are 50-50.

What's my best course of action?

[j.k.]

Bet both streets. If you check the river, he will bet about 70% of the time, and check behind 30%. You will win the hand 60% of the time, but only win an extra bet on the river 30%. If you bet the river, you still win 60%, but this way you will gain an extra bet everytime you are a winner, and lose the same amount when you are not. It just comes down to the fact that he will always call with both a J and A. He's more likely to have a J since two A's are on board, so fire away.

j.k.

[elysium]

hi vehn
check the turn and river unless you improve. you could also bet on the river if you're sure he will call with the J, but that's pretty obvious. it's equal ev no matter what you do unless he raises.

you will never raise this opponent so, base your river check or bet on variance, being inclined to bet if you pick up on weakness or have been check-calling the river without strongs. there's not much else here. pretty basic.

[CrackerZack]

Bet the turn and river. If he won't raise trip aces without filling up, you can fold to any raise and lose no more bets. This could actually save you a bet if he fills on the turn. If he'll equally call with A or J but may not bet a jack on the river, bet both turn and river and bullet-fold to a raise.

[Vehn]

That's what I figured pretty much. I bet the turn and river and he showed me A3s. Meh.

[brad]

given your description i say either

a) check raise turn to see where youre at (assuming he folds Jack)

or

b) check turn (since 1 bet goes in anyway on turn unless hes full, unless you plan on betting turn and folding to a raise) and bet river unless a K, T, or maybe a 9 (problem if he would open with any Ace obviously ) come. checkraise river Q since i would suspect he would fold the river anyway to a bet if hes got say JT or KJ.

[turnipmonster]

I have a very long winded response to this, because I am really working on things like this myself (thinking through the best course of action given limited information about your opponent).

because of these three points you wrote:

>1) My opponent has either an ace or jack here for sure.
>2) My opponent will always and only call the turn and river if I continue to bet with both an ace and a jack
>3) If I check, my opponent will always bet an ace or jack on the turn

then the play on the turn doesn't matter, your opponent will bet no matter what, and a little more than 1/2 the time you are beat. since this problem isn't any fun if you fold here, let's assume someone bet the turn and someone called, and what we are interested in is the river (let's also assume the river is a card that could have filled him):

the pot is 7.5 big bets, and there are 4 things that can happen:

1) you check, he bets.
2) you check, he checks.
3) you bet, he calls.
4) you bet, he raises.

first, let's eliminate 3 and 4 here. your bet has got to be -EV if he is equally likely to have a A or a J, since you will be raised if he fills 3/43 times, in addition to being beat by an A half the time.

if 2 happens then you have the winning hand, and collect 7.5 big bets.

so really the only case we have to figure here is 1, and that was whether or not to call his final bet if he has a A or a J or a boat.

the pot is laying you 8.5 to 1 for a call, and if the chances of him having an A and J are anywhere near 50%, then you have to call here, since you will get paid off a little less than half the time, to win lots more than 1/2 your final call.

comments? errors I made in thinking?
--turnipmonster

[CrackerZack]

[ QUOTE ]
1) you check, he bets.
2) you check, he checks.
3) you bet, he calls.
4) you bet, he raises.

first, let's eliminate 3 and 4 here.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why would you eliminate 3 and 4?

First off, there are 2 aces on board, so only 2 in the deck he can have and 3 jacks, so its 60/40 of him having a jack.

Second, he'll only raise if he makes a full house, so not betting the turn is a significant mistake. If you bet the turn and are raised, you can auto-muck and lose only 1 BB, but you always lose 2 checking in calling. plus, the times he only has a jack and doesn't bet the river, you don't win the 2 BBs, only 1.

The only right play to this problem is to bet the turn and bet the river and fold immediately if raised on either street.

[Coilean]

Given the criteria you state, it is crucial that you bet at least the river. On the turn it doesn't really matter, since a bet will go in regardless of what you do. But on the river, you will always be calling if he bets, so you don't want to let him check behind with a jack when he would have called. It may be better to bet the turn as well, if your checking the turn might inspire him to raise your bet on the river with an ace.

[Coilean]

Good point about being able to fold if raised on the turn. That saves you a bet sometimes, so the turn is a must bet as well as the river.

[mike l.]

given all youve said you bet the turn and then check-call the river. if he raises you on the turn youre out of there obviously.

[mike l.]

"Given the criteria you state, it is crucial that you bet at least the river. On the turn it doesn't really matter, since a bet will go in regardless of what you do. But on the river, you will always be calling if he bets, so you don't want to let him check behind with a jack when he would have called. It may be better to bet the turn as well, if your checking the turn might inspire him to raise your bet on the river with an ace."

what if vehn is somehow wrong and button has TT or 99 here and he will check behind on the turn? and given what vehn says button will not raise the turn unless he is full, but he will flat call with trips. so a bet on the turn risks nothing, but gains if vehn is ahead, while a river check-call makes up for the times (50-50 vehn said) button has a J he will bet with.

one more thing: if button has KQ what an awful time to check the turn!

[adios]

“I feel he has normal button raising requirements.”

Depends on what those requirements are. Given that his call means either an A or J or both are in his hand and that's it. If he’ll open raise with any Ace but only raise with KJ or QJ you might want to check and fold.

12 == KJ combos
6 == QJ combos



8 == AK combos
4 == AQ combos
6 == AJ combos
8 == AT combos
8 == A9 combos
....
8 == A2 combos
JJ == 3
AA == 1

Therefore the chances he has an Ace or boat with JJ are (if I counted right):

94-18


Neglecting the odds of you drawing out or him drawing out you’re over a 5-1 dog to have the best hand going. You’re going to have to put in two bets to win 6.5 at best. If an Ace comes on the turn, go ahead and bet it if a J comes check and fold given the criteria. Hell I don't know what his requirements are for opening on the button just giving a hypothetical situation to illustrate a point. What did I miss?

[DanZ]

well, I like the reasoning, but if he's tight enough to fold JT or J9s, he's not raising with Ax either so the situation is a little better, but not a whole lot.

Let's try this:

Any 2 cards T or higher, any suited ace, J9s, A9o. I don't get much looser than this unless the blinds are super tight or very weak...

This leaves
3 JJ, 8 AK, 4 AQ, 6 AJ, 8 AT, 8 A9, and 2 each of 7 Axs,
for 3+8+4+6+8+8+2*7 = 61
12 JT, 6 JQ, 12 KJ, 3 J9s = 33.

So, bet the turn if you'll get the info you need and he won't bluff, otherwise check the turn and bet the river unless he might bluff raise or fold a J on the end. If he will do these things fairly often, then check.

Also, on the turn, if he will fold a J if you bet, but bet it if you call, then check and call, since most of his jacks are 2 outers.

But, if you know how he's play ign each hand on each street depending on what you do, it's pretty straightforward math to calculate the correct play.

Dan Z

[adios]

Thanks for further illustrating my point. My point wasn't that he would raise with the hands I enumerated, my point was that one needs to consider the distribution. If you're a 2-1 dog when you bet on the river I think you want to check. I realize that the original post said he'd bet a jack no matter what but even so I think check and call would be better and this is image related.

[Coilean]

mike,

I was just responding to the criteria as given by vehn. Adding the factors you mention certainly makes betting the turn seem the best play, especially combined with BigLick's (and your) point that you can sometimes save a bet by folding if you get raised on the turn.


[ QUOTE ]
...a river check-call makes up for the times (50-50 vehn said) button has a J he will bet with.

[/ QUOTE ]
You lost me here, are you suggesting that you check call the river after you bet the turn? If you were planning to call anyway if your opponent bets the river, you simply must bet against this opponent who won't raise you with a worse hand. The reason being that you don't want to lose that extra bet those times he holds a jack but will check behind. If we assume (just for the sake of example) that he holds an ace 60% of the time and a jack 40% of the time, you would lose out on 0.2BB (50% * 40% * 1BB) by checking on the river.

[Coilean]

Tom,

[ QUOTE ]
If you're a 2-1 dog when you bet on the river I think you want to check.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why would you allow this guy to check behind with a jack on the river if there was any chance he would call with it, given the way vehn described his betting? It seems you could fold here 100% of the time when raised, and will always have to call a bet from a better hand anyway, so why let him get out of paying you an extra 1BB those times you do actually have him beat? Even if you were a 10-1 dog when called, a river bet would still show a profit over a river check call, right?

[adios]

Misread the post, thought he stated that he'd always bet a Jack on the river as well. So yep it's better to come out betting IMO.