Flop Checkraise

[gavrilo]

A new player(NP who is unknown to me) posts in the cutoff, all fold to him, he raises his option, only the Big Blind Calls.
Flop action goes check, bet, fold.

Very next hand I'm in the Big Blind with A /images/graemlins/club.gifJ /images/graemlins/diamond.gif, all fold NP, he raises, folded to me and I call.

Flop is Q84 two clubs, 4 is not a club.
check, bet, I raise, he 3-bets, I call(questionable?).
Turn is A /images/graemlins/diamond.gif
I check, he bets, I raise, call.
River is a blank and he calls my bet.

And then he lets loose on me about my flop checkraise and how terrible it is. I think me calling his 3-bet is the worst play I made. Comments?

[tpir90036]

do you know what he had? it certainly looks like a steal and a follow-up. assuming he has not much you could have as many as 6-outs plus the chance he will back off and fold. i would never try that against a non-tricky opponent. and even against a tricky opponent i would pick my spots. but i think you picked a good one.

[karlson]

I don't understand the logic. The less tricky my opponent is (assuming he still has pretty loose LP preflop raising standards), the more likely I would be to make this play. If he's tricky, I will sometimes end up folding the best hand on the turn. If he's not tricky, I pretty much know I'm beat if he puts in chips on the turn.

I think the flop checkraise is fine fairly often. I don't think you can do it every time, though.

Folding to his 3-bet would be a terrible play, I think. Even if you're up against something like KQ, I think you have an easy call. Also, it looks funny and might cause more people to make moves against you (which is not what most people want).

After you hit your A, I think it's straightforward.

[tpir90036]

i didn't really state my point very well....and my logic could definitely be off. my point is that i am not a big fan of check-raising weak players heads-up beacsue more often than not they check it through and will check/call to the river anyway. i try to save my check-raises for aggressive players and in family pots to make people face a double bet.

your point of using a CR for info against a weak player is 100% correct though. maybe i am just too scared of giving free cards (which in this particular situation might not be so bad).

[gavrilo]

i try to save my check-raises for aggressive players and in family pots to make people face a double bet.

I would rather checkraise a single opponent who could very well be on a steal than a family pot with Ace high, but that's just me.

[tpir90036]

if i used it on a family pot i would have more than ace high. i was talking in general about check-rasing, not about this hand.

also, an aggressive player would be more likely to steal than a weak one. so i would use it against him. again, in general.

so it would seem we are in agreement.

[Coilean]

[ QUOTE ]
Even if you're up against something like KQ, I think you have an easy call.

[/ QUOTE ]

When did a 3 out hand become an easy call in a 9.5 bet pot? If he laid a KQ face up after he 3-bet you, it's a clear fold.

As it is, without knowing for sure that you are beat after the 3-bet, this is at best a distinctly uneasy call, and maybe even an uneasy fold. The only reasons to call the 3-bet here are 1) your opponent is unknown, but seems fairly aggressive (he raised preflop 2 of 2 hands so far), 2) there's a possible flush draw for him to push, 3) you have a few backdoor draws, and 4) you can beat a bluff. The absence of any one of these factors would cause me to fold, and even with all of them present you can't feel very good about calling the flop 3-bet.

[gavrilo]

I think you're absolutely right Coilean, I didn't like my call of the 3-bet very much, I strongly considered mucking. One reason why I called was because I didn't want people taking shots at me for the remainder of the session really.

[karlson]

[ QUOTE ]


When did a 3 out hand become an easy call in a 9.5 bet pot? If he laid a KQ face up after he 3-bet you, it's a clear fold.


[/ QUOTE ]


I wasn't sure about this statement. I thought about it and decided it was really close. So I crunched some numbers assuming both hands were face up. It turns out that it's a call (even though you won't call on the turn if you hit an offsuit J,T or K) but of course it's incredibly close. I think that at the table, I would probably still call the 3-bet, but maybe it should not be as automatic as I first thought. Of course the key factor is whether I think it will be profitable to call this guy down to the river with ace-high.


BTW, I now have a program that will do these calculations (given two face up hands, calculate the EV of each (taking into account future bets (only 1 per street, of course)). Anyone interested can pm me.

[tpir90036]

i use pokerstove

http://www.pokerstove.com/

is it pretty much the same thing?

[karlson]

Not quite. That just calculates the EV with no future betting (I think most people use a web version at www.twodimes.com (http://www.twodimes.com), but this one had a decent interface, I guess. It also allowed you to easily specify a range of possible hands, which is nice).

[bad beetz]

I think him calling your turn check/raise is the worst play

[Diplomat]

That was exactly what I was thinking. Then I'd probably proceed to do something stupid like ridicule him back. And I wonder why I always end up playing in short-handed games.

-Diplomat