sb hand

UTG just sat down, not sure what type of player he is...


UTG raises, all fold to me. i have AKs. i reraise, BB folds, UTG calls


flop 10h 5h 3h not my suit


i bet, UTG raises, i call


turn Kh


i check, UTG bets, i call


river 9s


i check, UTG bets, i call


he turns over J9os , my K holds up


since it was HU, i decided to call since i hit the K on turn.


comments welcome...


b

Pre-flop: raising is fine here since the hand plays well heads-up. Since it is suited, calling here and giving the BB a chance to come in would be fine as well.


Flop: Since you didn't get four-bet pre-flop there's a good chance he has AK too and you might as well take the initiative. Once he raises calling is correct.


Turn: If you plan now on calling him to the river, why not check-raise? You get your two bets in there and if he doesn't have a flush he's probably out and he may be out with a hand like JJ (or QQ, KK) with the Jh. Few players will play back at you here without the nut-flush.


River: once you decided to call the turn, you decided to call the river.


As it turns out you played it well by letting him keep bluffing, but I think the turn raise might be a consideration since some opponents would drop a flush (though probably not a guy who plays J9o UTG so for him the turn raise might not work).


Regards,


Paul Talbot

I like the raise pre-flop, when he doesn't reraise you, there is less of a chance of him having AA/KK.


The flop and turn are scary and since you don't know anything about him or his play, I like taking it to a showdown fairly cheaply.

i agree fully about the checkraise on the turn. it definitely crossed my mind. but i decided since i was gonna put 2 bets in anyway, ill see the river instead. mainly because this was a new player, so i decided to see what he had.


thanks for the comment


b

I like the way you played it and here's the main reason why: When a player just sits down and raises right away UTG this is a good indicator that he is probably loose aggressive. Afterall how often do decent players get to raise UTG....not that often. Anyway your hand is strong enough to call him down and I don't think raising postflop is a good idea for a couple reasons. First he mat have yeo beaten and it will simply cost you more money, and more importantly, if he is on a bluff you will basically stop him from bluffing and he may even fold. In this spot you would probably rather have him bluff you one more time then try to prevent him from outdrawing you because if he has a pair he will only have 5 outs at best but he may only hve 2 outs, so you will lose this pot very rarely by not check raising on the turn.


Kris