Peter the Weak

I'm in the SB with K2o, no hearts. Four players limp to me and so do I, BB checks.

Flop: K65 with two hearts.

I check, BB and UTG checks, MP bets, all fold to me.

I raise, thinking MP could be betting a draw and that I might have the only King. BB, UTG folds. MP reraises.

I call, turn is a blank.

Now I check and call MP's bet. This play must be horrible. I have no outs and if MP is on a draw a risk giving a freecard. Plus I can probably safely fold to a raise. Would you check and fold to a bet or bet out here?


The turn is another blank. Checked down, I win. My opponent had A6o.


How did I play this? Do you agree my check call on the turn was horrible?


/Peter the Weak

Even for a fractional bet in the small blind, I would always fold K2o and similar big-little offsuit hands because of situations like you found yourself in.


This hand is impossible to play correctly (other than folding it) post-flop when you're out of position.


On the turn, checking and calling is a money loser most of the time.

Whether you play the K2o from the SB or not is subject to some debate - if you're playing a game where the SB is 1/2 the BB, you have a clear fold (as in a 10-20 game). If you're in a 15-30 (or similar game), you should call for the 1/3 bet. Note that there are 4 limpers X 3 chips each + your 2 chips & the BB = 17 chips. 17:1 is plenty good enough to see if you flop 2 pair or open trips.


That said, the biggest problem with this hand is when you get a board like you described. The flush draw being out there means that you will have to pay this one off all the way if you think he doesn't have a king. I'd bet the flop out, trying to get a bare ace to fold. If a raise comes from one of the middle position players, (more likely a king than flush draw), I'd call if it's back to me for one more bet, knowing I need to hit my kicker on the turn to play on. If it's raised by the last one to act (or the guy to his left) I'd be more inclined to call the raise, then check-call it down, provided that the board doesn't come with a flush or an ace (since he could have the nut flush draw).

I have to disagree with what you say about this being an easy preflop call in a game with a 2/3 SB. This is still an easy fold...getting 17:1 is NOT ENOUGH. You will NOT flop 2 pair or open trips one out of every 17 hands you play, period. Not only that, but there will be enough times that you do flop 2 pair and end up getting counterfeited (i.e. flop of K T 2, turn T). If the flop comes K K 4, and you get raised on the turn, then what? Call based on your kicker size? Hardly.


And what about all of those times you get a flop like this? If you feel that you can play post-flop perfectly, then sure, by all means, call before the flop...but there are going to be a serious number of times that you catch a small piece of the flop and end up costing yourself even more money than your initial investment.


Peter, I'm happy you won, but I think (and I may be in the minority here) that you are going to end up banging your head against the wall a lot more in the future if you don't dump this preflop. Just my two pennies.


Worm

Even though you're getting great odds to call pre-flop, I think that playing unsuited hands that include a 2 will cause you a lot of grief. You have the worst position against five opponents, and the only flops you really like are flops that hit you twice (KKx, K2x, 22x) and these won't happen enough to make this hand profitable since you probably won't get much action on them.


If you don't know your opponents well enough to know whether they are on a draw or have a King, this hand is going to be a money loser.


Getting back to your question. . . Check-raising is your best option on the flop, your need to get it heads up.


Once you're 3-bet, life becomes very difficult. If you bet into him on the turn he may raise and you'll have to fold. The other problem with betting is that he probably won't fold a better King, but he could easily just call with one, fearing you have trips, two pair or a better King. If you do bet and are called, you need to check the river to try an induce a bluff from a draw. Also, he might check down a better King, but he probably wouldn't have folded a better King.


Basically, I'm not sure there is a good way to play this hand against an unknown opponents. The best thing you can do is toss it in the muck pre-flop.


Then again, what do I know.


Rube

I agree with the others that the preflop call is poor, unless you have a 2/3 SB structure. Also, I'd be more inclined to call with this against 1 limper (where you can reasonably win with any pair, or steal on the flop) than against 4. The extra pot odds you are getting don't make up for having to play this junk against extra players.


If MP is a fairly aggressive player (which certainly seems to be the case here), I think you played the hand fine after the flop. The check raise on the flop is a no brainer, and on the turn you should let him continue to bet in case he was pushing something marginal that he won't call a bet with. Against a more average/passive opponent, I would probably fold after missing on the turn.

I play a lot of hands for 1/3 of a bet in the small blind, but I play very few that include a deuce, even when suited, for the reasons you elucidate. If you catch a deuce, every other board card is an overcard. You gave us more than two pennies worth, IMO.

The odds of flopping 2-pair is about 3.7%, and the odds of making open trips are ~1.5% according to my calculations. This means that I have over a 5% chance of flopping either of these hands. 1 in 20 hands, but my implied odds are higher than this for these hands. This is an EASY call preflop. There is no doubt about it.


I agree with everything that you said about this hand being ugly in situations like Peter's mentioning, but in a 2/3 blind game, there is NO hand that I will release for 1 chip because of the huge odds that the pot is giving you. It's higher variance, but it's still a positive play. If you cannot find yourself releasing top pair no kicker, then I still think that you should say "I'm gonna call and release if I don't flop 2-pair or better" - it's +EV, but if your bankroll is tight and you cannot afford the swings, then folding hands like this isn't terrible, but it does detract from your earn.

Thanks for all responses! I realise I am a bit too loose in general, but I'm working on it. It's great to have a leak you can fix, means the best is yet to come...


Now, Coilean, if he's pushing something marginal he probably has outs so why wouldn't I want him to fold?

* If he's has a flush draw I make him pay.

* A bet here can't cost me anything unless he's superaggressive and raises again with a worse hand, in wich case I would fold.

* I might get a free showdown.

You're almost right about wanting him to fold on the turn if he has a marginal hand (like the 5 outer he, in fact, had). It turns out the 5BB pot you had on the turn is about the pivot point for wanting someone to call with a 5 outer. Obviously, your EV when he folds the turn is +5BB. But, by winning another bet when he bets/calls and misses, and losing 2 bets when he improves (somewhat pessimistic assumptions since you should occassionally win 2 more bets when he bluffs the river), you get:

EV = 39/44(7BB - 1BB) + 5/44(-2BB) = +5.09BB


The situation is closer than I thought in my first response because I didn't actually count down the pot at first, and was thinking in a heads up frame of mind without considering all that preflop limping money in the pot. But it turns out the pot is (barely) small enough that you would prefer he call a bet with 5 outs rather than fold, and definitely like it if he puts in more money with 2-4 outs (gutshot or pocket pair).


Anyway, given an aggressive opponent, I still think the check call on the turn is fine. I dislike the bet-and-fold-to-a-raise ploy against aggressive opponents in general, and find many of these guys will happily continue to push trashy hands/draws (which they should fold) if you let them. If he has a strong draw (flush or open ender), he's probably going to bet anyway, so I wouldn't worry about charging him to draw. If you bet, you expose yourself to a raise which it may not be safe to fold against (we are talking about aggressive players here, and your bet looks fishy/weak after you only call the reraise on the flop), and you may cause him to give up on something hopeless that he would have bet (maybe a pocket pair or stone cold bluff).


As for a free showdown, I'm not sure betting the turn makes this any more likely, since you might induce a bluff when you check the river. Anyway, it's not necessarily a bad thing to have to call a bet on the river against an aggressive opponent, as they often bluff when they miss a draw they have been pushing.


If I seem to be focusing on aggressive opponents a lot here, it's because that's the only context in which I think your check call is OK. /images/wink.gif

Thanks! Always enyoy your posts and I do belive you are correct. The ones that 3-bet the flop that I can beat ought to be really aggressive...

Hmm, I think your calculations are a bit off. There are 6C2 = 15 ways for you to have 2 pair or trips, and 44 other cards to fill out the flop, for 15*44 = 660 such flops. With 50C2 = 19600 different flops, only 660/19600, or 3.37%, give you two pair or open trips, making your odds around 1:28.