Checking the turn with a good hand.? NLHE

[Acesover8s]

Well, I still suck at NLHE, but I'm still better than the party players. What do you think of the turn play here?

1-2 blind game, I have $96, every player involved has at least $200.

1 limper. MP raises it to $4 (as he has 4 out of 5 hands for the last 10 minutes). I make it $14 to go with AsKh. BB calls, all other fold.

Flop is Qs7s4c. He checks and calls my $20 bet.

Turn is the JS. He checks and I check.

Say the river is the 4 of hearts and he bets $40, what do you do? (Not that it was)

[Zag]

Fold all or almost all of the time, here. You can only beat a bluff, and what bluff could he really be on? On the flop he was either drawing, slowplaying, or he has top pair and a kicker he's not that proud of. What draw could he have been on other than spades? He called $14 cold preflop, so that rules out 56 (even on Party). So in all those reads, he's ahead now.

I suspect he has QJsuited, or maybe KQ. He got nervous about his kicker on the flop. When you checked behind on the turn, he felt a lot better about it, and correctly assumes that he has you beat. It is hard to believe that he has spades, because the best he could have would be KsTs or Ts9s, both pretty lame hands to call a reraise from the BB (though I've seen it).

But I don't really put him on a pure bluff. If he is, he deserves the pot. You do have to call sometimes on the river, just to keep the bluffers from running over you, but I don't think this is the one to choose.

[1800GAMBLER]

A present. Sir. For you.


Anyhow, i lead out the missed flop _a lot_ when i have 2 calers. 50% of those called times i don't lead the turn. If they have called a preflop raise and a pot sized bet i'm not usually getting them off that hand. I do check the turn when i have hit at times though. I make a lot of preflop raises with 8 - T pocket pairs too with intentions of going heads up with 1 player and hoping he missed, which is likely.

Anyhow, don't beat yourself up. That's a standard hand and i vote folding the river. If you did that then you played it well.

[Acesover8s]

Ok, i'm not really getting responses to the first point. My question is what do you think of checking the turn when I have nut no pair (which may or may not be good) and anywhere from 9 to 18 outs if its not.

In actuality, I did check, the river was a spade and he bet $40 into my nut holding, which I then raised him. He showed the KsTx. I now wonder if my turn check was dangerous since I gave him a free draw to an Ace which I would've probably lost the remainder of my stack to, and I allow him to steal from me if the board bricks and he bets big enough (were this a limit hand I would have called with AK high no matter the river (Nor would I have checked it)). So now I wonder if I should've still been pushing the hand on the turn since I had so many outs to recover if he did call me. I doubled up, but am unsatisfied with my play.

Thanks for the Ciaffone article, but I've read it and everything else he's written. I've got to support my nextdoor neighbor.

[1800GAMBLER]

In this case i would have pot betted the turn. You have to be very careful when your AK hits a single pair. It has reserve implied odds when you draw to these single pairs.

More often than not you'll be doing it into top pair medium kicker (and not giving a free card) and after that many big bets they'll be finding it tough to hold, which makes it a good position for a semi-bluff.

Had i hit my ace on the river on that board with that action i doubt i would call a pot sized bet out of nowhere.. this is after i pot betted the turn. Checking the turn would make me call a pot sized bet on the river though. It's also better that you are in position, since if you miss everything then on the river you have less worry he'll bluff at you. So if/when you check your A high may be good.

AK will probably be the hand that will bust you most in NL, that's what it's like.

[tewall]

I think Jay P's answer is on the right track. You want to check sometimes and bet sometimes. You can't just do one thing. If you always bet with that type of hand, you make it easy for your opponent to do the right thing (call).

You don't need to worry too much about giving up a free card with just one opponent.

Regarding the stealing, you can prevent that (or minimize it's effect) by simply calling some of the time.

[cero_z]

Hi Ace,
I've only read the first five or so replies. None of them have mentioned that you made the obviously correct play by checking the turn. If you bet after he checks, you are turning AK into 72 (see Sklansky's Tournament Poker). Oh, alright... since you must fold if he raises big, you might as well have a total bluff like 72, which you at least wouldn't feel bad about folding. Opening yourself up to a raise on the turn with the nut flush draw and nothing else would be a terrible play.
If a blank hits the river and he bets big, you fold.