AQo with a monotone board at Stars: turn decision

[MortalNuts]

You're killing time before a tournament in a Stars 0.25/0.50 game. In the few orbits you've been here, table has seemed fairly passive, somewhat loose for a table at Stars (3-4 people seeing the flop), with a couple moderately loose players to your right.

You're in the SB with AQo. UTG+1, a player with tight-aggressive tendencies, limps. 4 more loose limpers (!). You raise, because a) you think most of the players in this hand are weak and want to give you their money, b) you have the best hand, and c) raising is fun. BB folds, all limpers call. 6, I think, to the flop for 13 SB.

Flop comes Axx of one suit, which happens to be neither of your suits. You bet out, UTG+1 calls, one LP limper also calls. 3 to the turn for 16 SB.

Turn is another baby card of the same suit.

Who checks, who bets, what's your gameplan, and why? Are you folding to a single bet (from the tricksey little tight-aggressive hobbit to your left? from the looser player to your right?)? To 2 bets?

I'll post my own thoughts on this later. Feel free to bash play on earlier streets as well; I have yet to win the coveted "misplayed on every street" award.

-mn

[moondogg]

My first inclination would be to check/fold. However, after thinking about it, I would bet right out. You might be better off than you think.
If my math is correct , there is a %40 chance that noone has a flush (I found this number suprisingly high, so please let me know if you see any flaws).
Given that, you're definitely getting the odds to call. Also, a bet might fold out low cards of the suit (probably not, but maybe).
If you get raised and reraised, you're done.
If you get raised once, I would call, and check/call the river.
This may seem overly weak or passive, but this is a pretty big pot, and I wouldn't give it up without a fight. Then again, I also suck.

Math:
For the purposes of this, we'll refer to the suit on the board as hearts. On the turn, there are 46 unseen cards, 9 of which are hearts. So what's the chance that one of your opponents has a heart? Better yet (and more simply to solve), what's the chance that they don't have a heart? In other words, if you removed four hearts from the deck (the four on the board), what's the chance that you will draw a heart in four tries?
46 unseen cards, 9 of which are hearts, leaving 37 non-hearts:
37/46 x 36/45 x 35/44 x 34/43
= (37x36x35x34)/(46x45x44x43)
= 1585080 x 3916440
= .4047246989613015902196893096792
= 40%
=> the odds are 1.5 to 1 that noone has a flush.

[Nate tha' Great]

moondogg,

The trouble is that the players who called a bet on that board are disproportionately likely to have a heart. In fact it's almost certain that they do. I'd check/fold.

[Trix]

Why call a flop bet without a heart when flop comes A-high ?
atleast one of them have one, check fold

[MortalNuts]

[ QUOTE ]
Why call a flop bet without a heart when flop comes A-high ?
atleast one of them have one, check fold

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Trix --

I think folding on the flop for one bet would be a real mistake -- the likelihood of someone having two pocket hearts (in your example) is not that large, and someone with a single heart is still behind, with only about a 35% chance of making the flush. (That's also why I don't like checking the flop -- you potentially give someone with a single card of that suit a free chance at the flush, plus I think you get more information by betting out, plus there's a decent chance you're still ahead.)

The turn, of course, is another story.

cheers,

mn

[Trix]

didnt mean you...i asked why you would think any1 would call your flop bet without a heart ?

[Gomez22]

I bet the turn here again.... you could be folding to a worse hand if you check/fold here, and the board looks just as scary to them as it does to you if they DON'T have the flush. If you bet the turn and are raised, I think you may be able to let this go..... especially if raised by UTG+1, and cold-called by LP.

[JPNet]

What I have seen happen at these low limits is that many of the loose limpers will be in with any 2 suited cards. i.e. T2h, or 72h. When the 3 hearts hit the flop, you can't get them out with a crowbar, but they will not raise because they are afraid someone else (the bettor!) has a higher flush. I would bet the flop, but when the 4th heart comes up either check/fold, or check call if the pot is big. Definately expect to see a heart, or 2 at the end.

[MortalNuts]

Ah -- that makes much more sense, and I agree completely. Sorry I misinterpreted what you said. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I do think there are a few hands that would call a bet without a heart; of course, I'm behind and potentially drawing quite thin against some of those (e.g. a flopped two-pair). There's an off chance AJ or AT would call a flop bet on that board, if only my opponents were cooperative enough to have dominated hands all the time. While we're dreaming, there's also an off chance that the nut flush will fold due solely to my fearsome table presence.

[MortalNuts]

Thanks for the replies, folks.

I checked. My reasoning was that the tight-aggressive tricksy player was capable of raising me without the flush, (or, conversely, smooth-calling me and then betting/raising the river with the flush) so I can't always fold to a raise (from him). (I think I can fold to a single bet from the non-tricksy player as easily as I can fold to a raise.) I would've folded to a bet from tricksy and a raise from the other guy, or a single bet from the other guy.

Tricksy bet, loose-passive called, and I called. I actually agree with those of you who said check-folding here is best, since I don't think even 9:1 is good enough here (given the fact that they called the flop bet with a scary board). But I muttered something about the pot being big, downed a swig of Don Julio, and hit the call button.

River was a blank. I checked, and it was checked through.

Tricksy had something like KTo, with the T being board's suit, and the other player had Ax (no flush), where the flop had paired the x. So I was actually behind on the flop as well (and the player I had pegged as tight-aggressive was neither particularly tight nor particularly aggressive on this hand). Tricksy took it down.