chip leader in a $55 Party rebuy, confusing top pair hand

[bruce]

I bet the turn and if he c/r's I fold. I then check the river.
I don't see how the second Queen helped him. By checking the turn you really have no idea where you stand on the river. He
can fire with anything from a made hand to a stone cold bluff. Because you checked the turn you are left guessing. Just because there's no draw on the flop doesn't mean we can
assume our opponent flopped a set or has a bigger King. He may have called with middle pair, an over pair, or wheel draw and he's taking a card off and watching to see if you
will fire a second barrel. I think you played the hand way
too tight, barring any specific reads, which you don't have.

Bruce

[bruce]

Also if you look at this in terms of mathematical distributions of possible hands which he would call BTF there are probably about ten times as many hand combos which you can beat. I am
not a huge advocate of this type of anaylsis, but it does have
some merits in this situation.

Bruce

[Paradigm]

If he had KQ, would he overbet the pot, or wouldn't he value bet to induce a call? You've made top 2 pair with second kicker, so unless he flopped a set of 4's or 2's, you could be ahead. you're behind KQ, Qx, 44, 22, AA, KK, but the way he played his hand implies too much strength. i think AQ is a possibility here, especially (like was said earlier) if he thinks your flop bet was simply a continuation one, and then he lucked into trips.



It's a tough hand.

[Double Eagle]

Bet 2k on the turn and you aren't in this position.

[BoneCollector]

I would make a bet of about half the pot on the turn. Any check raise would require a fold. If you continue with the lead here, you can prob get a free showdown. With no reads here, you can assume he would try and sell the hand if he knew he had the lock on the river, but your turn check showed weakness, so this may be a steal attempt.

Bottom line is you made an aggressive play with a marginal hand, and these things always result in difficult decisions.
Fold and save the chips for a better hand.

[Jason Strasser]

Consider checking the flop behind. In deep stacked NL poker you really want to exercise some form of pot control. As you played it, I definitely check behind the turn and call or fold to a bet on the river (heavily leaning towards call). If he checked to you on the river again then I'd probably value bet. You do not want to bet three streets here, you will be behind way too often. I tend to check behind on this flop because there are very few cards that stink (an ace, maybe a wheel card might annoy you a bit too), so giving free cards isn't a disaster. Plus if you check the flop you are likely to get the most from a hand like 77 that will often call a turn bet.

-Jason

[Jason Strasser]

Depends Billy, you just gotta go with your read. Nothing we are going to say here can help you much with this specific river decision. It's unlikely he's going to showdown a worse made hand, but he could have air. I guess a bet size this strong I tend to fold because very few players are capable of bluffing here, but I've definitely made this call before and been right and wrong.

-Jason

[AaronO]

Sounds kind of like the hand in this post, where you are either way ahead or way behind on the flop. As you can see, there is some disagreement as to whether or not you should check behind on the turn or make a blocking bet. Marginal hands = tough decsions.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...amp;PHPSESSID=

BTW- can someone tell me how to paste a link to another thread without just pasting the URL? Thanks.

[TheDrone]

[ QUOTE ]
I tend to check behind on this flop because there are very few cards that stink (an ace, maybe a wheel card might annoy you a bit too), so giving free cards isn't a disaster. Plus if you check the flop you are likely to get the most from a hand like 77 that will often call a turn bet.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm a little confused here, so I'm going to think out loud. Maybe it's a question of balance between pot control and giving information in a way ahead/way behind situation. Assuming that you tend to bet a heads up flop when you miss, wouldn't you also want to bet the flop when you hit?

By your post I take the answer to be "no" because pot control is much more important here than any potential info you might be giving up in terms of betting patterns. In other words, checking behind in this specific situation is very unlikely to be used against you in future situations. Am I close? If not, please elaborate.

[Sluss]

[ QUOTE ]
i think AQ is a possibility here

[/ QUOTE ]

Would AQ check the turn when the Q hit? I would think there would have to be a turn bet if you are making a call with AQ on the flop. This hand is feeling more and more like a mid pair to me.