Is this giving up too easily?

[cartman]

I open-raise in the CO and get called by only the BB who is at least average aggression and about average looseness (definitely willing to wait until the turn to checkraise any top pair and many other hands and definitely not ever folding a pair heads up and rarely folding Ace high).....

When the flop has an Ace or two broadway cards and he checks and calls my autobet, I usually give up on the turn if I don't have a pair or a draw. I also usually give up if the flop had two flush cards and a third came on the turn.

Is this too weak?

Should I be firing again with Ace high even if the flop did have two broadways?

Should I fire again no matter I hold?

Thanks,
Cartman

[krishanleong]

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Is this too weak?

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Somtetimes.

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Should I be firing again with Ace high even if the flop did have two broadways?

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Sometimes.

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Should I fire again no matter I hold?

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No. I think always firing is much worse than always giving up in the situations you describe. As I've gotten better at HU play, I think there is profit to be made by sometimes better when conditions are favorable but still giving up maybe 70% of the time.

Favorable conditions might be a person who doesn't go to showdown much, a showdownable ace high hand, a board that is likely to have villian on a draw.

Krishan

[Girchuck]

Don't always give up on the turn. Don't always bet no matter what. Don't do anything in a mechanical predictable fashion. In the situation you've described, I flip two coins. If they both come heads, I bet again, otherwise, I give up.

[krishanleong]

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Don't always give up on the turn. Don't always bet no matter what. Don't do anything in a mechanical predictable fashion. In the situation you've described, I flip two coins. If they both come heads, I bet again, otherwise, I give up.

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I think there are better ways. But it's art as much as science.

Krishan

[Surfbullet]

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In the situation you've described, I flip two coins. If they both come heads, I bet again, otherwise, I give up.

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Stellarwind had a great post about this. Our cards are inherently random, which is enough to make our play unpredictable - if we choose to only bet 25% of our hands here, bet the best 25% (most showdown value) or the 25% where it is most likely villain will fold, etc. Poker is a game of imperfect information so our opponent can't know that we gave up with AK instead of 27 - use your best no pair hands and let go of the rest.

Surf

[redbeard]

i've been struggling a bit with the turn as well. its obvious to me that you need to fire again with top pair hands, but what about with middle pair and below. i know that it is opponent dependant, but what kind of rules of thumb do people use with middle pair, bottom pair, and ace high? and also heads up when do people generally take the "free card" with a draw and when are you willing to fire again?

[cartman]

I think the general theme is that, when you have showdown value, fire again if your decision how to handle a raise will be clear. Against loose passives whose flop call says nothing about his hands, I virtually always bet the turn with Ace high or any pair (betting draws is almost purely on a folding equity basis and against some players you have none). You can decide to take the free showdown if you don't get raised or led into on the river, but against guys that never fold Ace high, you can value bet with some pretty weak holdings on the river.

The difficulty in this area comes when your opponent is willing to checkraise with hands worse than you currently hold. Then folding to his checkraise carries some risk of folding a better hand. Against a guy who will virtually always bet the river if you check behind him, I think checking behind and calling with some of your weaker showdownable hands (bottom pair and Ace high type hands) appears in my experience to be an excellent strategy.

I recently made a post about this and there were some responses cautioning me not to get carried away with checking behind. Danaenia said that against an opponent who loves to checkraise even with draws, etc., you should often fire again with middle pair even if you "know" you will be checkraised and then just call him down.

This is one of those areas which separate the men the from the boys. I suspect that if you take a 3BB/100 player and compare his play to a 2BB/100 player, much of the difference would come from their play on the turn with marginal holdings.

Cartman

[redbeard]

thanks for the general criteria