missing 2 checkraises? a ftop problem.. or am i being anal?

[mike l.]

i have Ac3c in a good 15-30 game 9 handed. 2 players limp to me and i limp 2 off the button, aggressive button who plays pretty good a bit loose and a bit overaggro, plus he doesnt like me, raises. big blind and us limpers call. a bunch of us see a flop that goes:

QcTc5h. checked to me and i check, button bets, big blind calls, limper calls, i checkraise, button 3 bets, blind and limper fold, i call. heads up.

the turn is Kc. i bet out and he calls.

the river is 4c. i bet and he calls. he shows JcJh after i table my hand.

now, here's what im thinking: if i check the turn he'll bet his one card straight flush draw, and ill checkraise him and he has to call. one bet: missed.

on the river if i check again he will put me on a smaller flush he just outdrew and he'll bet for value. thanks to my history with this player and the fact he's observed me bluff checkraise scary rivers he'll definitely call me with the second nut.

so while on the surface it seems like i won a nice pot, i actually lost two big bets. f*ck.

[andyfox]

What about if he has Jd-Js?

[mike l.]

"What about if he has Jd-Js?"

just a guess but i think he might fold the river if bet into and bet the river if checked to and then fold to a checkraise. as for the turn i think he'd probably play it the same but there's a small chance he'd check behind on the turn.

why do you ask?

[PokerPrince]

Ya you're being anal. Bet the flop. Bet the turn. Bet the river. If you could see both your opponents cards then you can play it all sneaky and checkraisey. Since you can't, bet your hand for value.

PokerPrince

[Rick Nebiolo]

mike,

based on what he had in retrospect you could have checkraised twice. but heads up he could easily check behind on the turn with a variety of good hands he wants to show down for one more big bet (if he checks the turn he calls your river bet) against a tough tricky opponent such as yourself.

~ rick

[elysium]

hi mike
the only problem here mike is that you read your opponent for the Jc. well, that's correct but wrong. you should have him on QQ (unlikely), TT or KJs.

fortunately you saw the error and played it perfectly. you put him correctly on trips. no, that was wrong, but more correct than his having the Jc.

also, you realized that the board was getting scarrier for your opponent. he would be afraid to bet his trips or straight into the four flush on board. so you bet out, which was correct in this situation. no, it cost you a couple of extra bets, but in this case, getting the exrta bets in would not have been following an incorrect read, since in fact your read was correct, but it would have been following an incorrect method of hand reading. forget about those extra bets. follow your instincs within the framework of those listed in hfap and top. over-all, you will have a higher +ev, and have to do less guesswork. you read the hand correctly but you hand read incorrectly. and you still played perfectly, and you wouldn't have played perfectly if you did get those extra bets in. over-all you'll have higher ev playing this way.

[mike l.]

"over-all you'll have higher ev playing this way."

i disagree.

the problem w/ the hand was i didnt put him on anything in particular. once i made my flush i just bet and didnt give it any thought. i think that going for a checkraise on the turn wouldve worked knowing what he had, but wouldnt have worked with many other hands he couldve held that he wouldve just called a turn bet w/. so i can let that street go and not worry about it.

but the river is another thing. it makes sense for this player to do two things w/ position w/ great frequency when 4 of one suit are on the river given the preceding action:

--bet when checked to both w/ a big club (namely the J) and without.

--pay me off w/ that big club and even w/ good hands without.

in short: he wont check behind on the river and hope whatever he has holds up. of course only sometimes will he call my river checkraise, but his tendency will be towards calling. so i will make 2 bets more, and profit significantly more, than i will profit from just betting the river as i did.

another thing: his call of my bet on the turn points to him having something good already and/or something that can improve. in other words: he doesnt have red pocket 8s. so a reasonable club (a J or even the 9) is very possible. he could easily have QxJc or KxJc. so what i said about his river play seems even more likely to hold up from what i know of his play.

so my play is to go for a checkraise on the river. i dont think it's even very close. and all my reading, esp. of sklansky's writings about the river point to this being the expert play.

[bernie]

pulling off a double c/r can be tough. he may have checked behind on the turn. but, with an overaggresso it may be worth trying. remember, with a flush possible, he also has to consider the other players in the hand and that they may have it.

i think you played it well. also, if you double c/r with a flush now possible, he may fold. that would be 2 strong moves, he can almost rest assured that if his J hits the flush it wont be good.

unless he's near maniacal and will igonore the warning bells of strong moves like this

itd also be a much different post had the 9c come on the river.

b

[bernie]

this also depends on what he thinks you may have. what kinds of hands are you going to c/r the flop then bet out with when the flush is possible on the turn? many wont c/r a draw like this unless it's the nut or a str8/flush draw. even aggress players can go into calldown mode if they smell a rat in there. one thing about overaggressos is they can read hands decently.

the prime thing to look for is if he would bet in this situation. if you c/r, he may not call anyway so you may not gain anything. unless youve shown you can bluff the river like this previously.

b

[andyfox]

Because I think the check-raises only work if he has precisely the hand he had. Without the Jc, he may have checked behind.