$10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

(credit to, I believe, Clarkmeister for doing some posts like this for which I am now about to blatantly rip off in format.)

You're playing in your usual live $10-$20 game and here comes ... Barron Vangor Toth.

You recognize his name from 2+2 and you have read his articles on this site, over at Gutshot, and his daily "news" posts on Daniel's Negreanu's STACKED site.

You start chit-chatting with him and blah blah blah.

He is in the cut-off and open-raises.

It's folded to you in the big blind and you look down to find:

K [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

Oh, my! It's someone who writes for the 2+2 magazine and who has been beating live games for higher stakes than this as of late. You should probably fold... but you decide not to, as he open-raised in late position and he looks rather tired as he just got back from some convention.

You instead three bet. He calls you.

Pot: $65 (3.25 BB)

The flop comes 4 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 9 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 10 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

You bet and he instantly raises.

What do you do?

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

I tend to not overthink things even against good aggressive opposition, and I don't mess around often OOP. So I 3-bet.

Rob

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

I instantly reraise with a grim look on my face.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

[ QUOTE ]
I tend to not overthink things even against good aggressive opposition, and I don't mess around often OOP. So I 3-bet.

Shant

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

immediate 3-bet.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

I would 3 bet the flop and lead the turn. I dont like calling and going for a checkraise because it is too likely a flush or straight draw will check behind on the expensive street and fold the river UI. If the 3-bet gets capped or our bet on the turn gets raised then I would think a bit on his hand ranges, as he could have made a set with his TT or 99.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

i 3-bet

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

[ QUOTE ]
I would 3 bet the flop and lead the turn. I dont like calling and going for a checkraise because it is too likely a flush or straight draw will check behind on the expensive street and fold the river UI. If the 3-bet gets capped or our bet on the turn gets raised then I would think a bit on his hand ranges, as he could have made a set with his TT or 99.

[/ QUOTE ]

I had images blocked and didn't see the hearts initially. I change my answer to 3-bet.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

Call and lead a non heart turn. It's very likely that if Barron is semibluffing 3betting has almost neutral EV.

-SmileyEH

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

I do some reraising of my own. If you cap I lead the turn. If you don't, I lead the turn.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Call and lead a non heart turn. It's very likely that if Barron is semibluffing 3betting has almost neutral EV.

-SmileyEH

[/ QUOTE ]

3-betting has nowhere near neutral EV HU against someone capable of raising a fairly wide range of hands on this flop.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

Okay, so you 3-bet, but Barron 4-bets it.

He must have Aces!

Fold!

You forget that since it's heads-up that you can reraise and you mistakenly believe that you can only call, which you do.

Pot: $145 (7.25 BB)

Turn: 5 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

Board: 4 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 9 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 10 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 5 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

What do you do?

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

Bet/3-bet.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

bet and call down if im raised

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

Reading the leading posters at this site, I sometimes feel like the definition of a nit, but I also 3-bet this flop and bet- 3 bet the turn.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

GOOD GOD MAN WHAT DOES HE HAVE

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

Check call when BVT spikes an A on river.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

You decide to fire out a bet on that turn and see what happens. While he has acted almost immediately before, this time he takes a moment and simply calls.

Pot: $185 (9.25 BB)

River: 3 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

Final board: 4 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 9 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 10 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 5 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 3 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

Do you bet or check?

If you bet and Barron raises, do you call? 3-bet? fold?

If you check and Barron bets, do you call? raise? fold?

You both know that you're both 2+2'ers.

What do his actions indicate that he has, raising pre-flop, calling your raise, four-betting on the flop, calling your bet on the turn...?

What is the range of hands - and there is your answer.

What do you do?

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

Check call. I think sometimes this play will be made with the flush draw, and sometimes with the OESD, so I think a call is in order with such a big pot.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

Bet call since there are alot more hands you're ahead of here that might check behind.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

Range of hands: pretty large, including medium pairs and big connectors both suited and unsuited. A str8 seems unlikely as does AA. A flush or a set is possible.

Most likely I have the best hand and BVT is trying to assert his superiority and knock me off of it. But the pot is big, and I have no good evidence that I'm beat.

So on the river I bet and call if he raises.

bill [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

Based on your actions, I put you on a strong draw on the flop. So either you got there on the river with hearts, or you missed with QJ.

Either way I don't see much value in betting the river. I'd rather check and try to induce a bluff from the QJ.

Also, even in the case where my read is off and you have another hand, my actions have defined my hand pretty well, I would think, and I can't imagine being called by many worse hands

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

Despite the 3-flush and 3-straight on the board (admittedly this latter one is all be irrelevant given the action), you decide to fire out a bet on the river.

Barron grabs 4 chips with each hand and double-fists out the raise.

There's now $245 (12.25 BB) sitting out in the middle of the table.

Do you fold?

Call?

Raise?

Why?
Why not?

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

I now call because I think there's at least a 1/12 chance you're making a last-ditch-effort bluff with a whiffed straight draw.

I don't like it, though, and this is why I said check the river.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Despite the 3-flush and 3-straight on the board (admittedly this latter one is all be irrelevant given the action), you decide to fire out a bet on the river.

Barron grabs 4 chips with each hand and double-fists out the raise.

There's now $245 (12.25 BB) sitting out in the middle of the table.

Do you fold?

Call?

Raise?

Why?
Why not?

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

[/ QUOTE ]

Does Barron know that I'm a 2+2er?

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Does Barron know that I'm a 2+2er?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, he does. He pointed that out in one of the posts earlier. I think that makes the river a pretty easy bet/call.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Bet call since there are alot more hands you're ahead of here that might check behind.

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

Unless BVT is trying to work some reverse psychology a draw is unlikely since the turn call would be just about as immediate as the flop raise, especially with a flush draw. Moreover putting a fourth bet in on the flop against a 2+2er who will almost certainly not give a free card when he shouldn't with just a flush draw seems unlikely. After he calls the turn I say his range is AT-JT, perhaps with one [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. I would bet/call the river. My guess though is that if BVT does show the winning hand it would be 9T, perhaps waiting for the river to not counterfeit his hand so he could raise someone who will very likely value bet.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

And the million dollar answer is...

He made the tough laydown and folded.

Could you make this laydown?

Is this a smart place to save a BB?

Does poker come down to these razor decisions and falling on the right side of them?

Should I be asking rhetorical questions at 2:30 in the morning after being out all night?

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

No, that's a bad laydown against another 2+2er.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Unless BVT is trying to work some reverse psychology a draw is unlikely since the turn call would be just about as immediate as the flop raise, especially with a flush draw. Moreover putting a fourth bet in on the flop against a 2+2er who will almost certainly not give a free card when he shouldn't with just a flush draw seems unlikely. After he calls the turn I say his range is AT-JT, perhaps with one [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. I would bet/call the river. My guess though is that if BVT does show the winning hand it would be 9T, perhaps waiting for the river to not counterfeit his hand so he could raise someone who will very likely value bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see BVT waiting and giving me a free card to beat him if he thinks that he has the best hand.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

I would not lay this one down and I don't think it is wise against anyone - whether or not they are a 2+2'er. If I had planned on Bet/Folding I would have simply used that 1BB to check/call.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Unless BVT is trying to work some reverse psychology a draw is unlikely since the turn call would be just about as immediate as the flop raise, especially with a flush draw. Moreover putting a fourth bet in on the flop against a 2+2er who will almost certainly not give a free card when he shouldn't with just a flush draw seems unlikely. After he calls the turn I say his range is AT-JT, perhaps with one [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. I would bet/call the river. My guess though is that if BVT does show the winning hand it would be 9T, perhaps waiting for the river to not counterfeit his hand so he could raise someone who will very likely value bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see BVT waiting if he thinks he has the best hand...

[/ QUOTE ]
of course not, if BVT thought he had the best hand he would almost certainly raise the turn unless hes getting very tricky with two pair or a set. even then in my experience a good tricky opponent usually will have his deception planned out beforehand and again would call the turn without much hesitation. of course BVT could have already thought about all this and hesitated on the turn to throw us off.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

I meant waiting to bet (i.e., not raising the turn) rather than pausing before his bet. Sorry for not making that clear, I went ahead and editied the post.

I would try not to get too mired down in BVT's acting job as you could run yourself into a tailspin second guessing why he paused.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

[ QUOTE ]
I would not lay this one down and I don't think it is wise against anyone - whether or not they are a 2+2'er. If I had planned on Bet/Folding I would have simply used that 1BB to check/call.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is missing value bets. Against a passive opponent, if you bet and are raised on this river, you can fold pretty easily. If you check and your opponent checks behind a T they were planning on calling with, you've missed a bet.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I would not lay this one down and I don't think it is wise against anyone - whether or not they are a 2+2'er. If I had planned on Bet/Folding I would have simply used that 1BB to check/call.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is missing value bets. Against a passive opponent, if you bet and are raised on this river, you can fold pretty easily. If you check and your opponent checks behind a T they were planning on calling with, you've missed a bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Understood. I am not saying that I would not bet this river (I would), but unfortunately for my bankroll I am still not good enough to bet/fold this even against a passive opponent. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] There is just too much in the pot here.

All-in-all though I don't consider BVT to be a passive opponent so I would still bet, but simply call a raise (as opposed to re-raising).

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

In my gear-shifting, sometimes I do revert back to being too passive (LESS than a year ago, before I really REALLY started studying the 2+2 books, I was a winning 1bb/hour player ... but really weak-tight).

Now some have accused me of being too loose (while many online guys are playing 15% of their hands ... even 17% of their hands ... I'm averaging in the low-20's).

As some more backstory, as a few people wanted to know who this person is, it's not someone that, to my knowledge, posts on 2+2, but rather one of the majority of the 2+2 community: the lurker.

At Foxwoods, there are a few of the old-timers that you can lay this down as this raise only means a flush -- but those same guys aren't 4-betting the flop.

I brought this up as I do read people talking about making those laydowns when you know your beat. Barry wrote about this in CardPlayer this month about costly errors.

But I keep going back to the advice that I'm paraphrasing from SSH: throwing out an additional big bet is bad ... but losing a big pot due to not putting out that bet is catastrophic.

I don't think you can make this fold against ANYONE who is capable of making a bluff ... and I've written about bluff hands.

I think this is a horrendous fold that I don't think anyone should make. And I think many people DO make this fold more often then they'd admit as they want to save that bet, because maybe they're having a losing session and they don't want to lose MORE, or maybe they have only a slight win so why dump "good money after bad"...

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ...
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I would not lay this one down and I don't think it is wise against anyone - whether or not they are a 2+2'er. If I had planned on Bet/Folding I would have simply used that 1BB to check/call.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is missing value bets. Against a passive opponent, if you bet and are raised on this river, you can fold pretty easily. If you check and your opponent checks behind a T they were planning on calling with, you've missed a bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Understood. I am not saying that I would not bet this river (I would), but unfortunately for my bankroll I am still not good enough to bet/fold this even against a passive opponent. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] There is just too much in the pot here.

All-in-all though I don't consider BVT to be a passive opponent so I would still bet, but simply call a raise (as opposed to re-raising).

[/ QUOTE ]

I re-read all of this this morning and just wanted to say thanks Shant for pointing out the potential for missed value bets. Right now I have a huge leak in my game because I do not bet the river for value often enough. Thinking seriously about this hand if I were to have played it either live (when I am in the heat of the moment) or online (where I only have 30 seconds to act) there is the potential that I would not have value bet it (obviously when I am sitting here at my pc weighing the options for 15 minutes in a hand which I have no real stake in I can make a much more objective decision).

The concept of bet/folding in this situation is still too foreign to me (another leak in my game). The bad news is it costs me money, the good news is that I recognize it as a leak and realize that I need to overcome these type of leaks to improve my game. [/Student Caine's lame self affirmation]

Thanks again for pointing out the value bet issue and sorry that I just kind of ignored it last night.

Re: $10-$20 live game, pocket Kings in the BB and your opponent is ... ME
 

Just realized that in my post earlier this morning I didn't write the hand I held:

Q [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] J [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

Part of the further story of this hand was that he was talking about predictable a lot of 2+2'ers are, especially those that write frequently and/or write for the magazine, as if somehow every aspect of our game is transparent. FAR be it that I don't realize that a ton of people can outplay me ten ways from Sunday ... but I also don't believe that everything I do is 100% textbook and predictable.

And while it would be somewhat predictable to play the flush draw that way -- it's not the only hand ... and losing that bet to say that you can save a bet is, as I said, bad, which is why I brought this all up in the first place, as we all hate the "calling station" moniker but sometimes, when the pot's X size, you have to realize people will take shots.

Even some (especially some!) of our beloved 2+2 brethren.

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com