How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent on?
 

Hi All,

Not posted in a while. Would appreciate feedback on two hands.

Stars 1/2 Cash - I have $200. No reads yet as first few hands at the table

Hand 1

I get 88 UTG and raise to $6, 1 caller in MP.

Flop
T 7 2
I bet out $10 and MP calls
Turn is Q, I check and he bets $22. I call.
River is 3, I check and he bets $58.

What do you do?

Hand 2

I have $380 in front of me at the same table.

Villain has just over $100 and is UTG. He has just lost a big hand to me.
He calls, I call in MP with KQo and we have 5 to the flop.

Flop - 7h 3h 2d. Checked all round
Turn - Ks. check, check, villain bets $8, I call and all fold.
River - Kh. Villian bets $12.

What is your move here?

Cheers for all answers. I will post the answers up shortly.

Jon

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent on?
 

Hand 1: Lead or check/fold turn.

Hand 2: Call river. Getting 3-bet sucks here.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent on?
 

Bet the turn in hand 1. Raise the river in hand 2.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent on?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Hand 1: Lead or check/fold turn.

Hand 2: Call river. Getting 3-bet sucks here.

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Nah this opponent is likely tilting and could threebet with a lot of hands you beat.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent on?
 

How do you react to a huge 3-bet / push? Villain may be tilted, but may also be exploiting his image and know you think he may be tilted, especially immediatly after losing a pot.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent on?
 

Interesting reading here and AJ, not a bad read on Hand 2.

In Hand 1 I reversed, the hands. I was the player in MP (and I held AJs) and decided that UTG had a small pair. I thought I could bluff him off this pot with a large bet on the river. Anyway, he called, which IMO is a terrible call. He had third best pair here.

On rereading Hand 1, how do you rate my play with AJs here?

Hand 2

I decided to stupidly min raise the $12 bet (If figured, as he was tilting, he may well call with not a lot!). He then immediately reraised all in for another $75 or so.

After a while, I decided to fold, as I thought he was pushing his tilting image here, and gave him credit for a hand (either a boat, AK, or a small flush!).

I folded my KQ, and he showed his cards ---> KQ.

D'oh! If anything, this has taught me to rarely min raise the river. I think a raise all in, or a call is a better play here!

Any further comments appreicated!

Jon

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

Hand 1: Good reason not to bluff like this at these stakes without a read. You picked the wrong guy to get fancy with. Never bluff a calling station, and your opponent played that part well. Make a note, and you should be able to get your money back from him fairly quickly.

Hand 2: I don't like blindly raising all in with your holding here, and I really don't like getting 3 bet like you did, which adds up to me calling.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent on?
 

Hand 1:

Fold.

I'd have check/folded the turn after that cold call to my continuation bet. Unless he has 89, what is he drawing at? Raising preflop is fine. A continuation bet is fine. But now it's time to lett 88 go. It's just an underpair that's losing to AT, JT, and any other xT, not to mention better hands like a set of 7s or 2s.

Hand 2-

Call.

I think raising is risky because K7s, K3s, and K2s are all possibilities in an unraised pot. Just call and win a nice medium sized pot and be happy.

Also, I'd probably fold KQo preflop in this hand.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

Hand 1: Check/Fold Turn.

Hand 2 Call River.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

You guys are missing TONS of value if you're not raising the river in hand 2. I'd rather get all in every time than call every time. People overplay trips, no kicker all the time. And people make loose calls on paired boards all the time. And stacks are not deep.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

Theres a third heart on the board as well.
Calling a 3-bet all in here with KQ IS a -loose- call.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

[ QUOTE ]
You guys are missing TONS of value if you're not raising the river in hand 2. I'd rather get all in every time than call every time. People overplay trips, no kicker all the time. And people make loose calls on paired boards all the time. And stacks are not deep.

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If the river King were not a heart, I would be raising for sure. The heart gives me pause. Villian is likely to PFR with AK, bet the flop with K7, 77, 33, 22; and fold preflop with K3 and K2. So the only thing we really should worry about is a flush. An OK villian may semi-bluff the turn with a flush draw, hoping Hero doesn't have a K, so he takes the small pot down right there.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

Pot is 60 and he has 80 behind. It is impossible to make a loose call here.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

Only because you will be priced in after you raise him. If the king at the end wasn't the heart, easy raise. Here, I call.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

He has worse trips or a lower pair that will call a raise way more often than he has a better hand. You are losing value by not raising. And you don't have to worry about a 3-bet because obviously you are so short it doesn't matter.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

If he had hero's stack size (or at least much larger), would you call instead of raising? And how would you react to a huge 3bet then if you opted to raise?

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

I'd probably raise and fold to a push. You are ahead very often here and will be called very often by worse hands.

Edit: The only time I would DEFINITELY NOT raise the river is if I were playing against someone really good who would a)be unlikely to pay me off with a worse hand and b)may bluff me off my hand by pushing a worse hand. That would really suck.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

Hand 1--I would have folded on the turn (but since you called the turn you're pretty much stuck calling the river since that 3 didn't help him).

Hand 2--I would have put him on a king--I don't think he's got K7 K3 K2 or AK. I'd probably would have moved in (but there are a lot of times in which I would have just called). I don't like min raise since then he can move in with a worse king and you then have no idea what to do.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

There is only one king left in the deck, and 3 to the flush is on the board. If he has a hand here that is willing to just call your raise, its more likely to be a flush than a king. Maybe you will get paid off by two pair often enough, but I don't see it here. Also, if he really is a tilting donkey with a bigger stack than in this example, and he pushed, you would often be folding the best hand, which would be an even bigger mistake.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

I believe I made that point that if he can push with a worse hand I will not raise. But there are plenty of worse hands that he can call with getting 3:1 on his money or whatever it is if you push the river.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

[ QUOTE ]
I believe I made that point that if he can push with a worse hand I will not raise. But there are plenty of worse hands that he can call with getting 3:1 on his money or whatever it is if you push the river.

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I'm assuming you meant there are plenty of worse hands villain can have that hero can call here getting 3:1 to call villain's 3 bet push? Sure, but there are also plenty of better hands with the 3rd heart on the board, and the only way you are justifying a call on a 3-bet here is because the stacks are short and you have priced yourself in after raising, as you said you would raise and fold to a reraise if stacks were bigger. I certainly believe he would be capable of doing this with a worse hand with a bigger stack, especially if he was tilting, so you wouldn't be raising with him having a bigger stack, unless you didn't believe this, which I don't see why you wouldn't. Many arguements can be made for why pricing yourself into an immediate +EV situation in the sphere of an overall -EV situation is fundamentally wrong. I definatly don't mean to sound condescending, as I think this is a good discussion.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

My point is that the raise, with no possibility of a re-raise bluff, is +EV in and of itself. The -EV associated with a re-raise bluff is huge and therefore if that were a possibility I would not take the +EV of raising since it would be outweighed by the -EV of folding the winner or opening myself up to a big push that I call with the loser. In this case, however, the stacks are short so you can push and get the +EV of the raise without the -EV of any potential re-raise. Just push.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

After his 12 bet, the pot would be about 38, and you would effectively be making it 80 more for him by pushing, total of 92, making the pot 130. Thats 1.6 : 1 on his money to call. What calling range do you give him for when you are ahead to make this call? It doesn't seem like this push would come out to being +EV with the third heart on the board, as the calling range for when he is ahead is much broader, especially considering 1 king left in the deck when adding up actual card combinations you are ahead of.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

Is this 6max or full ring? Sorry if I missed it somewhere but I reread the OP a few times and couldn't find it. From the way it was worded sounds like full ring so the rest of this post is assuming full ring:

What hand would villain have here if you're saying worse trips? He was UTG.

Limp UTG with this action to me looks like:
AK, KQ, maybe KJs, 77. Have to assume he's not a donk or the hand analysis is worthless. Betting 80% pot with a flush draw out of position with 1 card to come = no.

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

Hi All,

Top - This is a full ring game. If 6-handed I would have called like a shot!

Interesting discussion on this point.

I think the point on Hand 2 here is that I played the hand terribly here.

My opponent was tilting, so I didnt think about the possibility of a reraise on the river - I was concentrating solely on getting him to call another $12. The other point to make here, I think for future reference, is to not min raise the river, without a hand that is worth calling an all in with. Otherwise you are opening up a lot of possibilities of being pushed off the hand.

In my defence, i felt my opponent played the hand very well.

FWIW, I put him on a small PP, giving him the boat.

Thanks for all analysis!

Jon

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

[ QUOTE ]
I believe I made that point that if he can push with a worse hand I will not raise. But there are plenty of worse hands that he can call with getting 3:1 on his money or whatever it is if you push the river.

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I'm confused as to where you got 3:1, as its no where near that... Pushing here seems pretty bad the more I look at it. Am I missing something?

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I believe I made that point that if he can push with a worse hand I will not raise. But there are plenty of worse hands that he can call with getting 3:1 on his money or whatever it is if you push the river.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm confused as to where you got 3:1, as its no where near that... Pushing here seems pretty bad the more I look at it. Am I missing something?

[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't remember the numbers. I think you're just missing the fact that people will make VERY loose calls in these games.

Here's a recent example:

$400 NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, October 29, 16:27:41 EDT 2005
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 2: x( $899.79 )
Seat 4: TWP( $877.60 )
Seat 5: x( $283.40 )
Seat 6: x( $95.50 )
Seat 3: Villain( $343.30 )
Seat 1: x( $400 )
Villain posts small blind [$2].
TWP posts big blind [$4].
x is sitting out.
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to TWP [ Td Tc ]
x calls [$4].
x calls [$4].
x folds.
Villain raises [$18].
TWP raises [$66].
x folds.
x folds.
Villain calls [$50].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5s, 3s, 4h ]
Villain checks.
TWP bets [$100].
Villain calls [$100].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 6c ]
Villain checks.
TWP is all-In.
Villain is all-In.
** Dealing River ** [ 5c ]
Villain shows [ Kd, Ah ] a pair of fives.
TWP shows [ Td, Tc ] two pairs, tens and fives.
TWP wins $534.30 from side pot #1 with two pairs, tens and fives.
TWP wins $692.60 from the main pot with two pairs, tens and fives.

Maybe it's not the best example. But it is a similar situation in that he can't possibly beat any real hand but he simply does not believe that I have ANYTHING. And he calls off his whole stack with no hope of being ahead and with no odds to draw out (if he is even drawing live which it is quite possible that he is not).

Re: How would you play these rivers and what do you put your opponent
 

People certainly can, but people also tend to be overly scared of 3-flush boards at these limits. Like I said, I definatly like a raise if the king wasn't also the third heart.