playing underpairs aggresively
 

This last weekend at the woods I took a shot at a higher limit and played some interesting hands that I'll post of the course of today. Table was playing kind of LAGy with one huge fish who is the BB in the following hand. the pfr was unspectacular but at the same time was probably average for the table (a little too loose and little too aggro).

foldsss, MP2 opens, I call in the sb (1/2 structure) with 4 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]4 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], bb (table monkey) calls.

flop (6 sb) K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]7 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]3 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
I check, fish checks, pfr bets, I call, fish calls.

The fish calling the flop means he is still holding two cards in his hand as he has routinely peeled every flop he has seen if it is only 1 bet to him. He also tends to donk bet when he has top pair and c/r when he has a flush draw.

turn (4.5 bb) 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]
I check, fish checks, pfr bets, I raise.

thoughts?

Re: playing underpairs aggresively
 

i normally fold preflop without at least 1 cold-caller (i might 3-bet if the openers a bit later and BB is not the table fish)

as far as the turn, i guess this will make a hand like AQ(no club) fold and if fish has absolutely nothing he will fold, but i really dont know how often you are ahead here and villain has no club, i probly would have folded the flop, i dont know, this may work often enough to be profitable, but the pot is fairly small and you never know what the fish is doing, plus when you are ahead, its really not by much

whats your plan for the river if he calls and no club or ace hits?

id think c/f but then again would this guy bet if he had the ace of clubs and missed?

or maybe you can get value from ace high?

are you betting if a club does come?

Re: playing underpairs aggresively
 

I never make this PF call, you'd probably need a very good read on the villain and supreme confidence in your postflop play to make a profit on this call. The flop and turn look like clear check/folds to me, maybe I'm missing something.

Edit: And if I was playing this PF I think it's raise or fold unless the BB is tight.

Re: playing underpairs aggresively
 

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i normally fold preflop without at least 1 cold-caller (i might 3-bet if the openers a bit later and BB is not the table fish)

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I think the call is kind of thin, but I had a pretty good handle on the monkey and pfr played fairly abc, so I thought with good reads I could play this profitably postflop.

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as far as the turn, i guess this will make a hand like AQ(no club) fold and if fish has absolutely nothing he will fold, but i really dont know how often you are ahead here and villain has no club, i probly would have folded the flop, i dont know, this may work often enough to be profitable, but the pot is fairly small and you never know what the fish is doing, plus when you are ahead, its really not by much

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I made a case in my OP way I think the fish doesn't have a king or a club draw (of course he might have a crappy club, but any decent club he would have shown some strength on the flop).

As I said above, I think pfr continues to bet the bare A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] and my thought at the time (I'll run some math later) was that I have enough equity in this pot on the turn to put in a raise to get BB to fold a hand with 6 outs and ocassionaly get pfr to fold a 6 outer and/or charge him the times he has clubs with no pair. I also think I am pretty much never getting 3-bet by a worse hand, so folding to a 3-bet is very easy here. There is also a small chance I can steal a pot from a hand like 55/66/88/99 no club.

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whats your plan for the river if he calls and no club or ace hits?

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bet.

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id think c/f but then again would this guy bet if he had the ace of clubs and missed?

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I'm pretty sure this guy will continue to bet a bare A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] on the turn.

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are you betting if a club does come?

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I was planning to c/f any club or ace river.

Re: playing underpairs aggresively
 

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id think c/f but then again would this guy bet if he had the ace of clubs and missed?

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I'm pretty sure this guy will continue to bet a bare A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] on the turn.


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i meant on the river, but i think a bet is probably better if we think he called with the A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

anyway, id be interested in seeing what you can come up with as far as equity vs his range and making your opponents fold with outs and all that stuff, its probly close

Re: playing underpairs aggresively
 

My personal thought here is that if you want to get aggressive with this hand it should be on the earlier streets:

1. If you want to play this hand, I prefer a pre-flop three-bet. Put the burden on your opponent to make a pair, hopefully shut out the monkey so he can't hit a pair to beat you, and force your opponent to make a bunch of bad folds on flops that look scary to him.

2. As played, I prefer a flop check-raise. The monkey will have a harder time calling with crap. Three-handed, you'd like a medium club to fold, as that may be the only club left. If you check-raise and lead the turn the ABC guy will have a pretty hard time calling without a big club, a K, or better. In general, the pot is small enough that you can generate quite a bit of leverage in this pot without having to wait until the big bet streets to do so.

Re: playing underpairs aggresively
 

If I play this hand, I 3-bet PFR 100% of the time.

On the flop, I fold. Doing anything else is getting way out of line imo. Were you bored when this hand came around? Had you just lost a couple of hands?

- Jim

Re: playing underpairs aggresively
 

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If I play this hand, I 3-bet PFR 100% of the time.

On the flop, I fold. Doing anything else is getting way out of line imo. Were you bored when this hand came around? Had you just lost a couple of hands?

- Jim

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He was hypnotized by the green chips...

Re: playing underpairs aggresively
 

meh, so yeah after thinking some more this hand kind of sucks. I looked at some pokerstove sims for both preflop and on the turn and thinking about the villians hand range that continues to bet this turn I'm not ahead of enough combos to make this profitable.

Conclusion: fold preflop.