Call river with 44 (on board), Ace Kicker v. strength in 9.75 BB pot?
 

Only played 20 hands with Villain. 23.1/0/1.29. Seemed like a reasonable player.

What should I do on the river? My natural inclination with 9.75 BB at stake is to call -- I only have to win 10% of the time to make a call here correct. But is a call just silly in this particular situation?

Also, any thoughts on the previous streets are appreciated. (I thought I had odds to call both flop and turn -- please let me know if was wrong).

Party Poker 1/2 Hold'em (9 max, 9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises</font>, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, MP3 calls, CO calls, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>.

Flop: (7.50 SB) 4[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], T[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(4 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets</font>, MP3 calls, <font color="#CC3333">CO raises</font>, Hero calls, MP3 calls.

Turn: (6.75 BB) 4[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(4 players)</font>
Hero checks, MP3 checks, <font color="#CC3333">CO bets</font>, Hero calls, MP3 folds.

River: (8.75 BB) 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
Hero checks, <font color="#CC3333">CO bets</font>, Hero ???

Will answer back in the a.m. (well, I mean later in the a.m.)

Re: Call river with 44 (on board), Ace Kicker v. strength in 9.75 BB p
 

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Only played 20 hands with Villain. 23.1/0/1.29. Seemed like a reasonable player.

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Fold. Reasonable people don't bet flush draws on the turn.

In fact, even seeing the river is questionable, as your Q[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] out is tainted, as are two of your overcard outs. You might have five outs total here; not enough to call IMO.

Re: Call river with 44 (on board), Ace Kicker v. strength in 9.75 BB pot?
 

I think your turn call is ok. Close, yes but due to the pot size I think you played correct.

But I dont believe A high will due on the river though, not even to take 10 to 1 on. I dont believe your out against a draw. And even if you were could be betting KQ. I would fold the river.

Re: Call river with 44 (on board), Ace Kicker v. strength in 9.75 BB pot?
 

Flop - You miss the flop and the board is fairly coordinated, I'm not sure an autobet does anything good here. You have nothing to protect as you haven't made your hand, and you can't bet for value as you're probably behind. HU I would bet for sure, against two players, I would say it's marginal. When raised on the flop I'd put CO on a FD, OESD or TP.

Turn, since CO bets he probably had TP on the flop. If he were on a draw he would have checked behind. I would say you have 6 pretty clean outs to call the turn, which should be enough.
On the river, I would probably call, but I'm damn sure that we are behind here. The reason to call is not only that there is a small chance that we are the best, but also to avoid people taking shots at us later in the session.

Re: Call river with 44 (on board), Ace Kicker v. strength in 9.75 BB p
 

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Flop - You miss the flop and the board is fairly coordinated, I'm not sure an autobet does anything good here. You have nothing to protect as you haven't made your hand, and you can't bet for value as you're probably behind. HU I would bet for sure, against two players, I would say it's marginal. When raised on the flop I'd put CO on a FD, OESD or TP.

Turn, since CO bets he probably had TP on the flop. If he were on a draw he would have checked behind. I would say you have 6 pretty clean outs to call the turn, which should be enough.
On the river, I would probably call, but I'm damn sure that we are behind here. The reason to call is not only that there is a small chance that we are the best, but also to avoid people taking shots at us later in the session.

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A couple points here:

1) Don't forget MP3. We have no idea why he's in the hand at this point: He may have any of the things mentioned above, he might be slowplaying a set (or even quads now), or he might be waiting to fold his puny 77. Just because we know what he did now doesn't mean we can ignore his motives in the hand. He's the reason I'm discounting our Spade outs, moreso than CO. As for the CO, if he does have TP then there's a very good chance we're reverse dominated depending on what his CC standards are (mine are strictly AQs, AJs and KQs), devaluing our Ace (and to a far lesser extent our King) outs. I think our situation here is borderline at best.

2) Unless our preflop raises gather no respect whatsoever, I seriously doubt that CO is behaving this strongly with A high. We ain't good here one time in ten, sorry. As for image, if someone folds overcards in the face of that much aggression my first thought isn't "huh what a weak-tightie." Even if someone tries to start taking shots at me I say bring it on, as I'll happily 3-bet his ass on the river later on with the best hand [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Results
 

I called the river. Lost to KJo.

Thanks for the comments. I have lately been struggling with when to lay down a hand on the river (especially HU) in a big pot. My reasoning is such that I almost never fold in this situation, and that result bothers me. In particular, I reason as follows: 12 BB pot; I need to win only 1 in 12, or more than 8.3% of the time; I can almost never "know" in SS that I will lose 91.7% of the time in this situation; therefore, I call.

Do I have a leak here?

Re: Results
 

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I called the river. Lost to KJo.

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Be sure to change your "reasonable" read.

Re: Results
 

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Do I have a leak here?

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maybe we can both learn from this hand, but IMO based on your read, i don't understand what the % of times you have to catch a bluff here has to do with anything.

basically you're saying "yeah i know my read is a reasonable player, but i think he'll coldcall preflop, raise a flush draw, and continuation bet the entire hand." just doesn't sound like they go together.

did you put him on a range of hands preflop and on the flop? that would probably help the discussion out. plus there's a miriade of other questions that would help:

1. what does he cold call with
2. does he reraise on flush/straight draws?
3. any continuation betting

you may not have a lot of hands on him, but even if he does this once or twice, at least it gives you an idea even if you lay down the best hand once and awhile.

it would be tough to put # of outs on your hand, but it think it was overvalued and should have been folded on the turn. JT, KQ/J, A/J, JJ-TT (yes, i've seen it done), Q9 are a few i can think of. so you're looking at ~4-5 outs i think.

how's that a start for discussion [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Results
 

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[ QUOTE ]
Do I have a leak here?

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maybe we can both learn from this hand, but IMO based on your read, i don't understand what the % of times you have to catch a bluff here has to do with anything.

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Maybe bad thinking on my part, I don't know. I keep thinking about the advice I've seen in Sklansky and Miller's material about how it is a "catastrophe" when you fold a winning hand in a big pot, but it is a "small mistake" when you lose one bet. I think that has led to me virtually always calling one bet when there are 10 BB or more (or maybe even &gt;8). So, even when I may not have "good reason" to believe I'm against a bluff, I will call in this situation, particularly when there is some logical scenario in which I am facing a river bluff.

Take this hand, for example. I agree that it makes little sense to believe he was bluffing on the river. However, I have seen a lot of crazy plays online in SS. And I had not seen this player much at all, so I didn't know what he was capable of doing. I thought it was possible he was being loose on the flop and aggressive on the flop/turn with something like A8s, K8s, or Q8s -- an unlikely possibility; I thought he had a Jack or Ten in his hand. It was also possible, but again unlikely, that he was on a flush draw and being very aggressive or even maniacal -- again, I wasn't confident about my read at all.

So, with all that being said, I thought it was unlikely and would make "little sense" that I would be ahead. However, I could at least see a logical scenario in which I would be ahead (with the hands I mentioned above), and that, based on this, I had a 10% chance to win (maybe this in itself was bad judgment). BUT, I didn't want to commit the cardinal sin of folding a winning hand in a large pot.

Please, let me know if I'm going about this all wrong.

Also, I really can't answer the rest of your questions about what this player was capable of doing. I just didn't know.

Re: Results
 

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I thought it was possible he was being loose on the flop and aggressive on the flop/turn with something like . . . Q8s

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[img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img] Well, I guess I should have seen this would have been a straight!