Okay, Bad, Or Terrible?

[gaming_mouse]

PP 3/6.

I'm BB with 53o. 5 players limp to the flop.

Flop: 775 (two to a flush)

I act first, bet. The villain, UTG, raises. Folded back to me.

The villain has loose aggressive stats: VPIP = 40, PFR=11, Avg Post-Flop Aggression=2, and flop aggression = 3. This is based on only about 40 hands, though.

I make it 3, putting him on a free card play. He caps, and I call.

Turn comes blank and non-flush.

I fire off one more, and then fold to his raise.

How bad is my line?

TIA,
gm

EDIT: clarified PFR and PostFlopAgg

[Chairman Wood]

Not bad. AF on flop of 3 isn't crazy. A player is easily making legitimate plays with something that high. Your fold is a easy and good fold. IMO. I may be just to lazy to count but it may be possible to fold to the cap or check fold the turn. With those stats your opponent doesn't appear incredibly laggy and I think you could assume he beats you here and you are drawing nearly dead.

[Shillx]

You have piss poor implied odds in this hand. I'm just check/folding the flop. Given that the villian is next to speak, I doubt that he is just raising for a free card. He probably has some kind of hand to go with it (a pocket, a straight draw, overs and a flush draw, etc).

Brad

Edit - By free card I figured that you just meant 2 overcards. If he has overs and a flush draw, he is the favorite so a flop 3-bet doesn't do much for you.

[gaming_mouse]

Brad,

By free card play I meant that he had 2 to a flush and, yes, probably two overcards as well.

I put such a hand into pokerstove, and he had 53% equity. Less than my instincts told me at the time, but do you really think that's piss poor? (I'm not being faceitious either, I'm asking in earnest)

thanks,
gm

[Shillx]

I wasn't saying that your play was piss poor...

I was commenting that your implied odds are piss poor (you have bad negative implied odds here).

Even if your hand is good now (and this is a real big if), any overcard could leave you drawing to just 2 outs. A 3rd flush card or a straight card might leave you with just 4 outs...

That was all I was saying here.

Brad

[gaming_mouse]

Even if your hand is good now (and this is a real big if),

I think this is the key point. I have (almost) 50% equity WHEN my read is correct, ie, when I'm not already behind. But the chance that I AM already beat swings a marginal play of calling or playing back into a clear fold.

Thanks,
gm

[Shillx]

Yeah but you don't know that you will get it heads up when you bet. If you get 2 or 3 callers or someone coldcalls the raise, you are basically just throwing away a small bet.

I think my line (if I'm going to bet the flop) is to just call the raise and then fire again on a turn blank (and fold to a raise). Check/fold a turn non-blank.

Brad

[gaming_mouse]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah but you don't know that you will get it heads up when you bet. If you get 2 or 3 callers or someone coldcalls the raise, you are basically just throwing away a small bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahh, sorry I missed that point the first time. Yes, you are correct: my initial bet was incorrect. And yes, you are also correct for the best strategy given that I did in fact bet. Call the raise and fire on a blank turn.

Thanks again,
gm

[Bob T.]

You could call the raise, bet the turn, and fold to a raise.

But a player that aggressive might keep semibluff raising headsup on the turn, so you still might be folding the best hand.

He probably also has enough of a draw, that he will bet the turn if you check, and he certainly isn't going to fold.

What if you check/called the turn, and then check/called the river. He will likely bet if he missed on the river, just because it is his last chance to push you off of your hand.

Your total investment would be less than it would have been the way you played it. Your flop play got it headsup, and you had the best possible chance of winning, and you get some extra equity, because you got to a showdown, and might have picked off a bluff.

I think if you really want to make a bet, the scariest line for you to take from his perspective, is call the flop raise, and checkraise the turn.

I think that folding to an EP raise on this hand, probably wouldn't have been a bad mistake. Most of the time, if you get raised from EP, it is a real hand, and all real hands beat yours. A LP raise is more likely to be some kind of drawing hand.

[gaming_mouse]

Bob,

Thanks for that analysis. You made some very good points.

But do you agree with Shillx that I should have check/folded on the flop?

Thanks,
gm