TT 100-200

[mike l.]

i think i liked the way i played this one. i have TT on the button and i openraise we're 5 handed and it's an exceptionally good late night commerce 1-2 game. only the bb calls.

the flop is JJ8 rainbow. bb checks, i bet, bb checkraises, i call. bb is a player i dont know, but first several rounds he seems like a loose sort of weak weird sort of random player.

turn is a 3. he bets, i call.

river is a Q. he bets, i call.

comments?

[Steve Giufre]

Looks good to me. The fact the he check raised the flop makes me like your hand from the start. Very few players will check raise three jacks on the flop there, especially not the type of player you are describing. On the turn, I think the smooth call is best. He will probably call or reraise with all hands that are ahead, and fold a lot of hands that are behind. Also, you encourage him to continue bettng a worse hand into when you are ahead.

On the river, I wouldnt be in love with the queen since 910 is there now, and there is the also a small chance the queen paired him up as well. Easy call though.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

I think if you call the flop check-raise, you call to the river. Heads up I just can't buy that he has the jack he is trying to sell, and those few times he does, oh well, I lose some chips. The Q on the river seems more worrysome than his flop check-raise. He's trying to push you off a hand here. Call him down.

al

[LarsVegas]

I think this may be one of the instances where a case could be made for raising the turn with TT and 99, while only calling with AA-QQ.

The reason is to give the QT and Q9 semi-bluffs a chance to fold.

lars

[BottlesOf]

This is way out of my league, but maybe raise the turn?

[andyfox]

Just calling him down allows him the possibility of catching a card on the river to beat you. But I think this is counteracted by 1) the risk of being more aggressive in case he does have a jack or other better hand; and 2) the advantange of letting him continue with his betting if he does have a smaller pair or less. You can always opt to raise the river if a less dangerous card than the queen comes.

I don't discount the possibility of him having a jack, given your description of him.

[elysium]

hi mike
good post. mike you goofed. the problem is that your hand is very vulnerable to overs. you must raise the turn. i have no doubt that if you were acting first, you would have done done some variation of backing off to the bet or raise; i'd like to think you would check-call and then check-raise; and i am sure that you would have check-raised the turn. what i think happened here is that you placed a greater priority on inducing this opponent into betting over what you should have been on top of, stopping the over card to the board pair. you raise the turn and this opponent folds.

mike i think the over-card beat you here. you can't be dallying around picking up bets when you should be picking up the pot. you got this guy whipped and whipped badly on the turn. take it down now. what are you doing?

[Ikke]

I think you lost some equity on the flop. 3-betting there would have been the best play IMO.

After his flop check-raise his most likely holdings are IMO a J, an 8, T9, a medium to smallish pair and maybe hands like QT, T7 etc. You beat the vast majority of these hands. I don't think he'll lay down any pair (at least they won't in the 100/200 online game, and a lot of players who play there play that high and higher live as well). Also, I think it's more likely that you get 4-bet with a J than check-raised on the turn (fearing a check through on the turn), so you would lose only 1 (often) to 2 (less often) SB more as opposed to check-calling. Since you beat the majority of his hands, combined with the fact that he might make a mistake folding QT to a turnbet (he's getting 1:6 with 7 outs (and implied odds)), I would opt to 3-bet the flop.

I wouldnt raise the turn if I opted to call the flop. You will get 3-bet by a J and you might force your opponent into making a good laydown with a pair. You don't want that.

IMO your play was the second best play. But it did cost you IMO a significant fraction of a SB.

Regards

[mike l.]

"You can always opt to raise the river if a less dangerous card than the queen comes."

this was exactly what i had planned to do, but then i changed my mind when the Q came.

[mike l.]

"a J, an 8, T9, a medium to smallish pair and maybe hands like QT, T7 etc."

remember though, my opponent is a lot less likely to have a T in his hand since i have TT. i figured on the flop and turn there was some chance my opponent had nothing or close to nothing and rather than have him fold, i wanted him to bet to the river (and me showing weakness would encourage this), and risk the small chance of being drawn out on by a hand with probably very few outs. i think the small size of the pot might make this the most correct play.