80-160 What's my play??

[obi---one]

I am sitting in a decent but not great game. The villian in this hand is your basic lag higher limit player. He has just lost a couple of pots in a row. He limps in utg+1, all folded to me. I see A9 offsuit. I am 95% sure I have a better hand than him. I raise to force out the blinds (hopefully) and get heads up. For some reason, this works this time and I take the flop with villian. The flop comes down K Q 9. Villian checks to me and I bet. HE calls. At this point all I know is he has some of that. Some of that could mean any pair, two pair, gutshot, or flopped nut. I really have no read. What is my play from here on out. Do I bet the turn to have the gutshots drop out and risk putting more money in a small pot with the worse hand. I don't think villian is going to drop a hand that he is ahead in.

The turn is a 5, completing the rainbow. Checked to me, what is my turn and river play?

[CDs_Nts]

If he really is the LAG you say he is, he probably would've checkraised the flop with a K or Q. I'd bet the turn and check the river if an A or 9 doesn't fall. If he check-raises the turn, I lay it down, unless you've seen him do a decent amount of checkraise bluffing.

[stoxtrader]

seems like you really have two choices - bet the turn and fold to a c/r or check behind on the turn and see a single bet go in on the river, by him or you. I prefer the latter generally, but this board stinks. Is one clearly better here?

[JimmyV]

Check behind on the turn and fold the river unimproved. If he's willing to bluff at you with 44 so be it. There are no other limping hands besides underpairs that you're ahead of here -- even lag's don't play J8o under the gun.

Given that the lag is playing his hand this way I'm putting him on JT 41% of the time, and I'm no longer interested in this pot unless I spike an A or 9.

Thinks would be different if there were plausible gutshot draws or a middle card he could be calling with. But there are no viable utg hands that aren't way ahead of you here, and the nonviable ones fold the flop.

If you can THINK of a hand you're ahead of then by all means bet and show down. But I can't think of any except the underpair that hoped to spike a set on the turn, and will need serious cojones to bet the river.

Check and fold.

JimmyV

[mmcd]

Things would be different if there were plausible gutshot draws or a middle card he could be calling with. But there are no viable utg hands that aren't way ahead of you here, and the nonviable ones fold the flop.

AJ/AT/T9s and possibly J9s or 98s. Also he might check-call a hand like 88 here thinking/hoping its the best hand rather than hoping to catch a set (although I think he'd be more likely to checkraise an underpair on the flop if he was going to continue with it in the hand)

Also, it seems that the opponent might be little bit on tilt, so this widens his range of UTG limp/flop check-call hands significantly

Personally, I think theres a fair chance A9 is ahead here, but there is also a decent chance that a LAGGY 80 player would checkraise the turn here as a semi-bluff or bluff fairly often, and you don't have enough of a hand here to want to encourage this. I would check behind on the turn and call a bet on the river as long as it wasn't a J or a T in which case I would fold (or occasionally raise if I got a good read)

[lil']

Just how LAGGY are we talking about here? If someone gets raised and a K and Q flop, it's a pretty tough board to put a move on somebody with, assuming they won't call you down. There are two scare cards that more often than not hit a pre-flop raiser.

So, if he's aggressive enough to put a move on even with those two scare cards showing, I'd check, otherwise I'd bet.

Edit - You know what? That advice sucked now that I think about it. I would check this. If he gets a free shot at a crazy draw, so be it, but you may need the free card more than he does for all we know. The only hand you are really afraid about giving a free card to is J-10, everything else either beats you or is drawing very thin.

[mike l.]

go ahead and bet the turn and check the river barring improvement. while Qx or something is possible, so is 97, and any pair like you said. my 80 villains here will call with anything on the turn as well including gutshots and that's okay. go ahead and bet the turn, if he checkraises you can dump no problem, and if he calls and checks again which he likely will you can play dead on the end and hope you out kick him. this is low stress no problem hold me btw. you have position, good hand, bad opponent, heads up. low stress. enjoy it. dont stress.

[mike l.]

"Check behind on the turn and fold the river unimproved."

that's awful advice because:

"If he's willing to bluff at you with 44 so be it."

this wouldnt be a bluff. he can safely put preflop raiser on A high and bet into him for value. i see it every day around here. and it's good poker.

[JimmyV]

Good points, Mike. But if a LAG decides to play 'good poker' on the river I think he can have this pot. I'll call such bets often enough with AQ (and raise them often enough with made draws) to make it profitable to encourage him to make them.

And YES, this is a low-stress scenario. I think that's a key point. It's pretty clear that you're not putting in more than one bet TOTAL without catching a card, so no mistake here is a very big one. I prefer to make folding mistakes on flops like this, because it's so costly to spike (for example) an A when opponents holds JT.

Incidentally, I like the point above that "The only hand you're afraid of giving a free card to is JT." JT with this board JT can have TWELVE free cards, since I'm drawing almost dead in that case. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

JimmyV

[JimmyV]

"AJ/AT/T9s and possibly J9s or 98s."

I don't think lag's limp with AJ or AT when they play them utg, but maybe someone can correct me.

There are only 11 total hand combinations of T9s, J9s, and (shudder) J8s. But yes, T9s is a plausible non-underpair hand you can beat here that I hadn't considered. It'll only happen 3 times out of a bajillion, but it's possible.

JimmyV