Hand from UB 100+9 last night

[Rizen]

Here was a key hand from the UB 100+9 last night. I'm at work so I don't have the actual hand history, but I remember every detail of the hand. The blinds are 150/300, there are 32 players left, 20 get paid. The average stack is around 12k.

Relevant stacks: MP2(11000) Hero (8300)

Relevant reads: MP2 has been at the same table as me for 75-80 hands. Prior to this tournament I have never played with MP2, but Poker Tracker shows a VP$IP of 23% and a PFR% of 20%. I've watched this player raise a wide variety of hands from MP/LP when he's first to enter a pot. MP2 seems to play reasonable post-flop and hasn't had to show down many hands.

My table image: I've only played 2 of the last 20-25 hands, and I haven't shown down a hand in close to an hour. Both times I won. Once with a large PF raise with AKo and another time when I limped ont he button behind several limpers with QJs and made a half pot sized bet into a Q high flop. Other players reaction to me tends to make me believe my image is pretty tight and conservative, but both pots I took down I got comments from other players about how they 'should have called' or 'thought they had the best hand'. Not sure if that's anything but smoke, but potentially a few players may be wondering if they should look me up.

In this hand I'm in the BB, and the blinds are 150/300 with no antes. MP2 makes a standard opening raise to 900 and it's folded to me. I look down and see K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img].

Pre-Flop: Hero has a reasonable hand vs a player who will raise with a wide variety. There is 1350 already in the pot and it's 600 to call. I debated moving over the top here, but I felt any reasonable over the top raise pretty much committed me to the pot, and I wasn't sure I wanted to play K9s for all my chips. I decided to go ahead and flat call and see a flop with my hand.

Flop comes: T [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]T [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]J [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

Pot is now 1950. Hero feels that this is a reasonable flop for him against a villian that potentially holds a wide variety of hands. I considered check-raising here, but villian had been making a lot of pot-sized continuation bets so any reasonable CR would commit me. I felt I had a decent shot of taking the pot down with a reasonable bet here, so I shot out 1200. Villian flat calls.

Turn card is a 9 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

Hero???

Comments on all streets please as well as turn action. I feel given my reads on MP2 that folding this PF would be a huge mistake, but besides that I feel I had a lot of different reasonable options here, and am curious what other 2p2ers would do.

-Rizen

[Black Aces 518]

I have a hard time putting you ahead of his range on the turn. It could be as bad as TJ or KQ or just AJ. It's possible he has 22-88, but the chances he has a higher pair than yours, trip tens or a straight are high. Also, even if he has something like AsQs, he still has 15 outs.

I'm check/folding.

[Rizen]

What about the other streets? Would you have done anything differently?

-Rizen

[J.Copperthite]

The problem w/ this type of player is the very fact that he raises a lot of hands. It is very easy for him to have a JT, QT, KT, AT, AJ, or a high pocket pair - even 28/20 players can pick up a monster. What I would do, however, is to fire out another 1200 bet to give him an opportunity to fold if you infact do have him beat. If he has A-K, you now have him beat, but are still in trouble if a J, Q, K, or A comes on the river. I just feel like this hand is not a great takeoff hand against this player and I would let it go preflop. But if I did decide to play it, I would bet the turn - checking then calling does not work because this does not give you any read. You get more info by seeing whether he calls or raises. A raise would be an automatic fold - even to a minimum raise. You want a solid hand against a maniac - K-9s is too speculative and easily dominated.

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
The problem w/ this type of player is the very fact that he raises a lot of hands. It is very easy for him to have a JT, QT, KT, AT, AJ, or a high pocket pair - even 28/20 players can pick up a monster. What I would do, however, is to fire out another 1200 bet to give him an opportunity to fold if you infact do have him beat. If he has A-K, you now have him beat, but are still in trouble if a J, Q, K, or A comes on the river. I just feel like this hand is not a great takeoff hand against this player and I would let it go preflop. But if I did decide to play it, I would bet the turn - checking then calling does not work because this does not give you any read. You get more info by seeing whether he calls or raises. A raise would be an automatic fold - even to a minimum raise. You want a solid hand against a maniac - K-9s is too speculative and easily dominated.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you reason this out a bit more?? This player is not a maniac IMO. He raises a lot PF, but plays very reasonable post-flop. I personally think folding PF here against this particular player is a poor play, but I'd be willing to hear reasoning otherwise. Normally I would not play K9s post flop from a MP2 raiser with a standard opening raise, but against this particular player I felt it was +EV.

-Rizen

[J.Copperthite]

Hi Rizen,

I was referring to the 20% preflop raise stat by labelling him a maniac. I usually refer to this as a maniac because he plays a wide variety of hands for a raise. I guess he's not a maniac in the traditional sense (higher PFR and % of hands played would be higher as well), since he's 28/20 - it just means he raises most of the time he plays a hand. I just think its too hard to know where you are specifically by his flat-call on a T-T-J flop - he could be drawing, could think you're bluffing, has flopped a monster, etc. I can see the case for playing K-9s in this position - my style is different in that respect - I play fairly tight to a raise and K-9s is not a hand i'd like to play for extra chips out of position. But we know you played the hand of course. What did you do on the turn, and what did he do?

[schwza]

preflop: i like the flat call. if you had fewer chips, i'd push, but here a reraise is awkward and likely to leave you playing against a hand that dominates you if he calls.

flop: i would check/call the flop, planning on taking the pot away on the river. if he bets the turn, give up unimproved. i find that most guys with stats like 23/20 will fire one cbet and then give up if they don't have anything. and it will be very hard for villain to call the river with a hand like 77.

[Black Aces 518]

Rizen,

With your read, I don't hate the PF call. I don't love it, but I can see myself making that call. If that guy is raising 1 time in 5, you can't just fall down every time.

I like your reasoning and bet on the flop. I may have bet 1000 or so just to decrease the amount of times I have to make him fold to be profitable.

On the turn, I think any more $$ going in, and you can't really fold. I don't like betting another 1200-1500 and then folding to a raise. I just think that there are not that many hands that will raise preflop, and call the flop here that you are way ahead of.

[pokerstudAA]

K9s is not a hand I want to play OOP against someone who makes continuation bets and raised from middle position. If he has been getting out of line making preflop raises and trying to steal blinds then try to take it down preflop by raising to 2.8k - fold to an all-in.

You need to play very carefully in these situations or you can easily lose a large part of your stack. I think K9s appears better than it should in this situation - even against a loose raiser. Hero has shot 2100 into this pot (1/4 of his stack) by the turn, needs to act first, has a gut shot, and has no idea where he is in the hand. With a below average stack I might toss this preflop and wait for position.

The way the hand played I would be worried about betting the turn. Villain might be on a spade or straight draw, might have a pair of jacks, might have trip tens, might have absolutely nothing. You are not likely ahead of even a loose raises range at this point.

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
preflop: i like the flat call. if you had fewer chips, i'd push, but here a reraise is awkward and likely to leave you playing against a hand that dominates you if he calls.

flop: i would check/call the flop, planning on taking the pot away on the river. if he bets the turn, give up unimproved. i find that most guys with stats like 23/20 will fire one cbet and then give up if they don't have anything. and it will be very hard for villain to call the river with a hand like 77.

[/ QUOTE ]

That was my feeling pre-flop. In fact, I might have re-popped him if had a lot more chips as well, but given the size of my stack I felt a smooth call was the best play.

I didn't even consider this flop line. I'm honestly not sure how much I like it, but it was definitely a line of thinking that didn't occur to me here and probably should. Generally I don't like to call down unless I'm against a very agg post-flop player who I know would fire at this pot repeatedly with any two cards, and I find those are few and far between. That being said, I should have given some consideration at least to a check/call and perhaps try to take the pot on the turn if not the river.

-Rizen