Interesting hand in SH college freezeout.

[radioheadfan]

Moreso than trying to get information, the hero is raising to putting alot of pressure on your hand by raising, which is what he needs to do since he's out of position for the rest of the hand (so hero is basically bluffing at this point, although his hand has outs if called). If he flat calls, it's tough to laydown QQ (or whatever pair/overcards you may have) for 150 more (although I agree that a flat call would be scary). You'd at least have to see the turn and see what he does (that's what I mean by odds to call, not that there are any draws out there, but that it would simply be too cheap of a call for you in that size pot to laydown a decent hand) - *** this is exactly what hero wants to avoid so he should raise ***

Given the circumstances, this is a clear fold or raise situation for the hero, in my eyes.

[Prevaricator]

I dont like leading out; id rather check and call if andy doesnt make a play. leading out defines my hand too much and it gives him a chance to raise me off with a hand worse than mine.

[Jonathan]

What college?

[morello]

[ QUOTE ]
A raise is a bluff

[/ QUOTE ]

Totally disagree with this. Danny could be raising from the BB w/ AK, AQ, 99 etc, and Andy can raise this flop bet with a huge range of hands. Your jack is usually going to be good in this spot. Unless Danny doesn't raise PF from the BB w/o a monster, and unless Andy doesn't raise the flop w/ 1 pair, I think my hand is usually good.

Remember, it's three handed and a super-aggro player raises a flop continuation bet. Not likely a monster.

A call doesn't suck as much as most other people make it out to. It allows you to see how Danny reacts, which is who you should be concerned about. If you call and Danny reraises, then you can make a fold more safely. If he calls, you can guage his reaction on the turn.
Now it turns out that your reraise scared Danny off of a better hand. If he's going to fold AJ, QQ-AA to your flop reraise, then I think this a good play. Are you viewed as tighter/more "in-line" than the other two?

I can't imagine people are saying that this is an easy fold. It's 3 handed, you have top pair strong kicker, and you're playing aggressive opponents. You can't wait for the nuts all day.

[SmileyEH]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A raise is a bluff

[/ QUOTE ]

Totally disagree with this. Danny could be raising from the BB w/ AK, AQ, 99 etc, and Andy can raise this flop bet with a huge range of hands. Your jack is usually going to be good in this spot. Unless Danny doesn't raise PF from the BB w/o a monster, and unless Andy doesn't raise the flop w/ 1 pair, I think my hand is usually good.

Remember, it's three handed and a super-aggro player raises a flop continuation bet. Not likely a monster.

A call doesn't suck as much as most other people make it out to. It allows you to see how Danny reacts, which is who you should be concerned about. If you call and Danny reraises, then you can make a fold more safely. If he calls, you can guage his reaction on the turn.
Now it turns out that your reraise scared Danny off of a better hand. If he's going to fold AJ, QQ-AA to your flop reraise, then I think this a good play. Are you viewed as tighter/more "in-line" than the other two?

I can't imagine people are saying that this is an easy fold. It's 3 handed, you have top pair strong kicker, and you're playing aggressive opponents. You can't wait for the nuts all day.

[/ QUOTE ]

A raise is a bluff because it is highly unlikely that a worse hand will call. This is independant of the fact that hero could often have the best hand.

-SmileyEH

[theBruiser500]

"A call sucks under most circumstances. It MIGHT be OK if doing so would scare the hell out of both of them and ensure that not another dime was being bet by either of them, even with AJ or QQ. "

Why does a call suck here? just saying it sucks because it's a "call" is not valid. and how could his cold call not scare the hell out of me?

[Drontier]

a raise to 600 is perfect. A raise to 600 is the smallest raise possible without making this a min raise. To bb, he sees raise and reraise behind, therefore he must fold his AJ/QQ. This is of course if he was a good enough player to fold it. Super System advocates that when seat 1 is tight, seat 2 is aggressive, and you sit in seat three with a marginal hand, after a bet, raise, your move is to reraise to push out seat 1 and possibly even isolate seat 2 who could have a worse hand than you. Of course if you are raised back, muck this hand in a heartbeat. BB like you said is capable of folding big hands, if he wasn't +EV play here may just be to fold. Its too close and you don't want to committ the rest potentially the rest of your chip stack without a big read.

[ML4L]

[ QUOTE ]
Why does a call suck here? just saying it sucks because it's a "call" is not valid.

[/ QUOTE ]

That isn't what I meant at all. I didn't mean that calling generally sucks. I meant that calling HERE usually sucks.

It sucks because you have zero chance of winning the hand at this point in time. It also sucks because you are setting yourself up to be put in tough spots later in the hand (i.e. you could easily end up folding too much or paying off too much unless you are one hell of a mathematician and hand reader).

[ QUOTE ]
and how could his cold call not scare the hell out of me?

[/ QUOTE ]

If he coldcalled here and this hand went to showdown, would you be scared the next time he coldcalled?

What would you have done with QQ if he had coldcalled? I hope the answer is reraise... And, it sure as hell better not be fold...

So, I take that back. If your opponents are dumbasses who are going to muck an overpair to your CALL, then calling is perfectly fine. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

ML4L

[ML4L]

Hey morello,

Smiley clarified what I was trying to say, but just to put it in my own words.

There is a very good chance that Hero is ahead here. But, a reraise over-represents his hand and would be made with the intention of folding out better hands. Hence, it is essentially a bluff.

Put another way, if I were going to raise here with KJ, I would also raise with absolutely nothing.

Again, a call might be fine (e.g. +EV) if you are getting a ton of respect. But, given a level of respect that makes a call +EV, a raise probably will be "more +EV."

ML4L

[ML4L]

Hey all,

Just to make my points clear:

- Hero is probably ahead here.

- Because the Hero is ahead so often here, a fold is probably not best. But, there CAN be situations where a fold is best even when you think you are usually ahead at this point in the hand. These situations would be when you would be in a situation where you would win far less every time that your hand is good than you would lose every time that your hand is no good.

- So, since Hero should probably not fold here, should he call or reraise? A reraise would be correct if the opponents would lay down all but their very strongest hands to the reraise. This appears to be the case here, and there is little reason to think that either opponent holds a very strong hand. A raise should be +EV.

- Hopefully people see that a raise would be +EV with 92o as well.

- A call would likely only be +EV if Hero is shown so much respect that he doesn't have to worry about things like paying off value bets by AJ/overpair or being bluffed out after calling. If those conditions are not met, I don't think a call is justified. What does Hero do on the turn facing another big bet? Against a pair of maniacs, calling the flop and then calling down might be good. But, that isn't the situation here. The bluffing frequencies of each of the opponents are likely fairly good from a game theory standpoint, leaving Hero in tough situations later in the hand.

- Assuming that the conditions that make a call +EV are met, one would STILL likely never want to call. Because, if Hero is given enough respect that a call could be +EV, that means that he is given enough respect that a raise would also be +EV, and I believe that the EV of the raise will be higher than that of the call. This is because you will fold out hands that already have you beat and/or are drawing live.

- So, knowing what Hero knew at the time, I think that a raise is the best play. If Bruiser comes out and says something like "I would muck AJ or an overpair to Hero's call," then a stronger case can be made for a call.

ML4L