JJ facing monotone flop

[moot]

98% chance? What?

Are you basing this on the odds to flop a flush? Yeah, that might only be a 2% chance, but when one opponent bets and another raises the chance they have it goes way up.

[Hojglad]

I'm still not convinced they have it. Wouldn't you be raising a lone suited A or a K here? If they did flop the flush, so be it. But if you were put in this exact situation 100 times, they would only have it roughly 2% of the time. It's extremely unlikely that they flopped it. You are asking our hero to fold out of what could be an enormously profitable situation. I'd be willing to be that hero has the best hand here the great majority of the time.

[Absolution]

If I had to guess, he's probably still ahead here, but he's waiting for the safe card on the turn before putting in more chips. It's the whole waiting to exploit a bigger edge on the turn thing.

[moot]

Alright, so lets say we cold-call and raise the turn on a "safe" card. What if we're reraised? What if the turn doesn't flush but the river does? What if the small blind decides to 3bet the flop after we cold-call? Maybe then the BB caps? What if an A a K or a Q comes on either the turn or the river? What if we're right about them not having the flush but they flopped a set? Or two pair?

Yes, I know we can't always be afraid of "monsters in the closet" and yes you could ask these questions on almost any flop. But in my mind this is a clear cut example of:

1) The pot is not particularly large
2) If we're ahead it's not by much, if we're behind we're almost dead
3) Virtually no cards improve our hand to the point that we can play with any confidence (ie: value-betting, etc)
4) We do not close the action on the flop

[bleechers]

My take on it is they would not raise if they flop the Flush. I know if I had AX Spades on that Flop I would just smooth call. And Raise and re-raise the Turn.

Now if siting on 2 smaller spades or single spade I could see the Raises. Not if you made it.

IF they have 2 spades you have hit 2 card runner to make boat or 4 of kind.

Chances with those raises they have 1 spade. Giving them any spade and any over card for out.

OK after all of that. Call and if Spade drops Fold and if does not bet. IF get raised on turn Fold. IF not see the pot to SD.

[Absolution]

1) I would contend that this IS a big pot and definitely worth fighting for.
2) We are probably ahead, but we're hoping to be even further ahead on the turn.
3) I think it is value betting. The point is that you're waiting for the turn to make a bet for even more value.
4) I'll give you that one.

Maybe a more knowledgeable poster can clarify some of this.

[moot]

Well, according to Miller this would actually constiture a "big" pot, but the thing is... many of the situations where we get into the big pot vs small pot debate is when we run into a raise on the turn or river. In fact, I would say that a large chuck of discussions involve these particular types of hands.

This changes the pot in two key ways:
1) More money has obviously been invested, because the hand is farther along
2) It will cost less additional investment to show it down, because the hand is farther along

Both of these provide a double incentive to showdown the hand. Here we have an unfavorable situation where we ourselves have only invested 2 small bets, and it will often cost us a sizable number of big bets to finish the hand.

[And I disagree on the value betting. In fact, we're adding the to value of there draws by making it 3handed instead of 2.]

EDIT == Ugh, I don't like my bracketed part. Because technically they're also padding us for the times they miss, IF they're on a draw. So ignore that last part.

[moot]

I suppose the one advantage of cold calling is to see what the small blind does. If he raises and the big blind either calls or caps then you can probably fold. But on the other hand, if the small blind folds (maybe he wanted to see if his pair was good or he was making a bluff) our edge jumps way up.

But I still fold. Ugly hand.

EDIT == Oh, and seeing what the 4th player does, as well.

EDIT2 == Bleh, my roommate and I are having a big discussion on this hand. If they are both on the same draw then you equity might very well be over 50%, but I don't know if this outweighs the times when they have a made flush or perhaps other decent hands. This hand is just so read-dependent that I'd often perfer to ditch it when in doubt.

[jskills]

I found this an interesting problem. Perhaps I was slightly affected shocked from previous suckouts (4 QQ's and 3 JJ's were -7 BB in this session), so I leaned towards folding.

One bet, no problem, but cold calling two just seemed kind of tough. Even tougher was when the turn was the J [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

SB bet, the BB raised and SB folded. I never saw their cards. Dang. It still felt a lot like a made flush - I have to tell myself that anyway [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Thanks for all the feedback.

[Shillx]

Bump...

Some of the commentary is pretty interesting. I wish we would have seen a showdown here. I for one feel like we should have called on this flop though.

We probably have the best hand. It is rare that one or both of them will have a flush. MP2 is still behind us and he causes some problems because he might have a hand too. If we 3-bet and he coldcalls, we know he has a big [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] but he doesn't mind going 3-bets on the flop with the nut flush draw. If he folds, it would be safe to assume that he is folding for 2-bets.

By waiting until the turn, we can make that A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (or whatever the best [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] is) pay to play. We can also cut our losses should a 4th [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] fall. Our equity will go from probably 35% to maybe 60% (should MP2 fold) if we see a safe turn card. Notice that if something like the A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] falls on the turn and people go crazy we can also let go.

Brad