TPTK vs Villain who checkraised on the flop after min-raising preflop

rikz · #1 04-26-2005, 03:37 AM

This is my first session with Villain. He is pretty tight, playing only about 20% of his hands. He raises with almost half of the hands he plays, but those raises are often min-raises. Other than his annoying min-raises, I haven't noticed anything particularly good or bad about him prior to this hand.

What range of hands do you put Villain on, and what would you do once your TPTK gets check-raised on this flop?

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ BB Villain (10 handed) converter

saw flop|saw showdown

Button ($61.52)
SB ($23.3)
BB Villain ($28.35)
UTG ($8.26)
UTG+1 ($34.1)
Hero ($58.5)
MP1 ($11)
MP2 ($30)
MP3 ($22.4)
CO ($23.38)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+2 with K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. SB posts a blind of $0.1.
2 folds, Hero raises to $1, MP1 calls $1, 2 folds, CO calls $1, 2 folds, BB Villain raises to $1.75, Hero calls $1, MP1 calls $1, CO calls $1.

Flop: ($8.10) T[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (4 players)
Villain checks, Hero bets $5, MP1 folds, CO folds, Villain raises to $15, Hero ...

Jacob_Gilliam · #2 04-26-2005, 03:47 AM

If villian is that tight you probably have him beat. The only thing to worry about is a set, but the odds are against that. Villian probably has AK, AQ, KQs, or AJs. Youre probably winning about 80% of the time. Push back and go all in if you have to. (If he has a set too bad but you have to lose sometimes....).

rikz · #3 04-26-2005, 10:20 AM

I just couldn't see villain playing 88, TT, AA, or even T8, A8 or AT like this both preflop (min raise) and post flop (check raise). After all, I thought, if he had a set, wouldn't he want to make me pay if I happened to have a flush draw? Why did he checkraise for so much? (1) to get me to pay off his monster hand with a bad call, or (2) to blow me off his TPWK, underpair, or flush draw. I concluded that (2) was more likely than (1). I figured a AK(s)/AQ(s)/AJ(s)/KQ(s)/KJ(s) with one or two spades, or even a JJ, QQ or KK were more likely than the hands that dominated my TPTK.

So, I pushed. Calling didn't seem good because my hand wasn't going to improve, and if my read on Villain was right about his probably checkraising with a draw then I wanted to make him pay more to catch the flush.

Villain called.

The rest of the cards weren't relevant since he really did have AA for the top set & I was drawing dead.

I retrospect, I did exactly what you recommended, but I'm unhappy with my obviously flawed hand reading ability. How often to people at this level really check raise a draw? How often do they check raise a TPWK? Wouldn't a TPWK who wanted to steamroll me just go all-in on the flop to buy the pot?

I think my biggest problem on this hand was basing my decisions on what I would do if I was Villain. I would have raised more preflop with AA, for example, and I would have led into the flop for a pot-sized bet. "Since I would have done that, obviously Villain would have done that if he had AA..." This is terrible thinking. Even multitabling, I should have at least observed whether his min-raising in the past was with any kind of premium starting cards.

So, to summarize, I now think this is a read-dependent call. In the absence of a decent read, I think players bluff like this a little more than half the time with medium-sized and small-sized stacks on PP $25 NL, so calling about 50% of the time is probably +EV.

Thanks.

kurto · #4 04-26-2005, 10:36 AM

"He raises with almost half of the hands he plays, but those raises are often min-raises." I've noticed a lot of people almost always minraise. When I used to play $25NL at Pokerstars, a minraise used to almost always mean a small-med pocket pair. Now, at $50NL on Party, It really can mean anything.

If the person does it consistantly, you can't 'read' his hand, and in that sense, he's right in consistantly raising the same amount (even if it is a minraise.)

I think your logic was flawed putting him on a weak ace. I would have feared a set (a lower one then Aces though) with the minraise since those seem to be the favorite minraise hand.