Hand played against me

[snappo]

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Results in white: <font color="white">My T9o is goot.</font>

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[jjacky]

oh...

but nice to have opponents like the one in this hand.

[boxedIn]

You guys really think QJ played it badly? I disagree completely. I think he played it fine, with the exception of the river.

If you have an aggressive player on the button, QJ is a fine hand to defend with, as long as you can feel free to get rid of it with a lot of action on a Q/J high flop. Those that are folding this are losing equity, imo.

On the flop, the KTT board is "too good" to semi-bluff into. There's no way a real T bets that way and probably not a K. A check/call represents a decent hand that could even be a monster.

On the turn, while you're not drawing to the nuts still, you have no reason whatsoever to believe your draw is no good -- the opponent is aggressive, after all, and might be doing raising preflop and the flop with something like A9 and thinks he's good. The turn bet, if you're paying attention, probably throws that out of the window and now you have to give credit for a hand. However, the range could be from AK-KJ to AT-T8 to KK/QQ/JJ/99/88. This is a wide range, all of which would easily play the same way from a tight and aggressive opponent. All told, I believe you have the odds to draw out. You might consider check-raising the turn and getting something such as 88/99/JJ/QQ to fold, but I think your fold equity is greater on the river.

If you check/call all the way to the river, not only do you increase your fold equity, you get good implied odds. Are you guys seriously implying that by the aggressor's betting pattern that you should seriously contemplate that your outs are not clean? I mean it's a consideration, but realistically, it's not going to be often that you find dirty outs with that board and the betting pattern discussed (with the people's image that has been portrayed at least).

I think the preflop call is fine, I think the flop/turn call is fine as long as the person is willing to bet the river semi-strong no matter what comes. In other words, play it like you have a fairly strong K or a T and if you happen to hit your outs, the more power to you -- most of the time you'll make lots of money if the other person happens to have a T/K.

I can't believe no one has defended this play so far. While I can see the argument against it, the play is perfectly defensible as an approach to the game and you could quite possibly be describing a hand where I was the person holding QJ (and I'm no slacker when it comes to poker).

Just as an edit ... once the river bet is raised, you have to make that crying call. The stack size/raise size dictates it. At this point, I'll expect to be beat like 80% of the time, with the other 20% the unpaired T, but from describing the play of the two players, you might up that percentage to 95%. Either way, I'm still not making the river fold, though I might make the river bet a little bit less to give myself options if that raise is made. Still, more than likely, I'm not folding it.

Just as a food for thought, if the river had come an A and he bet out on the river, I'm guessing you would have called with T9. So why do you say implied odds aren't there? Are you seriously saying you'd have thrown T9 away to that kind of action?

[soah]

Assuming he has 8 outs, he needs to get another $200 from me every time he hits in order for the turn call to be neutral EV. When you consider that he may not have eight outs, and he's never getting more than $200 from me when he wins, he cannot possibly be getting enough implied odds to chase.

[boxedIn]

The key here is not the implied odds, but rather the times he will often be able to take down the pot without a showdown. If he makes a fairly strong bet at the pot no matter what the river card, as I advocated, then you will often get a weakish K to throw away their hand, as well as getting the half-bluffing hands (like QQ/JJ/99) to throw away their hands.

This calcuation does not depend upon how much money you'll make if you hit -- it depends on how often you'll make money when you don't hit. That's not really a calculation you can make, as the odds of the bettor being a bluffer or able to lay down a hand such as KJ is hard to determine. But considering all the information presented to me, I think you could take down the pot without a showdown often enough to advocate this approach -- the times you suckout and win a decent pot anyways is just icing on the cake.

[soah]

If you expect me to fold most of the time on the river to a big bet, then it doesn't make sense to make that same bet when you actually do hit your (non-nut) hand. By your own reasoning, I am folding most of the hands that you beat and calling or raising with the rest.

Furthermore, I am not often betting $60 on the turn against an aggressive player without a hand that is capable of calling a bet on the river. My marginal hands are put to much better use by checking and inducing bluffs.... from hands such as busted straight draws.

[bobbyi]

I would fold preflop, and having somehow not done that, I would bet the flop.