What's My Line?

[Nick C]

I don't think very many Small Stakes players who hold AQ are raising you on the turn, in this 3-way pot. I mean, occasionally you run into someone who plays any hand he 3-bets with preflop like the nuts until he encounters heavy postflop resistance, but it's kind of rare.

Your line in the hand seems okay to me. Versus lots of players, that king on the turn is going to protect you, in a sense, and you won't get raised again unless you're drawing to 0-2 outs. (A showdown raise from QQ is possible, but I haven't reached a limit where I'm running into a lot of showdown raises, yet.)

Anyway, in my opinion, CO's turn raise is reckless. I'd imagine he has no better read on you than you have on him, and I don't think many Small Stakes players who pull a stop-n-go on the turn are doing so with the plan of bet-folding. (Plus, SB has already cold-called once, and most flopped straight draws now have at least a pair. You've got to figure him for something, and it's hard to be confident he'll lay it down.)

I admit that I sometimes also take some solace when the guy who bluffs me out of a pot loses to a third player. Also, though, it's nice when calling stations have chips in front of them, so that's another reason to cheer for SB at showdown.

[flopmonster]

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despite my above comment that bet/fold is better, c/call really IS better. i really don't know.

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The reason I posted this hand was that I was trying to see if anyone would advocate a line that would have prevented me from folding the best hand. In this case I did as CO had AQ and SB dragged the pot with QJ. Man I hate folding the best hand and I rarely do but I actually think that's a leak in my game if that's possible.

I don't hate my line as I feel like I'll rarely be bluffed out of a pot by AQ this way and that my fold will be correct a huge % of the time. Most guys with AQ won't go so bonkers and I'll usually be looking at AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK etc.. All the other lines suggested have me folding the river or turn so I guess this was just a bad board and wrong villian for my specific holding.

I have to admit I was secretly happy see that CO's bluff resulted in him throwing away 3BB's to the calling station but it had me questioning my play as I might have won this pot had I played the flop or turn differently. If I had 3-bet the flop does he cap with AQ? If he just calls the flop 3-bet does he still raise the turn when I lead into him? I really think 3-betting this flop is spewing against an unknown but it would be interesting to see what would have happened had I gone that route.

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I wouldn't second guess yourself here, I think you played it well; my turn play is to check/fold with the sb calling here..

[W. Deranged]

I kind of like check-raising this flop, to be honest. We are beating AK, AQ, TT, 88, etc... Our relative position is such that we can trap SB for a bet. And, most importantly, I'm much happier to fold an ugly turn if either: a) villain three-bets my flop check-raise; b) villain raises the turn after I bet out.

So I think that line is better from both a value standpoint and a "I don't want to fold the best hand" standpoint. Just a thought.

As it stands I think if we're not planning on showing down our hand after the turn we should check-fold the turn. We have 5 outs at best, and those really tenuous as we're drawing dead to a set and have only 2 outs against AK and AA. It seems unlikely villain's checking through the river and giving us a free showdown often enough to merit the turn call on those grounds.

[Nick C]

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I kind of like check-raising this flop, to be honest. We are beating AK, AQ, TT, 88, etc... Our relative position is such that we can trap SB for a bet. And, most importantly, I'm much happier to fold an ugly turn if either: a) villain three-bets my flop check-raise; b) villain raises the turn after I bet out.

So I think that line is better from both a value standpoint and a "I don't want to fold the best hand" standpoint. Just a thought.

As it stands I think if we're not planning on showing down our hand after the turn we should check-fold the turn. We have 5 outs at best, and those really tenuous as we're drawing dead to a set and have only 2 outs against AK and AA. It seems unlikely villain's checking through the river and giving us a free showdown often enough to merit the turn call on those grounds.

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I think there's a good chance that he'll check behind with the most likely hand that we're beating (TT).

Anyway, though, prior to that, I like the flop checkraise idea. When OOP, I try to get the PFR (or 3-bettor, in this case) to help me protect my hand on occasion, but it is a hazardous thing to try to do. (I want to face people with two cold, but then once I get raised, the chances that I'm beating the PFR just went down. Also, if by some chance he was raising for a free card, well, there's goes any additional hand protection whatsoever on the turn, unless I 3-bet the flop and lead or pull a stop-n-go, against a likely better hand.)

Checkraising doesn't do much to protect our hand, but getting someone who doesn't have the odds to cold-call to put in two bets one at a time is generally better than (1) having that person call just one bet (if the PFR just calls) or (2) having that person fold after the PFR pops us with a better hand.

Also, the pot is only 3-way in this case, so it's not like there's a big field of hands out there that could beat us that we're trying to thin out. And although some people react emotionally to checkraises sometimes, I agree that in general we'll get better (though still not completely reliable) information from the PFR's respose to our checkraise than we would from his response to our lead.

(To be results-oriented for a moment, though, I think the Villain in this particular hand likely would have kept his foot on the pedal no matter what line we took.)

[W. Deranged]

Nick,

The size of the field is very important to my decision here. If this were five-way instead of three, I probably bet into the pre-flop raiser for protection. Three-way, particularly as I can put villain on a small range and the pot is smaller, I'm happy to forgo any slight protection value a flop bet might provide.

[Nick C]

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Nick,

The size of the field is very important to my decision here. If this were five-way instead of three, I probably bet into the pre-flop raiser for protection. Three-way, particularly as I can put villain on a small range and the pot is smaller, I'm happy to forgo any slight protection value a flop bet might provide.

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I agree, but I also think a lot of players are going to be less inclined to raise with just overcards, as the field gets bigger. And, in the posted hand, the same could be true for a preflop 3-bettor with TT.

Protecting one's hand with bad relative position can be very difficult, and over the past few months I've become more inclined to checkraise instead, in spots like the one in the posted hand.

[W. Deranged]

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Nick,

The size of the field is very important to my decision here. If this were five-way instead of three, I probably bet into the pre-flop raiser for protection. Three-way, particularly as I can put villain on a small range and the pot is smaller, I'm happy to forgo any slight protection value a flop bet might provide.

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I agree, but I also think a lot of players are going to be less inclined to raise with just overcards, as the field gets bigger. And, in the posted hand, the same could be true for a preflop 3-bettor with TT.

Protecting one's hand with bad relative position can be very difficult, and over the past few months I've become more inclined to checkraise instead, in spots like the one in the posted hand.

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The point about your opponent's likelihood of raising is an important one. I have heard weirder things, though, than opponents commenting that the reason they raised overcards on the flop was "to protect their hand," so it may happen.

The real point, as you said, is that protecting your hand without good relative position is very, very hard, and it is certainly true that sometimes it is in fact so hard we should probably look more for value than protection.

[droolie]

Check raising hadn't occurred to me but it sounds reasonable. I would have disliked putting in 3 flop bets to fold the turn given I'm behind a mlot of hands right now but your explanation in interesting.

I led into him for a couple reasons though. Obviously I wanted to get SB to fold given the pot is getting large and being HU with the pfr 3-bettor is good for taking this thing to SD if the board stays low cards given my position. Though rarely correct I find players consistantly raise overcards in this spot and it gives me cheap protection. I was just hoping to dodge a turn K so of course that's what came.

[W. Deranged]

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Check raising hadn't occurred to me but it sounds reasonable. I would have disliked putting in 3 flop bets to fold the turn given I'm behind a mlot of hands right now but your explanation in interesting.

I led into him for a couple reasons though. Obviously I wanted to get SB to fold given the pot is getting large and being HU with the pfr 3-bettor is good for taking this thing to SD if the board stays low cards given my position. Though rarely correct I find players consistantly raise overcards in this spot and it gives me cheap protection. I was just hoping to dodge a turn K so of course that's what came.

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I would in general be pretty uncomfortable folding this hand without putting in at least 3 SB beforehand.

[thesharpie]

I also like a flop check/raise, mainly for the fact when we bet out and get "protected" we're usually drawing ourselves, but W. Deranged and Nick C have opened up my eyes with some other reasons why a check/raise might be better that I hadn't given much thought to.


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Check raising hadn't occurred to me but it sounds reasonable. I would have disliked putting in 3 flop bets to fold the turn given I'm behind a mlot of hands right now but your explanation in interesting.

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Although we might be a slight dog against the 3 bettor's range, we're more than a 33.3% favorite against him and SB so it still has value as well as any information you might gain. If SB folds the flop I'm thinking a WA/WB line might be better since we're no longer a favorite against his range and he's more likely to make a move like 3 betting the flop with AQ heads up.

Edit: I was going by the Nick C's combos for what we're ahead of on the flop but those were for the turn when the K fell, I guess we are a significant favorite on the flop even heads up.