Making him fold a better hand

[StellarWind]

You're in a lot of trouble here.

1. You cannot get KK/QQ out because he can put you on something like JJ/99/77 for your preflop 3-bet. You are behind absolutely everything he "should" have except case JJ. You are also behind a ton of other stuff that he "could" have like lower aces, any ten, and snowmen. 23/11 players don't speculate a lot preflop. To respond to another poster, a 50/11 might have some odd PFRs here, but a 23/11 is playing from a (possibly mental) chart and will usually have exactly what you expect.

2. MP has coldcalled twice and will have you beat a ton of the time.

3. There are two flush draws, multiple straight draws, and KQ overcards (likely contained within primary draws) still to be concerned about. You will lose a large percentage of the hands where you are currently ahead. Meanwhile you hope you have two outs but you might not.

I really think you need to stop investing in this situation. How can it be profitable to pay another 2BB+ in trying to pick up this pot? I would check and see what happens next. If it goes bet-call or check-bet you should probably lay this down. You will be wrong once in a while but that's the way it goes. Even if you want to call the turn that still is much better than betting out and having it come back two or three bets as it often will. Remember this is the street where MP will declare his hand. You should see what he does before you make your decision.

Regarding the flop, your pot equity is not so hot after it comes back two bets coldcalled. I agree with the call so that you can act after MP on the turn instead of being in the awkward position of betting out and usually getting raised when you are beat.

[Wynton]

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Regarding the flop, your pot equity is not so hot after it comes back two bets coldcalled. I agree with the call so that you can act after MP on the turn instead of being in the awkward position of betting out and usually getting raised when you are beat.

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I don't follow this exactly. What's the problem if we bet first on the turn, get raised and thereby have an easy fold?

[StellarWind]

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I don't follow this exactly. What's the problem if we bet first on the turn, get raised and thereby have an easy fold?

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Just to recap, we are discussing 3-betting the flop and leading the turn when a brick hits.

I doubt that there is any direct value in a flop 3-bet as I think our pot equity is below 1/3 after UTG raises the flop and MP calls two cold. Pot equity includes our highly unfavorable out situation and not just our chance of having the best hand now. So offhand I don't feel like reraising the flop in the first place.

On to the turn action. The first good thing about checking instead of betting is it might come back two bets and allow you to make a cheap fold. This will happen a lot because MP will often have the ten or 88 for his flop action and now he is going to pounce.

The next issue is pot size. If you 3-bet the flop and bet the turn there will be 16 BB in the pot when you get yourself raised. By bet-folding instead of check-calling you have sacrificed your two outs which are worth 5% of that pot. That's an EV cost of about 0.8 BB even though the fold is correct.

Plus bet-folding opens the door to folding the best hand causing a gigantic loss.

The argument in favor of betting the turn is that once in a while it will check through when we have the best hand and perhaps an 80% chance of winning. I don't expect that to happen very often because the initiative does not lie on the button.

[Wynton]

Stellar,

First, I believe we agree that lead betting the flop is good. The interesting question is whether to 3-bet and/or lead the turn.

Now, a tight player has capped pf and then raised our flop bet. This is consistent with him having a top hand (AA-QQ) as well as AK. It is also possible he has 99. Even though he's tight, we know that tight players can show aggression with these types of hands. And the truth is, on this flop, it would make sense for him to raise the flop. MP player is a problem because he's loose and could have anything, including 2 overcards.

I agree that our equity doesn't look great after the utg player raises the flop. But since the pot is big and he would still raise the flop with a few hands that we beat, the main issue to me at this stage is how to get the best information, hopefully at the least cost.

If we just call the flop raise, we might be able to fold if it comes back to us for 2 bets. But here, MP is LP, and likely won't be doing any raising. And UTG is very likely to bet, even with just AK. So I don't feel our info is that good now.

If we 3-bet the flop and it gets capped, we probably need to see the turn, but I'll feel very comfortable knowing I'm behind then, as I doubt UTG will cap without being ahead. Or, if he just calls the 3-bet and then raises our turn, I'll also feel that I have reliable info.

I disagree that there is any worry here that bet/fold will leave us in the dangerous situation of folding the best hand, given the above.

One other possible benefit of 3-betting the flop is that we might convince the MP player to fold.

[StellarWind]

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But here, MP is LP, and likely won't be doing any raising.

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Totally disagree. The MP hands we fear are Tx and 88. Typical LP players slowplay those hands on the flop and then put in a dramatic turn raise. Coldcalling the flop is a clear warning that this may be coming. Not necessarily of course, but tens are common cards and we should be aware of the danger.

Note that my understanding of OP is that MP is a fairly normal LP and not some 80/2/0.1 pathological calling station.

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I disagree that there is any worry here that bet/fold will leave us in the dangerous situation of folding the best hand, given the above.

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Assume it goes 3-bet flop, all call, bet turn. There are two ways you might get talked off the best hand:

1. UTG has something like JJ/99 and raises. The idea behind this play is to drive out the third player while securing a free showdown for the pair. He probably intends to fold to a 3-bet and reasons that this is no worse than calling down. You might think this is a poor play and I might agree with you but that really isn't the point. People do this once in a while.

2. The general read on MP is a little off or he has a loose wiring moment as bad players so often do. He sees that he can represent trips and takes it into his head to make a free showdown raise from the button with 8x or a small pocket pair.

Even if such plays are quite rare they still make a big difference because the pot is so large.

But the biggest problem as I said before is paying to see the river and then not seeing the river. It's almost worth calling a raise just to take a card. That means nearly an entire BB of EV disappears when you are forced to fold your outs.

[HajiShirazu]

This is a play I try sometimes and it never ever works and I never fold to it either even if I probably should, so really you're just throwing away bets.
Remember, nobody ever folds a hand with a chance of winning in any decent size pot.

[TomBrooks]

Turn play: Check/fold is probably OK. UTG either has quad tens, an overpair to yours or AK and just made his pair. He could also have JJ for a split but that is unlikely.

If you want, check and call him down and see which of the above he has.

[Stinkybeaver]

Check/fold turn and move on to next hand. There's quite a few more capping hands that holds an A as opposed to the ones that doesn't. Also we won't succeed making UTG fold KK or QQ every time, Id say it's more like 1/3 of the time.

I really think it's -EV to put anymore bets in on turn.