Calling w/ King high

[Ulysses]

So-so 15-30 game. Pretty good, very aggressive and tricky player to my left. He's getting tired of my late position raises and is now 3-betting me w/ a very wide range of hands.

I open-raise in CO w/ KJo. He 3-bets on the button. We get heads up.

Flop 2d4d7h

I bet. He raises. I 3-bet. He calls.

Turn (2d4d7h)Qc

I check. He bets. I call.

River (2d5d7hQc)3h

I check. He bets. I call.

[anatta]

Usually, I am sure you bet the turn here hoping your average opponent will fold a small pair or an ace. I take it there is no chance of that. Also, he is tricky and may raise the turn with nothing, probably forcing you to fold when you could be ahead or have 6 outs. So you check-call post flop all the way. It appears this guys "wide range of hands" includes weaker kings, medium suited connectors and some offsuit medium cards ("offectors" as I think you called them [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]), and he would have his foot on the gas the whole way with these hands, including a bluff on the river.

Both you and mike l. (his T9o hand) were heads-up vs. aggressive opponents with no pair. You made a decision to showdown your King high cheaply, whereas he paid a lot of money certainly needing to catch to win. I think you played it well.

[mike l.]

this looks like a turn checkraise, river bet to me, but i never fault a guy for check-calling w/ K high since i do it so much myself.

all that flop action gives me the sinking feeling he has something like 66 or A4 though so i think the turn checkraise river bet stands the best chance of throwing him off the best hand. bottom line: tricky aggressive player on your left who is fed up with you and wants to counter can be tough to conquer. maybe wait for a small pair to invest in a call-down against him? still, like my hand above, i know how a read sometimes gets under your skin and you can become committed to fighting it out on the river.

[skp]

He 3 bets preflop. He 3 bets on the flop. He bets the turn. He bets the river.

hm...smells like a bluff...lol

...just kidding....I know what you are driving at and your play is fine on an one-off basis but generally, I think you would agree with me that you just played this hand way too aggressively and probably too deep.

[Ulysses]

badbeetz was sitting to the left of this guy (Erwin), so perhaps he'll chime in here. On a side note, I think badbeetz had the worst seat in the house w/ both me and Erwin playing very aggressively and both of us having spot-on reads on the whole table.

Here's the hand with all my thoughts:

I open-raise in CO w/ KJo. He 3-bets on the button. We get heads up.
At this point, he's very suspect of any open-raise from me and will 3-bet w/ just about anything. I like my hand. I contemplate 4-betting, but I think the flat-call will leave him more off-balance.

Flop 2d4d7h I bet. He raises. I 3-bet. He calls.
I bet out to test the waters. If he flat calls, he might have a hand. Once he raises, if I just call, I'm left guessing. So I 3-bet. Now he knows that he can't count on me to bet the turn anymore, so if he has a real hand (ie: any pair, diamond draw w/ two overcards, AQ/AK), he's going to 4-bet me. When he just flat-calls the 3-bet, I'm pretty sure he doesn't have much of a hand.

Turn (2d4d7h)Qc I check. He bets. I call.
OK. There's a good chance I have the best hand (though he might be ahead w/ rag ace). If I bet the turn, he's going to auto-raise. I'm not confident enough to 3-bet him and I don't want to call him down only to see A2. If I check-raise the turn, he's definitely going to 3-bet me w/ a diamond draw (or a Queen), which is definitely something he might have. And he won't lay down any pair. The only better hand he'll lay down is a rag Ace. And maybe he just hit the Queen. I figure he's most likely to have absolutely nothing or a Queen. Small pocket pair or rag-Ace are other possibilities that beat me. My hand is quite possibly still good, and if not, most likely has 6-8 outs.

River (2d5d7hQc)3h I check. He bets. I call.
If I bet, he'll raise me with nothing or a Queen (and probably with a Seven as well). He'll call me w/ Ace-high or a baby pair. If I check, he'll check behind w/ Ace-high or a baby pair, not wanting to face a check-raise w/ those hands. So, a bet from him means either a Queen or absolutely nothing. I called, pretty confidently.

He turned over his 9To and said "I just want to see what kind of garbage you called me with." I turned over my King-high and he said "That's sick. I was sure you'd show me Ace-high." Everyone else thought we were nuts.

A little while later, badbeetz was lamenting the fact that he doesn't get paid off in this game the way I do. Call and show down King-high on the river a couple of times and that'll change. [img]/forums/images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[Ulysses]

Also, he is tricky and may raise the turn with nothing, probably forcing you to fold when you could be ahead or have 6 outs
Definitely. See my results post for more elaboration.

[skp]

All of this thinking is way too advanced for my pea brain.

Are your games generally this tough that you have to scratch and claw so often on such tiny edges (if this is an edge at all)? Doesn't sound like a very good game to me.

[Ulysses]

bottom line: tricky aggressive player on your left who is fed up with you and wants to counter can be tough to conquer. maybe wait for a small pair to invest in a call-down against him?

Similar to my advice to you, and we're both probably correct. Though, I like my King-high a lot better than your Ten-high. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

But yeah, perhaps it's not worth fighting when I know that even your normally reasonable line of turn checkraise/river bet isn't going to get him off of even a decent Ace-high. Perhaps I should have mentioned that we had both had a few beers. And we were both getting pretty bored w/ the game. In large part, we were sparring aggressively w/ each other just to liven up the whole game.

The leadup to this is somewhat relevant. The game had been much tighter than our normal games and I had been stealing quite a bit when folded to me or one weak limper to me in CO or Button. He knew this, so he'd let me slide if I raised a limper, but if I open-raised, he'd auto 3-bet.

I'm not sure if this hand happened before or after:

He says pre-flop that if I raise again he's 3-betting without looking at his cards. I find Ac3c and open-raise in CO. He 3-bets. I'm not sure if he has looked at his cards. I call. He says "you must have complete garbage to not 4-bet my blind raise." Hmmmmm, I guess he didn't look at his cards. The flop is AsQc5d. I bet, he calls. The turn is 9c, giving me a flush draw as well. I bet, he raises (hmmm - did he look at his cards?), I 3-bet, he calls. The river is another Queen. I check. He now looks at his cards (and the way he looks, I know this is the first time he's looking) and checks. My hand is good...

[Ulysses]

Are your games generally this tough that you have to scratch and claw so often on such tiny edges (if this is an edge at all)? Doesn't sound like a very good game to me.

No, my games are incredibly soft. For a little while, this one was much tighter than normal. But if you read my response to mike l., you'll see that I agree w/ you that both my opponent and I probably played this too aggessively and too deep, as you said. We really were both just bored and feeling frisky and also knew that some battles like this would liven up the whole table.

After seeing some of this, weaker players will often confidently jump into the fray cold-calling us w/ stuff like 89s and then pay off beyond belief when they run into one of us w/ the nut flush.