Extracting maximum value when hitting the flop: Early Rounds

[jgunnip]

$10+$1 Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t30 (10 handed) converter

Button (t700)
SB (t1530)
Hero (t745)
UTG (t1025)
UTG+1 (t995)
UTG+2 (t35)
MP1 (t920)
MP2 (t800)
MP3 (t740)
CO (t510)

Preflop: Hero is BB with K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, UTG+1 calls t30, <font color="#666666">5 folds</font>, Button calls t30, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, Hero checks.

Flop: (t105) K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 9[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
Hero...


This type of situation comes up every now and then when you unexpectedly hit a huge hand on the flop and want to get all your chips in the middle.

Trapping is one option but the last thing you want to do is not get any value out of the hand or give a free card to a flush or straight draw that will take all your chips if hit.

Pushing isn't +EV here but betting probably can be. Betting however, shows sterngth and you'd much rather have one or both or your opponents fall in love with trying to steal this pot than put them on the defensive to your agression.

But in order to get them to fall in love with stealing the pot, you've probably got to check or at most mini-raise the flop.

The again, if one of your opponents has a king your your kicker beat it's going to be hard to get this information out of him as he will probably be trying to trap as well.

I'm going back and forth. Hopefully some of you can chime in on what is the best play or if you're not sure like me, what do you do in situations like these?

[microbet]

Lately, I have been betting 1/2 pot here. If he calls and the turn is a blank, I try and check/raise there.

[Roman]

just bet it out

[jgunnip]

How much? 75? 150? 400? A little more substance would be nice.

[jgunnip]

Half the pot is probably better.
I bet 100, fold, call
I lead out with 200 on the turn, raise all-in, I call.

We both had K5. split pot.
Anything weird out of villian's play? I probably would have done exactly the same.

[Nick M]

I like betting here. 2/3s is nice. Reason being is most people with a king check so the sucker with 910 or A9 will call this bet probably or maybe raise with A9. The draws will of course call you an that's the wrong price. Checking I don't like and I think most will agree with that.

[Phill S]

A pot is defined not by the winning hand, but by the losing hand.

If they have nothing, they wont call any size bet (in theory). If they have something most (bad) players will justify a call anyway.

You can get tricky if there arent so many draws out there.

When its a high draw flop like this one, i never bet less that 1/2 pot. If they want to get involved, so be it. If the turn is a blank, bet much larger, at least 2/3 pot. If the river is favourable, bet the same 2/3 pot.

Remember, its better to drive players out than take the chance that one may stick around and hit his gutshot to beat you. By this respect, its much less bad to overbet than it is to underbet.

I dont like cookie-cutter type rules and lines, but if you want one size fits all, the line above isnt far off imo. The perfect line has too many variables to list (and we are talking Gigabet territory for player capable of nearing the perfect line) and the more realistic 'near perfect' line takes into account a lot more factors than most beginning players can account for - to give one example the reads that you have of that player, which is clearly flawed when it comes to multitabling in most instances.

Phill

[NYCNative]

I wouldn't play it cute. Someone could have a better King than you or be on a flush draw.

[treeofwisdom7]

its early in the STT and i dont want to do anything tricky with what might not even be the best hand . early on people dont care if your bet doesnt give them the correct pot odds to call.*most of the time*

that said im gonna play this like a bot and bet around T100