AK flop play

[The Venetian]

I think the key here is how often you can get the opponent to lay down a hand that is better at the moment, like 88-JJ. You're coinflipping if he calls, but if he folds often enough, this becomes a solidly +EV play, if a bit high on the variance side.

My standard play on the flop with the nut flush draw and two overcards has been to try and get all my chips in the pot with some folding equity. Whether that means bet-raise-reraise or check-raise. I want him to have to call a lot of chips to (hopefully) coinflip with me. I'm willing to listen, though, to alternatives...it just seems to work well.

Without the overcards/nut draw, like you, I'll check behind to get at least one free card.

[45suited]

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My standard play on the flop with the nut flush draw and two overcards has been to try and get all my chips in the pot with some folding equity. Whether that means bet-raise-reraise or check-raise

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If it goes bet-raise-reraise, you're not flipping coins anymore.

[adanthar]

Here is the opposing view as to checking behind on the flop:

There is very little question that against multiple tricky opponents, or sometimes even one tricky opponent, checking behind on a J54 flop with an A7 draw is the right play. However, this is not a similar situation.

First and foremost, you are heads up on an all low board. There are times you should check behind here, but not against most players and not with almost anything you've raised PF. Most of the time when you do, you are either setting yourself up to get pushed off the pot on the turn, or, equally likely, giving your opponent up to 6 outs you don't want him to have *and* giving him cause to suspect 22 is good. With deep stacks, it is very often the proper play here to call a hand like 22 PF and fold it on any non-2 flop, including this one, but once you check the flop all bets are off.

Second, the most powerful way you have to get the guy off this flop is not to check the flop, raise the turn (especially if he hits something he likes.) It's to bet/3 bet a raise now; there are only a few hands most people will do that with, and if your opponent is any good at all 88 will go out the window either now or on the turn. I said 'slightly more FE' in my original post because almost nobody at Party is any good, but hey, you're on Stars now so it varies.

Third, six of your outs (if you have all 15) will not result in you getting paid now; if you check behind and an ace hits the hand is over. If you bet, get called, a high card hits the turn and you check through, you are usually winning a nice pot on the river (ie, your implied odds on your flop bet are usually something like 2:1-3:1 even if you know you are getting called; they are higher if a heart hits). If you check through here, nobody that can't beat TPTK will pay you off on any following street you hit. As a corollary, if your opponent has a set or A7 and an ace hits the turn, you are calling him down on two streets and he is the one who controlls how many chips go in.

Fourth, for Shania's sake, if I check behind this hand I am sometimes checking behind AA, too, and I won't be doing that any time soon (too many cards that kill my action).

Finally, free turn cards > free flop cards.

[durron597]

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For instance if you are on the button and have A7h against 2 callers with deep stacks. The flop comes like J54 with 2 hearts and they check to you, if you now bet and someone makes a huge pot committing raise, you might have to throw away your hand, and you have thus turned a hand with huge future value into 72o."

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This is totally different, because you are willing to get all your chips in with the two overs and the flush draw since you are almost certainly the favorite. In your example the situation is not nearly as good.

The problem is that if you hit your hand you are not likely to get bets on future streets, so you are happy to get the money in now. Also if you bet and the third heart does hit you got a bet in on the flop that you might not have been able to get on the turn.

[curtains]

btw just so everyone knows I don't think betting is terrible or anything, it's just not my style here against a random opponent.

Also it's the much lower variance play, and since I do have a pretty nice edge on the bubble I'd rather choose the play that doesn't give me a larger chance of investing a ton of chips early on with just the nut flush draw.

Checking definitely has it's strategical advantages, and no matter what I will be left with a healthy stack after the hand and possibly a huge stack. Also

Note also that this is a flop that I generally check behind even if I just have AKo (Referring to $215 games and up, as in lower limits I found it was profitable to just bet blindly every time).

Against familiar opponents I will check sometimes with AA-QQ although its rare (Long story but depends on the suits), I can only remember doing it once in the recent past and it's not the optimal play, it's simply to mask your hand for the future, something which is almost always unneccessary on PartyPoker.

[curtains]

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For instance if you are on the button and have A7h against 2 callers with deep stacks. The flop comes like J54 with 2 hearts and they check to you, if you now bet and someone makes a huge pot committing raise, you might have to throw away your hand, and you have thus turned a hand with huge future value into 72o."

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This is totally different, because you are willing to get all your chips in with the two overs and the flush draw since you are almost certainly the favorite. In your example the situation is not nearly as good.

The problem is that if you hit your hand you are not likely to get bets on future streets, so you are happy to get the money in now. Also if you bet and the third heart does hit you got a bet in on the flop that you might not have been able to get on the turn.

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durron, again you are not almost certainly the favorite. At most you are going to be 52%, but you could easily be the underdog. Also you are playing stupid idiots on the internet. If they flopped a set you will get all of their money if a heart comes. They don't have nearly as much fear as you give them credit for. They aren't going to simply fold their 88 or 55 because a 3rd heart comes on the turn.

[The Venetian]

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My standard play on the flop with the nut flush draw and two overcards has been to try and get all my chips in the pot with some folding equity. Whether that means bet-raise-reraise or check-raise

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If it goes bet-raise-reraise, you're not flipping coins anymore.

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For this situation, sure. I was speaking generally. Bet-raise-reraise wouldn't have a lot of fold equity, if any, in most Party SNG's...I understand this.

[curtains]

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Here is the opposing view as to checking behind on the flop:

There is very little question that against multiple tricky opponents, or sometimes even one tricky opponent, checking behind on a J54 flop with an A7 draw is the right play. However, this is not a similar situation.

First and foremost, you are heads up on an all low board. There are times you should check behind here, but not against most players and not with almost anything you've raised PF. Most of the time when you do, you are either setting yourself up to get pushed off the pot on the turn, or, equally likely, giving your opponent up to 6 outs you don't want him to have *and* giving him cause to suspect 22 is good. With deep stacks, it is very often the proper play here to call a hand like 22 PF and fold it on any non-2 flop, including this one, but once you check the flop all bets are off.

Second, the most powerful way you have to get the guy off this flop is not to check the flop, raise the turn (especially if he hits something he likes.) It's to bet/3 bet a raise now; there are only a few hands most people will do that with, and if your opponent is any good at all 88 will go out the window either now or on the turn. I said 'slightly more FE' in my original post because almost nobody at Party is any good, but hey, you're on Stars now so it varies.

Third, six of your outs (if you have all 15) will not result in you getting paid now; if you check behind and an ace hits the hand is over. If you bet, get called, a high card hits the turn and you check through, you are usually winning a nice pot on the river (ie, your implied odds on your flop bet are usually something like 2:1-3:1 even if you know you are getting called; they are higher if a heart hits). If you check through here, nobody that can't beat TPTK will pay you off on any following street you hit. As a corollary, if your opponent has a set or A7 and an ace hits the turn, you are calling him down on two streets and he is the one who controlls how many chips go in.

Fourth, for Shania's sake, if I check behind this hand I am sometimes checking behind AA, too, and I won't be doing that any time soon (too many cards that kill my action).

Finally, free turn cards > free flop cards.

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Okay first of all our opponent isn't good here. I'm pretty sure this is a relatively low buyin sit and go on Pokerstars. If I bet the flop, get check raised, I expect to be called when I move allin. In a higher buyin with more sophiticated opponents, it's much more likely they will checkraise this flop with random garbage, as it's not a great raisers flop.

btw if our opponent has a set, all our chips are getting in on the flop as a signifigant underdog, so I don't see why you seem to phrase it as though it would be bad to check against a set because suddenly they have control of the pot on the turn.

btw I just can't see how you can reguarly play sit and gos online and honestly believe that NO ONE will pay you off if an ace/king comes unless they can beat your hand. Are we playing the same games as each other? I'd regularly get paid off by worse hands even at the $215s. It's not like it happens all the time, but to say no one will pay you off is a gross overstatement.

Your opponents play terribly for a large part because they call with hands that are obviously beaten. I mean I'm not expecting huge action if an ace comes on the turn, but I sure wouldnt be shocked to get action from 87 or 99.

[adanthar]

For the record, the higher you go and the less people you play, the more important it is to not just automatically check or bet (which is why it's weird to me that somebody like ZJ can 12 table 200's on one monitor and get 10%. gotta learn that. Anyway...)

A lot here depends on what you put the other guy on. Against a TAG who will never bluff call Q9o PF and CR any flop, betting out blindly may not be profitable because he won't fold enough. Against Gigabet, it may be profitable anyway because he's probably checkraising this with anything and I'm ahead of his range so I can occasionally play AK like aces. Against 94.3% of Party opponents plus or minus the other however many, your thinking should go 'hey, he's a donk, I'll bet'.

215's may be different, I'll find out in a couple of months.

[curtains]

btw you can play like an automatic robot at the $215s and win fairly easily. Its of almost no importance to vary your game even at that level if you are playing well.

Also against a very tough opponent I would probably bet the flop and plan to get all the money in if checkraised. However this isn't the case in this example.

Also I beleive ZJ has 2 monitors, not 1.