Pokerstars 500K guaranteed blind defense

[housenuts]

i would lead out on the flop and probably go all-in if he raised me. good chance i'd bust, but i roll like that

[DarrenX]

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Or he thought you were trying to steal with your check raise. You wuss out on the turn and he thinks his AK is good so he bets.

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No it isn't, your flop c/r, turn check is weak. If you lead the turn and he comes over the top then I would feel ok folding here.

I've seen good players come over the top of a flop c/r with J high and get folds. It really isn't necessarily all that strong in the right spot.

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I gotta say I don't think I have this move in my arsenal... I would assume it's reserved for a better than average players, as I would think most donks would continue to call...

I didn't like a turn bet as I thought I showed enough strength to have any hands I beat lay down. I also thought there was a decent chance at a free card here. Additionally, a check/fold here left me with an average stack.

[durron597]

Last night I was sweating a 2+2er who will remain unnamed and who I think is excellent. He raised in the CO, BB calls. Flop KK4, BB checks, Hero bets ace high, BB checkraises, Hero thinks and pushes, BB folds.

Sometimes that last barrel really is necessary.

If you want the Jack high hand do a search by me for posts containing "colson10".

[schwza]

i turbo-fold pre-flop.

c/r flop is good, then make a smallish bet on the turn. then you can fold. but he makes this play with a hand like 99 too often for me to want to check/fold the turn.

[fnurt]

Now that we're sitting here with the luxury of unlimited time, it's worth thinking about an overall strategy for what you want to accomplish when you play this hand in the blind. It seems to me that a fundamental principle of no-limit is that you don't want to lose a ton of money with top pair-weak kicker. You'd rather not get involved in such hands at all when you're out of position.

I think it would be silly not to make a stab at this pot once you flop top pair, but I can't see betting a significant chunk of your stack on the proposition that you're ahead. I would either bet out or check-raise the flop, but I'm not putting any more money in the pot after that. If that means that sometimes I get pushed off the best hand, okay, but occasionally getting pushed off the best hand does not automatically make you weak-tight.

If you want to play for a bunch of chips with this hand, you need to think about the reasons why you don't play hands like KT up front, and why you generally don't play hands like Q8 even for a single bet.

Against a good/tricky UTG player I would never call this preflop, since it's going to cost you too much to find out where you are, even if you manage to flop a pair.

[DarrenX]

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Now that we're sitting here with the luxury of unlimited time, it's worth thinking about an overall strategy for what you want to accomplish when you play this hand in the blind. It seems to me that a fundamental principle of no-limit is that you don't want to lose a ton of money with top pair-weak kicker. You'd rather not get involved in such hands at all when you're out of position.

I think it would be silly not to make a stab at this pot once you flop top pair, but I can't see betting a significant chunk of your stack on the proposition that you're ahead. I would either bet out or check-raise the flop, but I'm not putting any more money in the pot after that. If that means that sometimes I get pushed off the best hand, okay, but occasionally getting pushed off the best hand does not automatically make you weak-tight.

If you want to play for a bunch of chips with this hand, you need to think about the reasons why you don't play hands like KT up front, and why you generally don't play hands like Q8 even for a single bet.

Against a good/tricky UTG player I would never call this preflop, since it's going to cost you too much to find out where you are, even if you manage to flop a pair.

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Thanks for the obviously well thought out response.

If I had a read that he was good/tricky, I would agree not to play this. Lacking a read, I would say a call is pretty loose on a good day, but with our stack sizes and those juicy pot (1625 for 400 more) and implied odds, is anyone with me?

[fnurt]

To be clear, I don't have a big problem with the call if you have the discipline to get away from the hand. If you're the kind of player who has to c/r the flop AND bet the turn just so you can sleep peacefully at night with the knowledge your Q8 was absolutely, positively beat, then I think you shouldn't be playing hands like Q8.

The thing is, unless you come up with 2 pair or better, it's you who are laying the implied odds here, not your opponent. If a ton of money goes into the pot you rate to have the worst of it more often than not.