Reasonable shot at protection?

[QTip]

Bump.

[bobhalford]

I used to make this play often, but then I realized that I needed to stop being so aggressive. Generally my play followed a formula: if I raise preflop, I bet or raise the flop almost always. Now I've toned this down a bit. My old self would check-raise this flop, now I'm inclined to fold it. However, in a 6-max game, I would probably still use this play...but instead I would just bet out on the flop.

The play would be much better if your position was on the button. That way you can get a free card if a spade hits the turn or an ace hits. Problem with the Ace is that you could be drawing dead once it hits or it will kill all your action if villain has TT/JJ/QQ.

All in all, I would just save your money and fold the flop and wait for a better opportunity to make aggressive plays like this.

This pot is way to big to fold. Calling is generally right, but this play, considering your opponent can easily not have a king (or a pair since he is on the button) is not a bad one at all.

[Nick Royale]

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What are you trying to protect? A payoff hand like AQ? If Button has AK or KQ, you're drawing slim to dead. Even if he has JJ/TT you have 6 dirty outs plus a backdoor prayer. I'd peel if you're feeling saucy, or else just fold. This flop sucks for you and there are a lot of opponents to get through.

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I'd be amazed if we don't have a lot of situations here where we have more than 10% equity. Folding now gives up 2sb. Might as well make the best of em and do what you can.

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Since it's definately not sure we're seeing the river thinking in terms of equity isn't the way to go here. But we have 1.5 outs for our bdfd so and I would be amazed if our weak A/Q/bdsd-outs would make up for the rest of the 0.75 outs required to call. In this case we might even be able to count our bdfd as more than 1.5 outs since our implied odds will be great when hitting in a pot as big as this with 6 players. However, I think folding this flop would be bad.

[bobhalford]

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What are you trying to protect? A payoff hand like AQ? If Button has AK or KQ, you're drawing slim to dead. Even if he has JJ/TT you have 6 dirty outs plus a backdoor prayer. I'd peel if you're feeling saucy, or else just fold. This flop sucks for you and there are a lot of opponents to get through.

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I'd be amazed if we don't have a lot of situations here where we have more than 10% equity. Folding now gives up 2sb. Might as well make the best of em and do what you can.

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Since it's definately not sure we're seeing the river thinking in terms of equity isn't the way to go here. But we have 1.5 outs for our bdfd so and I would be amazed if our weak A/Q/bdsd-outs would make up for the rest of the 0.75 outs required to call. In this case we might even be able to count our bdfd as more than 1.5 outs since our implied odds will be great when hitting in a pot as big as this with 6 players. However, I think folding this flop would be bad.

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The fact that there are several players in the hand does merit continuing, but after hero raises the flop, how many of those players other than the sb are calling? KJ/KT or worse will probably call, as will sets and straight draws. Hitting the backdoor flush or straight will not pay off that much if it's only hero and sb in the hand.

[Nick Royale]

What to say? Comparing EV in big multiway pots like this is one of the most difficult spots in poker imo. I'm not folding this flop, will a raise be better than a call? How often are we head of Button? Not often. How often will my raise fold hands like 99-66? Pretty often I guess, but as long as we're behind to Button it doesn't matter. Will Button bet this flop with a hand we can beat into 5 players, I don't think so but he might bet JJ/TT so I don't think we'll have to be in that bad shape. I'm calling here, but I can't say raising isn't better.

[MisterKing]

Wow. I read the OP and my gut reaction was to launch into a mini-tirade about FPS. That said, having looked through QTip, Private Joker, Nick R, and others' commments, I do see some merit in the C/R iso-play -- but I'm not entirely sold that raising is the best EV play. Good thread, guys.

I wonder if you might expand on what your plan is for the turn after C/R the flop. What do you do if a queen hits? An ace? A spade? A brick?

My answers (all answers assume that we are not 3-bet on the flop): Wow, a queen turn is very interesting, as we could either bet/call or c/r again if our opponent has any aggression to him. We pick up lots of new outs when the Q falls (except vs QQ KK, AA, and KQ), so we can either continue our aggression and bet/call if raised (knowing two things: we're behind but prob still have the outs to draw in this massive pot), or we could get really fancy and C/R again. I guess I prefer bet/call. Button would have to be a massive weaktight vag for me to C/R him, since I guess we can get some folding equity that way.

If a blank hits, I'm c/f. Period. The strength of our hand on the flop is that we have all these bd draws. When they vanish, our hand's value does too.

If a spade hits, I really want to C/R if there is any chance at all this will fold JJ/QQ/KQ/KJ/etc. (JJ is an interesting case apart from the others there). But in a 2/4 game where people's call buttons seem to be stuck, and their fold buttons almost completely inoperable, I think bet/call is fine on the turn... maybe c/c but this screws up our "lead" in the hand and kills any chance of folding out pairs smaller than kings.

If an ace hits, its bet/fold time. Would help if we had a read on button to know if he'd raise us on the turn with less than AK here (pretty much the worst hand that beats us -- assuming button isn't a maniac and raises 44/55/K4/K5/A4/A5 after four limpers). No. 1 we have to bet an ace for value, and No. 2 if we're raised after C/R the flop then I think we're totally [censored]. Seems like an easy b/f to me.

[cassady]

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Oh boy. I don't know. That's a lot of opponents, and I doubt you have the best hand. I kind of doubt you even have Button beat.

But the pot's big, so the reward is substantial when Button doesn't have you beat and you scare away a pocket underpair or two and your potentially expensive play does work.

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This pretty much summed up my thoughts here. I think there's a good chance of folding hands that beat me, like 4x/5x/pocket pairs. There are also very few draws as it's a rainbow board and the only straight draw is with 2 low cards or A2/A3. I also have a really good chance of folding hands like JT which have 6 outs but will be very unlikely to call 2 with an overcard on the board.

I have a backdoor flush draw, really weak backdoor straight draw and an overcard which is actually cleaner than if there were no king on the board, but I think I will find out very quickly if the button has AA/KK/AK. My queen needs to be discounted heavily, although there's a decent chance the button has something like JJ/TT (or even AQ/AJ/ATs).

If the pot weren't 20SB I would go ahead and fold but I figured it was worth raising here. Since I have odds to call on my bdfd alone if I can clean up any outs with a raise it may be worth it.

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I'm on board with this.

Please post the rest of the hand in here at some point, as I'm interested to see how it played out.

Thanks.

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Looking at this hand, I automatically think two things:

1). The odds of drawing dead against the button here in terms of making a pair and winning are high. AA, KK, AK, KQ would be ugly for us here.

2). There's a substantial amount of value in our backdoor draws. Assigning 1.5 outs to each of the nut flush, nut straight, and low-end straight, we get 4.5 outs. More than enough to peel.

Given that two of these backdoor draws are to the nuts, I think we want as many callers with us as possible.

I think the callers give us more value than the isolation play, which gives us probably a 50% chance of drawing near dead.

[Nick Royale]

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This pot is way to big to fold. Calling is generally right, but this play, considering your opponent can easily not have a king (or a pair since he is on the button) is not a bad one at all.

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Betting with nothing into 5 opponents in a pot that has been 3-betted preflop isn't likely at all. Just because he's on the button doesn't mean he'll bet with crap imo.

[QTip]

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Given that two of these backdoor draws are to the nuts, I think we want as many callers with us as possible.

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I disagree.

What if we could get something like 77 to fold and the turn and river were 7 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 4 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

What if we could get something like 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]6 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] to fold and the turn and river were J [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]T [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] or maybe it comes a 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]3 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img].

There are plenty of scenarios that could be listed here. IMO, the equity we gain from getting other hands out cannot be outweighed by thinking that more people will actual stick around and pay us more when we hit a hand.