Making tough folds on the river...

[2ndGoat]

...is not the way to make money at limit hold'em.

6-handed 5/10 game and a 10-handed table. non-pt site


2 folds, CU (solid player) raises, I have have black queens and reraise. SB folds, moderately unskilled (and moderately loose) BB calls.

Flop: 9s 6c 4c

BB bets, CU calls, I raise, call-call.

Turn: 2c (3flush, I have queen of trump)

BB bets, CU raises, I call, BB calls.

River:

Qh

BB bets, CU raises. I'm getting 9:1 or so, but one of them HAS to have the flush, right? I mean MUST have the flush.

2nd

[baronzeus]

Yeah, cold calling 2 is bad depending on reads, especially when you can get 3bet behind you....I don't know. Tough decision unless you are up against lags. Sometimes I'll call here just to be pissed [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[MrFeelNothin]

My problem with the way you played this hand is that your turn and river play are incongruent. If you believe that COs raise on the turn means he has the flush, your Q of trump is virtually worthless as he was the opener preflop. It is unlikely that he has a Jhigh or lower flush and thus you could easily be drawing dead. However, I dont think it is at all mandatory that he has the flush after his turn OR river raise. On that board it is impossible for him to have two pair, I think his most likely hands are either a pair on the board with a high club kicker or a set. He could also easily be trying to make a move on you, believing the BB is weak.

But no matter what, when I am confronted with the decision of whether to cold-call two on the turn, I am thinking that if I am putting more bets into this increasingly large pot I WILL be seeing a showdown, especially if I improve on the river. Thus I would prefer a 3bet over calling two cold as you reassert your control over the hand and prevent another BB donk-bet on the river, which he apparently loves to do. You are going to call one more bet on the river anyways, why not 3bet the turn instead and then if you hit a Q or a club or possibly a board pair of 2s or 3s you can get more bets in on the river, otherwise check it down. You will not be capped in this situation very often because of the third player, however if you do get capped you should be able to find an easy fold on the river unimproved, you could even fold to a cap but that would cause too many image problems for my game. I want to know somewhat where people are at when they cap me so I dont like 3betting and folding to a 4th.

Or you could just fold to CO's raise on the turn because you are almost always behind one of the two and your draw could be worse than the other one.

I rank my options on the turn thusly:
1. 3bet, check down the river unimproved
2. Fold.
3. Call two cold and put myself in position to make a bad decision on the river.

[2ndGoat]

Results:

CO shows 99 (flopped top set)
BB shows 66 (flopped middle set)
Button drinks heavily (and beats the *@&^ out of the dog).

[ QUOTE ]
My problem with the way you played this hand is that your turn and river play are incongruent. If you believe that COs raise on the turn means he has the flush, your Q of trump is virtually worthless as he was the opener preflop.

[/ QUOTE ]

bullseye, and wonderful response, thank you. The decision "incongruence" was a one of those occasional casualties of 5-tabling; i disliked the decision very much by the time i clicked the "cold-call 2 bets" button.

2nd

[Icobreeze]

In a game yesterday i had to make some really tough folds, holding J9, board is 7C 8S 5H 10S. I bet the flop and turn, the player on my left calls me, on the flop I put him on overs looking for one to fall, then on the turn in pretty sure he picked up a flush draw, i bet enough to make it wrong to call, but they dont kno DS's theory, the river 2S. He I put out little bet, he sets me all in. DOH!
Few hands later, playing 10 8, flop comes down 8 7 2 rainbow, player next to me checks, I bet out about half the pot, he calls. Turn is an A. He checks i bet same amount he calls, river 10. He sets me all in. I fold. God why? These kind of things happened to many times that day. Not to mention on of the worst outdraws of my life, but look for that post.
ico