I suck hard at blind vs. blind battles

[cassady]

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If you 3-bet the pot will be 8 BB. If Hero's hand is good, what hands are you trying to protect from?

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Any hand with overcards to a J. There's also the chance that a mid-pair will improve....

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How often does villain have overcards to a J after taking this line?

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I haven't played more than 100 hands of 5/10, my online experience is strictly 2/4 and 3/6, but I've seen Ace high raise the turn on board like this on a blind battle. I guess this is highly read dependent and we're without a read here.

Perhaps a corrosponding question is this: what hand does villian have that we are behind to here? Do you think it's a jack with a better kicker? Very often you'd see a 3-bet preflop with AJ or even JK.

With that flop you can't go for the check-raise on the turn imho. You can't give away free suckouts.

[cassady]

you're OOP here. The issue isn't going for a check raise, it's betting out with top pair, getting raised, then ther'es the choice between either calling or 3-betting.

[Clarkmeister]

I'm with Cassady on this one. I think 3-betting the turn is the right play here against most opponents.

[Harv72b]

I do not like a turn 3-bet at all. Consider the possible holdings that a halfway normal player would take this line with, as the big blind:

1) flopped monster goes for the delayed raise. It's entirely possible that villain could call preflop with 64, 33, or even 55 here. Besides possible 2-pair hands, of course. In this case, Hero is likely playing into a turn cap, which gets really tricky in this situation.

2) the jack helped him. Hero's 8 kicker ain't that hot, even in a blind battle, considering the unknown status of the villain. Most people aren't going to bother calling the flop bet with jack high unless they have two overcards or some kind of draw to go with it; if he is holding two overcards to the flop and the jack hit him, then the best Hero can hope for is a chop with another J8. If he called the flop bet with a hand like J6 or J4 and his gutshot draw, then you might be giving up a bet by just calling vs. 3-betting. But since there are more jack combinations which are comfortably ahead of Hero than behind, I don't see the value in a 3-bet if this is the case.

3) A total bluff with air. He then probably folds to a 3-bet, when he would often have bet again on the river if Hero just calls the raise and checks the river. A small percentage of the time he catches a single overcard to beat Hero's top pair, a few more times he gives up and checks through the river, but I have to think that Hero makes more money by inducing the river bluff here. We are, of course, assuming that an unknown is even capable of a bluff raise on the turn.

4) delayed turn raise on a semibluff or lower than top pair, aimed at inducing a fold from Hero. Again, even in a 5/10 blind battle, I wouldn't assume that an unknown is going to try this often enough to consider it.

Frankly, I think the turn action is pretty obvious. It's the question of whether to check/call or bet/fold the river that is closer, IMO, though I lean towards check/call for the informational value that I gain from showdown, as well as the possibility that MHIG.

[Clarkmeister]

There's a lot more that can be going on other than "we are toast or the guy has air". And a lot of those hands, we don't mind if they fold for one more bet. Far too often you call the turn raise, the river goes check, check, and they show down their middle pair or whatever.

[Harv72b]

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There's a lot more that can be going on other than "we are toast or the guy has air". And a lot of those hands, we don't mind if they fold for one more bet. Far too often you call the turn raise, the river goes check, check, and they show down their middle pair or whatever.

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True, but the information we gain on the currently unknown player to our immediate left, as well as the metagame implications of taking this line with top pair, can make up for a missed bet or two on this particular hand over the course of the table session. Assuming of course that he calls a turn 3-bet and/or river bet with less than top pair himself.