Meh. A KK hand.

[Nick C]

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I don't want to give a worse hand a chance to fold, but there aren't many worse hands out there.

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Depending on which aces he'll 3-bet preflop, there may not be that many better hands either.

[cold_cash]

If we don't know how he would play TT or JJ on the turn if you check the flop through, I think betting the flop becomes a must.

If you check the flop through we could probably narrow your holdings to KK, JJ, TT, and possibly 99 I guess.

If he's planning to check-raise you on the turn and you dodge it you'll still have that 5% chance to catch. If he leads the river afterwards you're going to have to play poker, but I would bet the flop.

I think this is just one of those hands where you can't win anything but if you botch it you can lose a little. I would basically take whichever line would get me to showdown the fastest, but I also wouldn't have my heart set on getting there; like you said, there aren't too many worse hand he could be holding.

[Shillx]

If we don't know how he would play TT or JJ on the turn if you check the flop through, I think betting the flop becomes a must.

I agree. If he is just going to keep checking to you with the intention of folding, all you are really doing is giving him free money. I guess there are 3 ways to play this hand...

1) Bet and see what happens. If he calls, check the turn and call one on the river.

2) Check and fold to a turn bet.

3) Check and call a turn bet but fold to a river bet.

I honestly don't know what line is best here.

Brad

[Nick C]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure I'm following you.

If you're winning I don't know if there's anything you can do to win any chips.

Are you wanting to check the flop through?

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Well, what I'm wondering is what a decent, but not great, TAG can put me on. I don't want to give a worse hand a chance to fold, but there aren't many worse hands out there.

Obviously if I bet I'm folding to a checkraise pretty quickly, and that could let me off the hook pretty easily, but also forfeits a ~5% chance of spiking a set which will usually be a winner.

I don't know if he'd desperation-bet TT or JJ if I check the flop, but I can't rule that out.

I seriously considered checking and folding to a turn bet, but without the knowledge of how he'd play JJ/TT, I didn't want to do that. I don't think my hand is good very often when he bets the turn, but I don't know if the combination of being good sometimes, spiking a K sometimes and getting to take a note works out.

Rob

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If you check the flop, are you betting if checked to again on the turn? Do you think the BB will call a turn bet with a JJ-TT hand that he would have folded on the flop? Are you checking through again on the turn in the hopes of gaining a bet on the river?

What I'm not sure about is how we're going to win any more bets from a worse hand. If BB is behind, I'm thinking he's aware of that. Maybe he can be tricked into making a play, but it sounds like you don't think he'll make a play very often, so if he does make a play, it could cost you the pot.

Also, if you have an equal chance of being ahead or behind (which you may), I think you have (somewhat) the worst of the outs, since you're crushed by AA but he'll have two outs against you when behind (unless he's made an abnormally loose preflop 3-bet) and he'll often be holding one of your kings when you're behind. And there's a small chance he has KK also and will fold to a flop bet, which would also be good for you.

If you're behind more often than not, then I guess that could swing the flop play to a check. But I'm not sure you are behind more often than not anymore, though that does depend on what Villain will do with hands like AQs/AQ/AJs (and also TT and worse pocket pairs) from the big blind in the face of an UTG preflop raise.

Another thing to consider is that his flop bet at least represents weakness, and it's possible that the chances that he holds a worse pair just went up when he checked the flop. Which is great if it's true and maybe checking the flop will improve your chances of getting a bet out of him later, but trying to do so does have its risks.

[Nick C]

Bumping this thread will unfortunately place some really bad initial math from me back on the front page.

But I am curious what the afternoon crowd thinks Hero's plan should be. Hands like this give me headaches sometimes.

[meep_42]

Against a fish, I like bet/bet/free showdown - folding to any aggression.

Against a TAG, who can somewhat reliably bluff the river after a checked-through turn, i'm good with bet|check/fold|call/check.

-d

[frank_iii]

I really can't make heads or tails of these hands. I am no longer surprised to see TAGs check-raise this flop (or lead out) and lead the turn while holding sure losers like JJ and TT. Some TAGs are more AG than others postflop. [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

If checked to, I'd probably bet the flop and fold to a raise then wonder who else is going to start taking shots at me.