What's My Line?

[droolie]

Skins 2/4

I'm in MP with AJo and I open with a raise. The CO who just sat down a couple hands ago 3-bets. It's folded to the the loose passive SB who calls. The BB folds. I call.

3 to the flop for 10SB's
The flop is 3[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 9[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

The SB checks, I bet, the CO raises, the SB calls, I call.

3 to the turn for 8BB's

The turn is the K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

What's my line??

Does anybody hate my flop play?

[hobbsmann]

I like the flop. I would probably check/call the turn and fold the river UI.

[tiltaholic]

i can't see myself not betting the flop but i don't know if it is right.

i'd likely check call the turn if CO bets and SB calls, but even then i think folding might be right, since you are almost for sure drawing to 2 outs or less. (i really doubt you can be seeing AQ at all here vs and unknown.)

edit- i meant flop as bolded.

[krimson]

Pf and Flop are good imo. The K really sucks on the turn, if we were ahead on this hand, then we probably aren't anymore. But, we have 5 outs, which we should probably reduce to 4 or so incase we're against AK / KK / AA. This gives us odds to c/c a bet as long as it isn't raised by the sb.

[droolie]

So everybody agrees that we don't need to showdown this hand if we don't improve?

[ErrantNight]

since you're ahead of AQ and TT only... yes (yes we agree)

[droolie]

[ QUOTE ]
since you're ahead of AQ and TT only... yes (yes we agree)

[/ QUOTE ]

I decided to donk bet. MP raised. SB called. I folded.

Everybody hate this line??? At the time I was thinking there's a small chance he fold a better hand and there's no way he raises me with a hand I beat and if he just calls I'm probably OK to see a SD. Pretty icky though...

Changed my mind about showing results so soon.

[ErrantNight]

I don't hate your flop plan, fwiw, but I've started c/calling this a lot more than I used to.

I also used to donk bet this turn a lot more than I do now... and as long as you can fold to a raise, you're cool. I like it better than c/call. Really my only other consideration would be c/fold.

edited to add: my plan if i c/called the flop would be to c/call the turn on a blank, c/raise if improved. when a K or Q falls my instinct is to c/fold. however, maybe, despite my above comment that bet/fold is better, c/call really IS better. i really don't know.

[droolie]

[ QUOTE ]
despite my above comment that bet/fold is better, c/call really IS better. i really don't know.

[/ QUOTE ]

The reason I posted this hand was that I was trying to see if anyone would advocate a line that would have prevented me from folding the best hand. In this case I did as CO had AQ and SB dragged the pot with QJ. Man I hate folding the best hand and I rarely do but I actually think that's a leak in my game if that's possible.

I don't hate my line as I feel like I'll rarely be bluffed out of a pot by AQ this way and that my fold will be correct a huge % of the time. Most guys with AQ won't go so bonkers and I'll usually be looking at AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK etc.. All the other lines suggested have me folding the river or turn so I guess this was just a bad board and wrong villian for my specific holding.

I have to admit I was secretly happy see that CO's bluff resulted in him throwing away 3BB's to the calling station but it had me questioning my play as I might have won this pot had I played the flop or turn differently. If I had 3-bet the flop does he cap with AQ? If he just calls the flop 3-bet does he still raise the turn when I lead into him? I really think 3-betting this flop is spewing against an unknown but it would be interesting to see what would have happened had I gone that route.

[Nick C]

Let's see. Here are some combos:

AA = 3
KK = 3
QQ = 6
JJ = 1
AK = 9

TT = 6
AQ = 12

So that doesn't seem so bad . . . except that not everyone is 3-betting AQ preflop, and not everyone is raising unimproved overs on the flop, either. And some people wouldn't raise TT with the jack on the board. (That said, if I decided to call down, TT is the hand I'd be reminding myself about. Even if we just focus on pocket pairs, and to some extent I think we should, we're not in that bad of shape, versus the potential combos. However, our chances go down somewhat when CO keeps betting despite the presence of the king.)

What I would probably really do is check-fold the turn. I'm not sure if that's best or not. One argument in favor of seeing the river is that CO will sometimes check behind on the river when you have him beat, and this river check behind becomes more likely with SB in the pot (although of course we do also have to worry about SB's hand, at least a little bit).