My New Year's Resolution was to stop bricking straight draws
$1/$2 game at Foxwoods. This hand is from a few weeks ago on MLK day. Hero usually plays at “the other place” (AKA Mohegan Sun) but is here hoping to get a piece of the loose passive action during the day’s High Hand promo.
Villain in this hand is a MAWL, previously unknown to me. Based on her conversation with my neighbor, she appears to be a tournament grinder and a losing cash game player. When she first sat down she said, “My New Year’s Resolution was to stop playing cash. I never know when to leave the table.” She bought in for $80 and pretty quickly got a double through your hero in a spot where I open, she min 3b, I 4b jam AA, and she calls KK and makes a flush. Later, she won a few more medium-sized pots and then a huge one in a spot where she played a flopped set/rivered quads very passively, flatting flop and turn and then breaking out the bad reg minraise sizing on river.
Also worth noting that villain is not afraid to use speech play and reverse tells. In an earlier hand, she pulled some angle-y **** against a fish. She went to turn over her cards before the fish called a big river bet, then went to muck them when he pulled his call back. The fish then said, “I don’t believe you have a flush” and the villain said, “Oh! I didn’t even notice there was a flush out there.” Fish calls and villain shows a flush. She is currently waiting on a HH payout for her quads and covers the table.
I am stuck on the day after doubling up a couple short-stacks and paying off a fish. I start the hand with just under $300, which is the table max at FW.
QsTc
I open CO to $7 and villain on the button is the only caller.
Flop is Ks Jh 8s ($17 before rake)
Hero checks and villain bets $10. Hero check-raises $35 and villain calls.
Turn is Ks Jh 8s 3d ($87 before rake)
Hero bets $80, leaving around $175 back. Villain tanks, shifts around a bit in her seat, and looks genuinely uncomfortable. Finally, she calls. Before the river is dealt she says, “You have aces again?”
River is Ks Jh 8s 3d 5h ($247 before rake)
Hero? Do we give up here, blocking villain’s folding range, or just rip it? I think I misplayed this hand, possibly on every street, so would appreciate any and all feedback.
14 Replies
How sticky is she? If she will fold a K to your shove, by all means, shove. Let's hope your read is right that she is uncomfortable and not slow-playing a monster 😉
A couple of things that say don't bluff. First she's been winning. She's going to be feeling good. Second, you have been losing. Your image is not good. Third, she has basically told you she has at least TP. Fourth, she's already called two big bets. She isn't going to want to leave now. Finally, she's going to get a payoff, so even if she loses the hand, she's got plenty of money to keep playing soon. Odds of a fold are low.
why did you CR the flop? is that something you do with your made hands?
when i see someone who isnt loose passive or tight passive CR the flop after opening pre the first thought that comes to mind is that its usually a draw. fwiw.
If you wanted to maximize fold equity, it would probably have been better to call the flop and then checkraise blast the turn.
x/r doesnt generate nearly as much FE at llsnl as we would like + people play passive and miss value bets often = we can check our draws a lot more, x/call even.
edit: river is a give up 200% after the speech
Having a spade is not good for you
Sent from my Mi 9T using Tapatalk
If you wanted to maximize fold equity, it would probably have been better to call the flop and then checkraise blast the turn.
I think this is probably right. You could also lead small OTF and then 3!.
I take her speech play as sort of like putting her hands on her chips to signal she will call a bet. She has a good hand but doesn't want to play for stacks and is trying to keep the pot manageable. A good reply would be to promise you don't have aces, as weakening your range is usually a sign of strength. AP, ship the river. She will find a call sometimes, but sometimes not. She doesn't want to play for stacks, and is trying to prevent it, so you might as well do it rather than forfeiting the pot.
would rather just cbet small honestly
turn sizing seems a shade unnecessarily large
would usually give up turn but if u bet turn id xf unless spade otr. just doesnt really seem like player type to fold a king otr when everything bricks
why did you CR the flop? is that something you do with your made hands?
when i see someone who isnt loose passive or tight passive CR the flop after opening pre the first thought that comes to mind is that its usually a draw. fwiw.
Checking flops from OOP has been a big part of my strategy for the last year and a half or so. I don't know that I would check-raise top set here, but I would absolutely check-raise AK, KJ, JJ, 88, etc.
I have noticed that people in my pool tend to overfold to check-raise lines, though, which is somewhat concerning for these spots where I am bluffing and get two calls going to the river.
If you wanted to maximize fold equity, it would probably have been better to call the flop and then checkraise blast the turn.
Thanks. I think I agree with this.
Agreed. My thought-process behind check-raising this combo was obviously that I have a big spade and can continue to barrel on spade turns and rivers. When I bet the turn, I planned to give up river on a brick. But getting here, I found myself wondering wondering whether villain still gets here with enough unpaired hands like ATss and second pair hands like JTss to make shoving profitable. I normally don't try to make fish fold TP, but I also think villains may call turn with KQ and KT hoping to see a give-up OTR?
would rather just cbet small honestly
turn sizing seems a shade unnecessarily large
would usually give up turn but if u bet turn id xf unless spade otr. just doesnt really seem like player type to fold a king otr when everything bricks
Thanks for the response. I think I agree RE: cbet and I definitely agree about the turn size. I was going back-and-forth between going for an overbet and then giving up river versus finding a perfectly geometric size for a bet-bet-bet line and ended up with this in-between size that is probably a clear mistake.
I take her speech play as sort of like putting her hands on her chips to signal she will call a bet. She has a good hand but doesn't want to play for stacks and is trying to keep the pot manageable. A good reply would be to promise you don't have aces, as weakening your range is usually a sign of strength. AP, ship the river. She will find a call sometimes, but sometimes not. She doesn't want to play for stacks, and is trying to prevent it, so you might as well do it rather than forfeiting
Appreciate the thoughts on her speech play and I agree that it felt like she was trying to freeze me going into the river. I generally avoid talking at all during hands (unless I am considering a call OTR and trying to get a read) but kinda wish I had found this response.
Grunch:
Just based on your description of V, I may be hesitant to try anything too fancy with her. I'd be careful about trying to run a big bluff against her.
Anyways...
PRE - Opening QTo pre is likely to get you scolded here, but from the CO, it seems okay.
Not sure about the $7 size. Is that normal for this game? I sort of think I'd want to go $10, to fold out the BTN.
FLOP - KJ-high flop would seem to favor our range as the PFR. A small (1/3-1/2 pot) c-bet would seem fairly standard, but I don't mind the check from OOP.
Not sure why we'd want to x/r though, with just an OESD and BDFD. Why not just check, let her stab, and then decide if we want to continue? Odds are she'll check back turn if we check-call flop, and we can lead out on the river.
TURN - As played on flop, if we're going to rep a strong hand here, I'd think we'd want to over-bet, to make her fold all her single pair holdings, and charge her draws the max to continue. I'd probably bet at least $120 or $125, to make her think we're setting up a less than 1/2 pot river jam.
RIVER - Checking the river after check-raising the flop and barreling turn with Q-high seems like a spew. I think we have to bet, and the only size that makes sense is all in.
I don't really like the line hero has taken here. I think we'd be better off just c-betting the flop for 1/2 pot, or check-calling a reasonable size bet. Depending on the action, we might like to check-raise the turn, to set up a river jam.
I wouldn't put too much stock in her speech play. If she's capable of using speech play, she's likely trying to convey strength, hoping you'll think she has AK or just KX when she actually has Jx, or just ace-high.
We block combos of KQ that will likely call, and unblock some AXss combos that will mostly fold to a bet. I'd rather not have any spades in our hand, or any combo of QT, but we got here the way we got here, so we should realize that jamming is likely to be higher EV than checking, when our hand is all but guaranteed to lose at showdown if she checks back.
Checking flops from OOP has been a big part of my strategy for the last year and a half or so. I don't know that I would check-raise top set here, but I would absolutely check-raise AK, KJ, JJ, 88, etc.
x/r a lot just seems bad, esp. on this kind of board. Sure, KJ,JJ,88 could all be fine but KT and even KQ,AK just seem like overplays. Also means that good but not great draws (like this) are putting in too much.
Also x/r CO vs. BTN a lot is just weird, I can get behind it on a few boards if you open UTG and BTN calls ... but CO vs. BTN is very different.
It might even be better at 2-5 where people will stab way too much vs. checks, but I see no reason that would be true here.
Ignoring that:
Preflop I'd mostly go at least 8, and if a bad calling station is on the BTN I see no reason not to make it 12.
Flop I just bet, as above, but I don't love the x/r size either.
I understand that it's kind of a generic 3x but we can do a lot better if we think about the next two streets.
As an exploit I'd go bigger with 88, so we can shove turns, and smaller with hands like this so we can do 25 on flop; 45-65 on turn; and then decide if we want to give up or shove river.
Turn after the flop x/r I think pot is a terrible size. Like just shoving turn is probably better.
Honestly I might even just check after she's called flop, because I doubt she's folding much on this brick for anything that looks like a normal bet and might even not bet if we check.
Betting 40 and sometimes shoving river has to be a lot better, assuming she's not good enough to know you'd often want to bet more with KJ+.
River, I've probably lost count of the number of times I shove here and people sigh/shrug call K9 or whatever ... so do yourself a favour and make close to $170 by not doing that. I'd be reticent to shove a Q river for what we have and that has to be way better than this card.
Block KQ and KT is bad, as is blocking Qs. Very possible random 1-2 players have AK here, and if they've got here with K9 or worse why are they folding now but not earlier?
There's also at least a 25% chance her speech on the turn means she can beat AA.
x/r a lot just seems bad, esp. on this kind of board. Sure, KJ,JJ,88 could all be fine but KT and even KQ,AK just seem like overplays. Also means that good but not great draws (like this) are putting in too much.
Also x/r CO vs. BTN a lot is just weird, I can get behind it on a few boards if you open UTG and BTN calls ... but CO vs. BTN is very different.
It might even be better at 2-5 where people will stab way too much vs. checks, but I see no reason that would be true here.
Ignoring that:
Preflop
Thanks. I think you basically summed up a lot of the reasons why I am pretty unhappy with how I played this hand. Part of the reason I lean so heavily on checking flops is because I am so often multiway in these spots. There was kind of no reason to do so here, HU late position vs. late position. It was basically an autopilot move.
Agree that the xr sizing was bad. I could see going small with the xr and barreling turn for small, but finding the bigger xr size on flop to set up the turn shove would have worked a lot, I think.
Have already talked about my thought process with the turn sizing, which was obviously flawed. Going to give the river reveal below:
Spoiler
We do shove. I have a comped room at Mohegan Sun for the night and part of my thought process is simply, “Well, if she calls, at least I can leave Foxwoods and go over there.” Obviously, this is pretty bad mental game. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my plan was to give up river on a brick, and I basically just abandoned that plan out of tilt.
She tanks for a bit, but not too long, before folding. I don’t show. After a few moments she says, “AK was good there” which makes it sound like she folded KQ. Thank god. As others have mentioned, I don’t know if this shove gets through often enough to be more profitable than just saving the $175. Probably the fact that this woman was winning on the day factored in (people want to "lock it up" or whatever) but I honestly didn't even consider that in-game.
I doubt she had a hand as strong as KQ, as that would be the top of her range. The fact that she's put you on AK sort of proves why jamming the river is better than giving up and checking.
Her speech play is intended to convey strength, which means she's weak. She wouldn't say anything with KQ or KJ. She likely had a weak Ks or maybe Jx. Possibly just a busted flush draw, and may have tanked to save face.
