Second pair TK against two callers on river that bricks. Go for (thin) value or not
BI $11 No PKO
This type of spot occurs from time to time at the earlier stages. You raise with a good hand from EP, get 2-3 callers and get a flop that gives you top pair or overpair and in general favours your range. You're probably ahead, but it's very likely at least one player has a good or very good draw. So even though you have 2-3 opponents you bet quite big (Should I have put in more here, like 8 or 9 BB?). And you get two callers.
OTT a card falls that might very well give another player the best hand. But everyone (including you) check.
The river then comes with a total or close to total brick. Now what? It's still quite likely you have the best hand, but you have 2 (or sometimes even 3) opponents left.
PokerStars - 25/50 Ante 6 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4
MP: 97.64 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 2)
MP+1: 211.62 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 8)
CO: 96.36 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 2)
BTN: 95.28 BB (VPIP: 75.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 4)
SB: 115.76 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 2)
BB: 120.2 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 50.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 2)
Hero (UTG): 89.92 BB
UTG+1: 100 BB
8 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB
Pre Flop: (pot: 2.46 BB) Hero has A♥ Q♦
Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, fold, MP+1 calls 2.5 BB, fold, fold, SB calls 2 BB, BB calls 1.5 BB
Flop: (10.96 BB, 4 players) T♦ Q♠ 2♠
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets 6 BB, MP+1 calls 6 BB, SB calls 6 BB, fold
Turn: (28.96 BB, 3 players) K♦
SB checks, Hero checks, MP+1 checks
River: (28.96 BB, 3 players) 4♥
Hero???
Questions:
- If we had position in the hand on both players and it was checked to us, should we make a somewhat tiny valuebet here? As the hand played out so far and this early in the tournament I could see someone have a hand like QJ, JT or even JJ and pay me. A slow played AJ or KQ on the other hand does not feel that likely
- If valuebet when IP is the right play: Can we justify doing it even here when one player is still left to act?
2 Replies
I think you have 2 options here (as is often the case on river when acting 1st): check/call OR bet/fold. Good rule of thumb, you probably don't really ever want to check/call unless villain can have some bluffs in their range. If playing live against an opponent devoid of bluffs, I don't think I ever check/call against that player type on river. In this particular hand I assume villains potential bluffs are mostly just missed spades (78s/89s/or more likely Axs since they called in MP) and/or maybe AT/JT (both of which probably just check back with marginal showdown value though).
If we are to bet/fold, what worse hands could villain call us with? It's really just what you mentioned above- QJ, JT, JJ, and the latter of the 3 might be 3betting pre at some frequency, and the JT hand might also just find a fold, so it feels like QJ is the only full frequency hand they can have to call our bet here. This is making me lean a bit more to the check/call to pick off potential missed spade draw bluffs.
Also, how wide is he gonna value bet when you check to him? Let's say we check with intention of check/calling to pick off said bluffs and villain bets 24bb into the ~29bb pot. First question I would ask is "what is the bottom of his value betting range?" I don't think he'd bet KJ with this sizing, and he likely 3b AK pre, so it seems like the worst hand he would value bet with this sizing would be 2 pair+ (which seems tough to have based on the flop+turn action so far assuming he'd bet a lot of 2 pair+ hands on turn) So judging at how narrow his value betting range should be here and how he can have a number of bluffs from his missed spade combos, I think check/calling river here makes more sense than a thin value bet.
I think you have 2 options here (as is often the case on river when acting 1st): check/call OR bet/fold. Good rule of thumb, you probably don't really ever want to check/call unless villain can have some bluffs in their range. If playing live against an opponent devoid of bluffs, I don't think I ever check/call against that player type on river. In this particular hand I assume villains potential bluffs are mostly just missed spades (78s/89s/or more likely Axs since they called in MP) and/or m
Thanks, very useful!
In this actual hand I did in fact choose to check after SB:s check. MP checked behind. SB had Q3s and MP a spade draw that obv. didn't get there, It's hard to tell if SB had called a bet, should I have bet. I like HH:s that serves as a reminder that many players still make calls with hands from positions we don't expect them to. But ofc it would be a mistake to - absent of a read - assume players here are going to call with a lot of Qx-suited hands.
