3 Queens on the board with a weak bluff catcher. Fold, call, or raise?
$2(B)/$3(SB)/$5 NL Holdem
Villain - 40's Hispanic or Filipino rec player, playing loose and passive. I don't recognize him. Stack $490.
Hero - 50's Asian regular player, table image should be tight. We have been playing 90 minutes. Covers V.
H opens to $20 with 2c2d on the button.
V in SB calls.
($48) Qs Qc 6s
V checks.
H $15.
V calls.
($78) Turn 3d
V checks.
H $50.
V calls.
($178) River Qd
V pretty quickly pushes out a sloppy stack of what looks to be about $130 (about $275 left behind).
H ?
11 Replies
Equity denial. I was looking to rep a big pocket pair and run this guy off a small pair.
Equity denial. I was looking to rep a big pocket pair and run this guy off a small pair.
Equity denial does not mean bluffing people off most of their range.
What pairs are you trying to get fold? 55/44? All 6x? 88?
Your description was "loose passive"
If V checked the river were you going to bet big/huge?
It's not like you opened UTG and your range is a bunch of AA/KK or AQ/KQ.
As to the hand, river looks like V saying "please have a big overpair, I'm not worried about my kicker anymore".
I really don't like the turn bet.
On the river, Villain is basically repping quads, so he is polar. For this reason, raising 22 here as a bluff makes no sense and I would rule that out. If he is bad enough to donk out with 6X or 99-77 for value, I don't feel good about trying to get him to fold those hands.
I would fold here because this isn't really a spot I would expect Villain to be bluffing very often. You can also easily call here with 77+ so not much reason to make a hero call.
I really don't like the turn bet. On the river, Villain is basically repping quads, so he is polar. For this reason, raising 22 here as a bluff makes no sense and I would rule that out. If he is bad enough to donk out with 6X or 99-77 for value, I don't feel good about trying to get him to fold those hands. I would fold here because this isn't really a spot I would expect Villa
Agree with fold, especially after the chunky turn bet IP. Chiming in to inquire whether H saves money by betting turn
It's a poor way to play Qx, IMHO. But they're ID'd as a LP player, and therefore not very good, so I guess it fits.
Results:
Spoiler
When V bet out on the river, I didn't think his line made sense for him to be holding a Q. I thought I could credibly rep a big overpair (JJ+) with my line so far and my table image, so I raised him all-in. He said "you are good" and folded. He told the table "I had a flush draw so I had to bet." The table goaded me, "Show a queen, show a queen." I showed them a 2 and picked up my chips and left 2 hands later. Finally into the black for the month of June.
I actually started with a silly reason to play yesterday. It was the last day of the month, and I was down $130 for the month. I had only a 2 hour window to play poker before work. So what the hell, I decided to go see if I could get even. This hand above happened with only 10 minutes left for me to play in the session, and I was only up $60 for the session. So maybe I had a poor reason influencing me. But additionally, last week I played live poker for the first time with my 21 y/o son on a trip we took together. We played about 10 hrs together. He's a very strong player, and on this river above, I was thinking that an all-in raise is something my son might do here, thinking he could get a range fold (with the exception of quads).
I do think this is a reasonable spot to bluff catch, because Villain's line makes no sense. It also seems like you had a bit of a live read based on the OP. I want to re-iterate that I think bluff raising here is really bad though. Trying to bluff a weak player off of a good full house (or better) is not a good idea, especially when it is only $275 more to call.
Against this player type, I think the best line here is to bet small on flop, check back the turn, and then call the river. That sets up a good bluff catch spot for you. It keeps the pot small, keeps Villain's range wide, and gives some rope to bluff.
$2(B)/$3(SB)/$5 NL HoldemVillain - 40's Hispanic or Filipino rec player, playing loose and passive. I don't recognize him. Stack $490.Hero - 50's Asian regular player, table image should be tight. We have been playing 90 minutes. Covers V.H opens to $20 with 2c2d on the button.V in SB calls.($48) Qs Qc 6sV checks.H $15.V calls.($78) Turn 3dV checks.H $50.V calls.($178) River Qd
FWIW, when you say you've got a tight table image, I believe you, unlike a lot of other peeps here.
As for the hand -
PRE - opening 22 on the BTN seems okay. I think we could also probably open limp from the BTN with it, sometimes.
FLOP - I like the small c-bet on the high-paired board which would seem like it favors our range.
TURN - Think I'd prefer to just check back here, after V calls the flop. It's not like we're worried about a hand like 54 making a bigger pair and calling a river bet, are we?
If we're going to bet, I'd think we'd want to bet really small, to put pressure on him to continue with a really wide / weak range, or raise off if he's got Qx or 66.
RIVER - Not sure there's much to think about here. We only beat total air. Do we think he's doing this with ace-high?
My observation of V's described like your opponent is that they don't know when or how to bluff effectively, and are scared to look stupid, and will under-bet to get called more, and don't mind showing their hand when they don't have to. If we fold, and this guy has the case Q, he'll show. If he's got a 6, he'll show. If he has ace-high, he might still show.
Seems like a pretty standard fold. If the rest of the table is having a good time, I might show one of the 2's as I muck, and say I had 72.
Hmmm...just read the reveal.
I'll admit, I didn't think he'd be bluffing in this line. When we raise pre, c-bet the flop, and 2/3 pot it on the turn, I think V could have some slow-played Qx that wasn't sure he was good until he made quads. I mean, you could have AQ/KQ here, and he'd be scared to raise QJ on flop or turn.
Agree with Dan above, that if we check back the turn, it keeps the pot small, and lets us bluff catch the river. I'd think he'd be more likely to bet smaller proportional to the pot with his busted draws after we check back turn, because we look weak and more likely to fold to any size bet.
