Checking Back Marginal Hands

If you’ve got AK or an underpair or bottom pair on the flop, do you cbet?
In other words, if nothing worse calls and nothing better folds, betting should be a mistake but checking means inducing bluffs with a hand that’s not even much of a bluff catcher in a situation where most of the cards in the deck are scare cards.
I’ve taken the approach of betting OOP in these spots about 100% of the time, turning my hand into a bluff with outs to a hand that I’m almost always prepared to play for stacks with (an underpair is usually just a bluff, but even bottom pair gives you 5 or more outs).
IP it’s just a question of how much respect I expect my cbet to be given and whether or not I can value bet my near-air or check it back to draw (to draw, not to bluff catch unless it’s cheap or they’re very bluffy).
I know that some people check these hands back on the opinion that “nothing worse calls, nothing better folds” so I thought I’d ask to see what people here do with these hands.

Interesting thoughts.

When you mention you are betting 100% OOP say with you bottom pair, or AK on a 22J board, where do you give up if you get called after each barrel? or will you just fire one barrel and if you dont take it down/pick up an out your folding?

I find I value town my self far too often when betting these kind of hands, and my usual response is to just dump any bottom pair or AK if I totally miss the flop. But when thinking about it, this could be a quiet a large leak?

I'm really the wrong person to ask on that one, I just know that fold equity and outs together usually make continuing with a hand proffitable.

Obviously when to fire another barrel and when to give up depends on board texture, hand ranges (what you can represent that they'll believe, and what range you're betting into), and opponent tendencies all come into it. Drawy boards usually require you to bet three streets, really dry boards however you should generally bet and give up.
Depends a lot also on how often your opponent floats cbets, if they float a lot then cbetting once and giving up is burning money, if they play fit or fold then betting again is burning money.
I don't think my results with these hands are that great, which is why I posted this thread. So take this post for whatever it's worth.

SNGShark said:

I find that your message is filled with too much poker lingo. Cut the fat and ask directly what it is your seeking... We don't need lingo like OOP, scare cards, induced bluffs etc..

The way you play AK is simple~! IN early position (and in the situation you discussed here) you play aggressive betting 5x the BB. In middle position, you play passive by check/betting. IN late position you raise to 3X BB if no raisers before you. If raised before you, you re-raise 5x the amount that has been bet.

So simple and yet so much unnecessary jargon... just keepin it real bro!

Click to expand...

5xbb in early position.
"Check/betting" in mid position. - Are we still pre-flop or post-flop?
Open raise 3x bb or "re-raise 5x" in position, 5xbb is huge.

I think I'll hazard a guess based on your name that you play SNGs and I know there are some big bet sizing differences between SNGs and cash (I didn't state that I was talking about cash games, and if that's the confusion then sorry about that) and in high blinds maybe 5x makes sense but with low blinds there's no way you should be 3betting 5x in position, it folds out too many hands that we can get value from and turns your hand into a bluff.


Also, my question is about what to do on the flop when you miss with these types of hands, not pre-flop bet sizes.

Are you the Preflop raiser?

Cbetting the flop is most always the right thing to do when you are the PFR (and not in a 3bet pot-those guys get strange), you have fold equity and its a great way to pick up profits, and with a bottom pair it becomes a defensive bet since you may very well have the best hand but want to avoid giving people outs to a better hand on the turn.

In a broad sense we are still betting to fold better hands and get calls from worse hands. If someone caught bottom pair and we have two over and they fold we have done what we wanted, if someone is calling with a gutshot and wiffed the board then we got a call from a worse hand- CHA-CHING profit.

However the texture of the board is going to play an important roll because there are situations were it pretty obivous someone is not going to fold their TP. If an A is a big chunk of their range and an A hits the flop and theres a big draw possible now maybe we just check and let go of the pot.

I think a lot of players Cbet somewhere around 100%- especially at lower stakes, especially in position.
That does not mean you have to Cbet the flop, your OOP, you check they check behind. turn is a blank delayed Cbet is executed pot is often taken down there. Cbets look more convincing on the turn than the flop and theres only 1 more card to come people dont mind letting go here.

So even with a Cbet the purpose for the bet is the same thing- fold better hands, calls from worse hands, build a big pot for when your big hand hits you get paid off on it.