When should you flat call all three streets?

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watchtowel

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This might be passive but I find myself doing it when I feel it is a battle of kickers and I'm not sure if I'm on the better side of it, so I call three streets to keep the pot as small as possible. Like if I have Aces with jack kicker, he may have 10 or queen kicker...
 
Goodwooter

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it all depends on your position...you could call down in all types of scenerios...top pair with a tough board(k 10 9)if you have a king you are crushed by 2 pair or QJ...we will take this hand a bit further...if you are first to act, you could control the pot size and make a small bet(if you are raised you might want to tread lightly). If you are last to act...you could just call down the the showdown assuming the bets are not too strong and you still have the right odds to call...other hands could be played like this as well...2nd pair, made straight with a flush on board is another...

cheers and gl
wooter
 
Wardo420

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This might be passive but I find myself doing it when I feel it is a battle of kickers and I'm not sure if I'm on the better side of it, so I call three streets to keep the pot as small as possible. Like if I have Aces with jack kicker, he may have 10 or queen kicker...

This is a very hard question to answer there are so many variables involved (stacks, stats, etc.) I find that for specific spots like this it is next to impossible to give you a good answer. Although, wooter gave it a decent shot.

I would suggest looking through your database, finding a few spots like this, and posting them in the Hand Analysis board (minus results.) Also make sure to give any stats you have. In Poker Tracker 3, when you use the hand replayer, it will show your HUD (make sure the checkbox is ticked.) Dont remember if HEM was the same, trial expired looong ago, but I am almost positive it has a similar feature.
 
Stu_Ungar

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This might be passive but I find myself doing it when I feel it is a battle of kickers and I'm not sure if I'm on the better side of it, so I call three streets to keep the pot as small as possible. Like if I have Aces with jack kicker, he may have 10 or queen kicker...

The basic answer is you flat 3 streets when

a) You are ahead of the villians range for each street (earlier streets are far more polarised than later streets)

b) You are unable to raise for value at any point.

After that it becomes partly a mats problem (how many combos beat you and does his raising range contain more combos you beat than beat you)

The maths then needs to be "translated" to aggression.. is this opponent agressive enough to bet the range that I need in order to make my call profitable?
 
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fx20736

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This is a very hard question to answer there are so many variables involved (stacks, stats, etc.) I find that for specific spots like this it is next to impossible to give you a good answer. Although, wooter gave it a decent shot.

I would suggest looking through your database, finding a few spots like this, and posting them in the Hand Analysis board (minus results.) Also make sure to give any stats you have. In Poker Tracker 3, when you use the hand replayer, it will show your HUD (make sure the checkbox is ticked.) Dont remember if HEM was the same, trial expired looong ago, but I am almost positive it has a similar feature.

Here's when you flat on 3 streets:

When you flop a powerful hand that is very likely the best, your opponent in unlikely to draw out on you and you will get better value from calling then raising. Some examples might be; you have the nut flush, your opponent had 2nd nut flush, you have top set, villain has an underset. you have nut full house or quads and villain has a worse full house.

These situations aren't too common so generally you want to raise with your big hands and never slowplay and allow your opponent to draw to a better hand. Never try to 'price your customer in' as it may come back to haunt you. Better to take a smaller pot with a monster most of the time and take your opponent's stack some of the time then take a bunch of smaller pots and lose occasionally when you allow your opponent to catch up.
 
WVHillbilly

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Here's when you flat on 3 streets:

When you flop a powerful hand that is very likely the best, your opponent in unlikely to draw out on you and you will get better value from calling then raising. Some examples might be; you have the nut flush, your opponent had 2nd nut flush, you have top set, villain has an underset. you have nut full house or quads and villain has a worse full house.

These situations aren't too common so generally you want to raise with your big hands and never slowplay and allow your opponent to draw to a better hand. Never try to 'price your customer in' as it may come back to haunt you. Better to take a smaller pot with a monster most of the time and take your opponent's stack some of the time then take a bunch of smaller pots and lose occasionally when you allow your opponent to catch up.

Ummm when we have the nuts and villain has the 2nd nuts it doesn't matter if we raise or not, he's not folding.

The only real time to call down is against a hyper aggressive villain who keeps betting unless you play back at him when you're ahead of his range but the only hands in his range that call a river raise (assuming there is still $$ left to bet) beat you..
 
Wardo420

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This might be passive but I find myself doing it when I feel it is a battle of kickers and I'm not sure if I'm on the better side of it, so I call three streets to keep the pot as small as possible. Like if I have Aces with jack kicker, he may have 10 or queen kicker...

In the spots you describe above, I dont think flat calling 3 streets with top pair is a good idea, I am inclined to bet or raise usually. This depends, as always, on the stats and notes you have on the villain, position vs villain, effective stack sizes, etc.

Flat calling 3 streets is something you should be doing very rarely and only vs certain villains (like WVH posted.)
 
WVHillbilly

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Yeah calling 3 streets doesn't really keep the pot small and if you're willing to do it you should generally be doing it while willing to play for stacks most of the time (unless one of the bets was unusually small).
 
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Ummm when we have the nuts and villain has the 2nd nuts it doesn't matter if we raise or not, he's not folding.

The only real time to call down is against a hyper aggressive villain who keeps betting unless you play back at him when you're ahead of his range but the only hands in his range that call a river raise (assuming there is still $$ left to bet) beat you..

I agree but I qualified my statement by saying, if you'd getter better value if you called instead of raising, probably an unlikely scenario, maybe it would only happen against a weak-tight player when you had a very tight aggressive image and you thought he would possibly fold to a very large raise or against a hyper aggro maniac bully that folded to retaliation.

In general though I would always raise with my big hands. I never slowplay just like I never open-limp. :)
 
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