$10 NLHE 6-max: Check flop OOP as PFR?

Just wondering if my play here even makes sense.

I'm not jumping up stakes, don't worry. ACR just goes down all the time, so sometimes I'll play a bit at .05.10 on BetOnline, although I know I'm bleeding money.

100 bb ef
UTG folds
Hero in MP raises to .35 with
folds to BTN, who calls. The rest fold.

Flop (pot: .81)



Hero checks. We can't get a button caller to fold here too much, pocket pairs, flush draws and maybe some jacks will call.

BTN bets .45, we call.
I called because although we are behind some of his holdings, he can bet with many draws here. On a good turn card we could continue (spade)

Turn (pot: 1.66)


This probably did not help villain. I decide to bet out, though I'm probably repping the top of my range here (something like a set of jacks or an overpair?) when I do this.

Hero bets .83, BTN folds

Thoughts?
---------------------------------------

Another KQ hand, against a very aggressive player.

folds to hero, with KQo (no spade) on the button. raise to .30

SB (aggro villain) flat calls. BB folds.

Flop (pot: .67)



Check, check (don't think I should be cbetting here often.)

Turn (pot: .67)



Villain checks, Hero bets .45, villain raises to $1, we fold

We were repping a single spade hand, correct? should we shove over him here?

Hand 1:
Easy cbet. You have two overs with a backdoor flush draw + backdoor straight draw, which is good enough to bet flop and barrel any turned spade, A, K, Q, T or 9.
As for his calling and folding ranges - yep, he's going to continue with hands you've listed above, but he's folding all high cards without backdoor draws here, and your hand has a ton of barrelling potential, so just bet it.

Instead you check/call, which is the worst play here, as you have almost no showdown value and you're left OOP with K-high.
Leading on the turn is just disastrous. You didn't cbet the flop, even though you had all the backdoors in the world, and now that the villain has shown some strength by betting you decide to lead with a naked K-high.
You represent a really narrow range here, as you're supposed to cbet with overpairs most of the time, so your value range is actually A5s and JJ, and both of these hands may also want to check/raise turn.
Point is - your story isn't believable, because it's doubtful you ever play a reasonable amount of value hands this way, and KQ is a pretty bad bluff candidate, as it doesn't have many outs here.
He folded - good for you, but the problem here is a decision-making process, not the result.

Hand 2:
"Repping a draw" with air isn't really a thing. Definitely never shove here, it's just a pure spew.
Whether you cbet here or not is mainly based on the villain's flatting range. If it's super-tight (like 88-22 plus some suited Ax) - definitely don't cbet here. If he has a lot of overcards (as is the case with most SB flatting ranges) - small cbet would work well here, putting these hands in a tough spot.
I'd say that you played the hand in one of a few reasonable ways, no major mistakes has been made for sure.

In the first hand the turn bet could be a little smaller, it would make about 35-40% of the boat, so you would be more comfortable to evaluate another attack on the river, in case you are called.
In the second hand, I believe that the bet on the turn is not necessary, since the board is dangerously connected, you are also facing a super aggressive range, for which your hand is unprotected in this situation. Your the turn game is best applied against a tight player.
Regards.

On the 1st hand, I prefer a cbet on the flop. You have 2 strong overcards, and importantly, you have a backdoor flush draw and a backdoor straight draw. There are a lot of turn cards with which you can correctly bet again and put a lot of pressure on his weak/middling holdings.

Sidetracked said:

On the 1st hand, I prefer a cbet on the flop. You have 2 strong overcards, and importantly, you have a backdoor flush draw and a backdoor straight draw. There are a lot of turn cards with which you can correctly bet again and put a lot of pressure on his weak/middling holdings.

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+1 nothing more to add on hand 1.

For hand 2, I would check back flop and turn with position on this run out to avoid this very scenario. Now we can check back rivers with some showdown value or call rivers or even bet river if we hit a K or Q while keeping the pot small.

Vlad Savchenko said:

Hand 1:
Easy cbet. You have two overs with a backdoor flush draw + backdoor straight draw, which is good enough to bet flop and barrel any turned spade, A, K, Q, T or 9.
As for his calling and folding ranges - yep, he's going to continue with hands you've listed above, but he's folding all high cards without backdoor draws here, and your hand has a ton of barrelling potential, so just bet it.

Instead you check/call, which is the worst play here, as you have almost no showdown value and you're left OOP with K-high.
Leading on the turn is just disastrous. You didn't cbet the flop, even though you had all the backdoors in the world, and now that the villain has shown some strength by betting you decide to lead with a naked K-high.
You represent a really narrow range here, as you're supposed to cbet with overpairs most of the time, so your value range is actually A5s and JJ, and both of these hands may also want to check/raise turn.
Point is - your story isn't believable, because it's doubtful you ever play a reasonable amount of value hands this way, and KQ is a pretty bad bluff candidate, as it doesn't have many outs here.
He folded - good for you, but the problem here is a decision-making process, not the result.

Hand 2:
"Repping a draw" with air isn't really a thing. Definitely never shove here, it's just a pure spew.
Whether you cbet here or not is mainly based on the villain's flatting range. If it's super-tight (like 88-22 plus some suited Ax) - definitely don't cbet here. If he has a lot of overcards (as is the case with most SB flatting ranges) - small cbet would work well here, putting these hands in a tough spot.

I'd say that you played the hand in one of a few reasonable ways, no major mistakes has been made for sure.

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Pretty much agree with all of this. Will just add that in hand 1 you could consider to throw in a check-raise on the flop from time to time with a hand like this. The type of Villain to do this against is those, who call you to much preflop in position, float your C-bets to much, and bet to much whenever checked to.

These kind of players are actually very numerous today in micro stakes games and are frankly a pain in the butt, when they are on your left. They over-use and over-play position, and a nice way to shut some of that action down is to throw in some check-raises as the preflop aggressor.

They are typically not expecting that, and they dont know how to handle it. So while they will routinely call your C-bet with literally any two cards, because "LOL I have position", you will find, that the check-raise generate a ton of folds. And you can do this for value as well of course, if for instance you flopped a set.

Vlad Savchenko said:

Hand 1:
Easy cbet. You have two overs with a backdoor flush draw + backdoor straight draw, which is good enough to bet flop and barrel any turned spade, A, K, Q, T or 9.
As for his calling and folding ranges - yep, he's going to continue with hands you've listed above, but he's folding all high cards without backdoor draws here, and your hand has a ton of barrelling potential, so just bet it.

Instead you check/call, which is the worst play here, as you have almost no showdown value and you're left OOP with K-high.
Leading on the turn is just disastrous. You didn't cbet the flop, even though you had all the backdoors in the world, and now that the villain has shown some strength by betting you decide to lead with a naked K-high.
You represent a really narrow range here, as you're supposed to cbet with overpairs most of the time, so your value range is actually A5s and JJ, and both of these hands may also want to check/raise turn.
Point is - your story isn't believable, because it's doubtful you ever play a reasonable amount of value hands this way, and KQ is a pretty bad bluff candidate, as it doesn't have many outs here.
He folded - good for you, but the problem here is a decision-making process, not the result.

Hand 2:
"Repping a draw" with air isn't really a thing. Definitely never shove here, it's just a pure spew.
Whether you cbet here or not is mainly based on the villain's flatting range. If it's super-tight (like 88-22 plus some suited Ax) - definitely don't cbet here. If he has a lot of overcards (as is the case with most SB flatting ranges) - small cbet would work well here, putting these hands in a tough spot.
I'd say that you played the hand in one of a few reasonable ways, no major mistakes has been made for sure.

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Damn, thanks for being real homie

Vlad Savchenko said:

Hand 1:
Easy cbet. You have two overs with a backdoor flush draw + backdoor straight draw, which is good enough to bet flop and barrel any turned spade, A, K, Q, T or 9.
As for his calling and folding ranges - yep, he's going to continue with hands you've listed above, but he's folding all high cards without backdoor draws here, and your hand has a ton of barrelling potential, so just bet it.

Instead you check/call, which is the worst play here, as you have almost no showdown value and you're left OOP with K-high.
Leading on the turn is just disastrous. You didn't cbet the flop, even though you had all the backdoors in the world, and now that the villain has shown some strength by betting you decide to lead with a naked K-high.
You represent a really narrow range here, as you're supposed to cbet with overpairs most of the time, so your value range is actually A5s and JJ, and both of these hands may also want to check/raise turn.
Point is - your story isn't believable, because it's doubtful you ever play a reasonable amount of value hands this way, and KQ is a pretty bad bluff candidate, as it doesn't have many outs here.
He folded - good for you, but the problem here is a decision-making process, not the result.

Hand 2:
"Repping a draw" with air isn't really a thing. Definitely never shove here, it's just a pure spew.
Whether you cbet here or not is mainly based on the villain's flatting range. If it's super-tight (like 88-22 plus some suited Ax) - definitely don't cbet here. If he has a lot of overcards (as is the case with most SB flatting ranges) - small cbet would work well here, putting these hands in a tough spot.
I'd say that you played the hand in one of a few reasonable ways, no major mistakes has been made for sure.

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Exactly that. You should CB flop in firsthand given barrel equity for turn. Also he should fold a lot PP on turn latest. Also some high non spade type face card hands.

For hand 2 I would just check fold turn. With no equity after showing weakness on flop I would say that Your value range - as you mentioned - is so narrow.

There will be better spots coming

C-bet Flop?

teh_colonel_saigon said:

Just wondering if my play here even makes sense.

I'm not jumping up stakes, don't worry. ACR just goes down all the time, so sometimes I'll play a bit at .05.10 on BetOnline, although I know I'm bleeding money.

100 bb ef
UTG folds
Hero in MP raises to .35 with
folds to BTN, who calls. The rest fold.

Flop (pot: .81)



Hero checks. We can't get a button caller to fold here too much, pocket pairs, flush draws and maybe some jacks will call.

BTN bets .45, we call.
I called because although we are behind some of his holdings, he can bet with many draws here. On a good turn card we could continue (spade)

Turn (pot: 1.66)


This probably did not help villain. I decide to bet out, though I'm probably repping the top of my range here (something like a set of jacks or an overpair?) when I do this.

Hero bets .83, BTN folds

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Hello there, good morning teh_colonel_saigon and thanks for posting your hands.

Hero is in the MP with a 100 BB Effective Stack. (Stack size of villain? Very important missing information). Our opening range should be something as:

22+, A9s+, A5s-A2s, K9s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T9s, 98s, 87s, AJo+, KQo (15.84%)

We like to play a tight range out of position right? These groups of hands will flop very well in many flop textures. Without Villain's info we like to treat it, and play with it, as if she/he is a Decent Regular. I don't know your readings on this one. So, we are assignin a decent calling range from the BTN. (that's what we gonna do now).
Do we have information about the SB and the BB players? (They folded. But this is important for the hand, because sometimes the Villain in the BTN just called you to induce a recreational from the blinds to come up with and enter a three-way pot great for implied odds depending on everybody's on the table stack sizes, but you didn't gave that information either).
We elect to raise from the MP 3.5x, so we are assuming that there are recreational players ahead, that tend to call more than 50% of times from BTN, SB or BB. From UTG, we think it is okay a 3.5x Preflop raise, but from the MP we have more equity and one less player to talk.
Button called our 3.5x raise from MP. When it does it, BTN will usually have a big calling range: (not a default 50%)

22+, A2s+, K7s+, Q8s+, J7s+, T6s+, 95s+, 85s+, 75s+, 64s+, 54s, ATo+, K9o+, Q8o+, J9o+, T9o, 98o, 87o (33.94%)

At minimum. We are reducing BTN's calling range because of our 3.5x sizing from the MP. However it could be very wider than that (Decent Regular, Decent LAG, TAG). But, of course, some Whales will call from the BTN with an even wider range and some NITs as well but a NIT's calling range from the BTN will be a little bit smaller. (15-20%)

Flop (pot: .81) (8.1 BB?)



Your Check Flop line is fine either! Why do we have to bet out of position, against an unknown player, with two overcards and a back-door flush? Because we expect to be paid by worse hands? Are we betting "hands" or our "range"? Is the player in the Button really a Fish?
If we C-bet this Flop, what exactly MP want to represent? C'mon guys, let's forget for a moment that we do not have KsQs in the perspective of the Villain. Villain's assign us a range. How our range from the MP reacts in a flop like that? What we gonna have most of times from MP? (if we completely smash this flop, what would be our best hands?)

J8s, J9s, JTs, JJ, KJs, AJs and AJo

Are we C-beting with these hands out of position, in a Flop texture like that? IF the answer is yes, there comes the boring question? Is is a C-bet for value and protection or is it for bluff? What do we expect villain to do when we C-bet? We expect it to call or to fold? I don't know what was our intention here...
When we are in the top of our range here with JJ, AJs, AJo and KJs are we c-beting this flop 100% of times for value? Why?

Other value hands that we in the MP have in our range:

A5s, A3s, 55 and 33

Are we making a C-bet out of position with A5s and A3s? Because we have lost at least one combo of A5s, A3s, either a club or a spade, we cannot have both in our range in this moment. (5c blocks and 3 of spades blocks some of our suited baby aces combos?)
Most logic we will have 55 and 33. (Also QQ, KK, AA, AKs, AQs, AJs, KQs, KJs etc)
It seems that we in the MP have range advantage upon the BTN when it calls right?

Semi-Bluffs that could represent and balance the value hands above:

WE could have a pocket 77 with a club that like to C-bet here, as same for 88, 99, TT with a club. However we have no combos of clubs, when villain will have plenty of them. When we have KcQc of course I love to C-bet here.

Which hands Villlain in the BTN could possibly call a C-bet from us in the MP right now?
Ac4c, Ac2c, 7c6c, any Jack with an overcard, JJ of course, Villain would be Check-Raising, along with all the sets as 55, 33 and Two Pair combos such as J5, J3, although she/he will not have many of them right now, and QQ, KK, and AA, for protection and value. If the player calls too much even TT, 99, 88 and under, specially if it has a club in its combos. Once upon a time Villain will call you with JJ, QQ, KK and AA, although we block most of these combos. It is a hard analysis without villain's information. We know that most of times the general population is making a 3bet Preflop with JJ+ AJs+ in a spot BTN x MP, but sometimes a player might just call down hands like these to produce more bluffs from the EP player. (so, we are assignin to its calling range).
I believe Villain will not fold very much to any C-bet right now. And can we really bluff a lot of spades in the turn when they come? And if we miss the River, no spade, no Queen, no King can we try to put all the chips in the middle at the micros? If comes a Club in the Turn are we happy at all? Why? Aren't we throwing money in the fire a few times when we C-bet here? With so many Turns and Rivers, even blanked that are not good for us? Like the one we got in the hand. Why are you bluffing here? Are you really sure she/he is going to fold?
Before starting betting because "we have a second nut flush draw with two overcards", we must begin to think immediatly about ranges, or we are not too much different from the fishes, who like to vomit chips at the tables because "I had pocket K's. It was impossible to fold and I lost everything. I saw an ace in the River but I thought villain was mocking my face and then I lose 124 BB..."
Sorry for my candor, I am not the owner of the true about poker, but I love to make money.
Before betting because we have a Full House, A Flush, "a back-door" flush, we gotta start immediatly asking ourselves:

When do we bet, are we going to be paid by worse hands? If the answer is yes, no problem with the bets.
But if we are betting because we have "pocket aces", I don't know where is the decency in the world of poker anymore.
We also have no ideia why did we bet Turn. We gotta have a really good reading over the Villain in the BTN for so doing, because fold-equity you have none. More experient players will explore us a lot in spots like this, because if we suffer a check-raise Turn we are almost forced to drop off our hand, and cry.
We like to bet when we have equity. Our equity in the Turn sucks, so many times we will be paid by worse hands and be overplayed either in the Turn of floated in the River. Our equity drops down the hole in the Turn, so we see no reason why we should be burning chips against an unknown opponent. (lack of information, compromises the analysis of the hand).

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa