$100 NLHE 6-max: Calling a river bet on a 4 to flush board

6

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100NL 6-max zoom on pokerstars. Villain is unknown.

BTN: $78.86
Hero (SB): $100.00
BB: $116.68
UTG: $201.63
MP: $100.00
CO: $119.38

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is SB with 8:heart: 7:heart:
2 folds, CO raises to $2.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $2, 1 fold

Flop: ($6.00) 4:heart: 8:spade: 9:spade: (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $3.79, Hero calls $3.79

Turn: ($13.58) 6:spade: (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

River: ($13.58) 3:spade: (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $6, Hero calls $6

What do you think about the way hero played this hand?
 
TimovieMan

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I fold preflop with 87s in the SB, but meh, debatable I think.
Flop and turn are good.

River I'm not too happy calling with just second pair no kicker, although the turn action implies he's got unimproved overcards. The problem on the river is the four-to-a-flush.

His sizing can both mean "40-45% bet with the (near-?)nuts to get a lot of weak hands to call" and "40-45% bet with air, because I'm not risking more and most non-flushes won't call anyway".

I'd lean towards a fold against an unknown.
 
Beanfacekilla

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100NL 6-max zoom on PokerStars. Villain is unknown.

BTN: $78.86
Hero (SB): $100.00
BB: $116.68
UTG: $201.63
MP: $100.00
CO: $119.38

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is SB with 8<font color='red'>♥</font> 7<font color='red'>♥</font>
2 folds, CO raises to $2.50, 1 fold, Hero calls $2, 1 fold

Flop: ($6.00) 4<font color='red'>♥</font> 8<font color='black'>♠</font> 9<font color='black'>♠</font> (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $3.79, Hero calls $3.79

Turn: ($13.58) 6<font color='black'>♠</font> (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

River: ($13.58) 3<font color='black'>♠</font> (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $6, Hero calls $6

What do you think about the way hero played this hand?

Preflop call is questionable, but I still think it's ok. We can flop well, and maybe win some $$$. However, being an unknown V, I don't really have any clue if we have IO. We don't know if dude is tight, a POW, etc. That being said, I probably lean toward a fold preflop. It's gonna be HU, OOP, only one villain, so if we smash flop, maybe still get no action, thus it's not worth the gamble preflop.

So as played, I don't like calling flop C-bet. Either raise or fold (I think fold is super nitty, but fine). If we raise, and get called, be ready to empty the effin' clip. Bam bam bam.

We are playing hands like 8-7s to flop huge hands, 5 -card hands, draws to the nuts, flushes (when our opponent is on a narrow range, like overpairs). We don't want to be C/C on shitty boards with 2nd pair, running for the Mayor of "no-mans-land".

So what if a 7 comes off? What if a J, Q, K, A, or spade comes off on turn? What do we do? Fold? Check/call again? So like more than half the deck is shitty cards for us....

Edit: The 7 coming off could be a reverse implied odds fiasco if V holds J-10.

To summarize:

Leaning towards a fold pre. Call ok, but questionable.

Fold or C/R flop (I like just folding, cutting losses).

We are playing spec hands like this to smash flops with huge draws and huge hands. We are not playing them to live on an island, all by ourselves, in no man's land, check/calling with 2nd pair, when tons of turn cards are gross, and we are OOP. What a long sentence.

And the river:
Fold. Even bluffs are probably beating your hand.

The disclaimer is below..... just my $0.02
 
B

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So as played, I don't like calling flop C-bet. Either raise or fold (I think fold is super nitty, but fine). If we raise, and get called, be ready to empty the effin' clip. Bam bam bam.

Isn't it a situation where we are getting alot of worse hands to fold and mostly better hands will call by raising the flop? Would we hoping to get called by draws or floats or are we just hoping they fold before a bad turn card falls? And if they call why should we go to bluff mode? Asking purely from the learning perspective :)
 
B

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Nothing good here on this situation, we trying play with weak hand, wanna catch some draws, but flop was isn't horrible, call flop raise sound like spewing chips i think, next streets terrible for you turn c/c and villain did c/r mb flush or even nothing... but with only one pair river call was not good decision. River fold.
 
Beanfacekilla

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Isn't it a situation where we are getting alot of worse hands to fold and mostly better hands will call by raising the flop? Would we hoping to get called by draws or floats or are we just hoping they fold before a bad turn card falls? And if they call why should we go to bluff mode? Asking purely from the learning perspective :)


Not necessarily. People will peel with overcards, FDs, and PPs. If we c/r, and V 3b us, we fold. Even some hands that beat us, that flat call the C/R, may fold to 2ND barrel on turn.

We would be taking control of the hand, and hopefully winning the hand right there. If we go with the c/r line here, it would be stupid to just c/r, then give up if V calls. We might as well just fold.

C/R here is super high variance, super risky, and spew if we run in to a big hand.

It was only a suggestion, because if hero chooses to continue, it's better than just check/calling. We can win by villain folding also. We must have some FE.

Edit: I really don't like trying to take this pot by force. Very spewy. But most times V doesn't have much anyways. Seems like it's not worth the risk. Just putting the options out there.


But all that being said, I think flop is just a fold. Just give up, move and, and look for a better spot later (hopefully in position).
 
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Not a comment on the hand but a comment on the stakes. 10nl-100nl in a few weeks! Well done Matthew!! Make sure you're practicing good bank roll management man!
 
Trabendo_daze

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Preflop is probably a 3bet or fold, with no callers behind. I think it's -EV to call with spec hands heads up OOP and we are going to get squeezed a not insignificant portion of the time.

Flop: I can't imagine folding...seems wayyyy too nitty. Check calling is fine and check raising is also a cool move. We protect against overcards, uncap our range, and get a cheaper showdown with the best hand more easily.

River just has to be a fold IMO unless we have some reads. I know his value range is thin but yeah. Probably close tho
 
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I think the river call is fine, most people will bluff this card way to often. That being said, I absolutely hate the call in the sb. Fold>3bet>call if it goes more multi-way obviously is fine to call, but I would say a pretty big leak to play a marginal hand in the worst position heads up.
 
IPlay

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3b or fold pre

flop is fine AP (Raising this flop would be terrible)

turn, ok

River call, spew
 
John A

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Fold pre-flop. He either has Qs and under on the river, and isn't sure about being paid, because a lot of As will be betting the turn. Or he's bluffing. With zero info you're just flipping a coin for that price.

Calling is probably neutral to slightly -EV. Check raising and turning your hand into a bluff if probably neutral to slightly +EV. So CR > Call > fold.

W/o info you're just making general population tendency estimations for these stakes.
 
Trabendo_daze

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@IPlay Can we explain why c/r is bad here? It's a somewhat common play in tournaments for the reasons I mentioned above and all of those should carry over to cash games...especially if we are trying to balance our flop c/r range
 
IPlay

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Because every worse hand villain has folds and every better hand calls. Idk much about tournament strategy but plays like that are usually frowned upon in cash games.
 
Trabendo_daze

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I understand that but I think it's more about our plan for the hand. If we check-call what do we do on almost all turns? We have to check fold. I think we're just making too many mistakes against random two overs later in the hand
 
IPlay

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I understand that but I think it's more about our plan for the hand. If we check-call what do we do on almost all turns? We have to check fold. I think we're just making too many mistakes against random two overs later in the hand

That is why we 3bet or fold pre, not on the flop when we hit middle pair. Lets not compound our preflop mistake by bloating the pot OOP with middle pair.

On a side note, are you actually playing on Pokerstars Matt? 100NL zoom has to be insanely hard on there.
 
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I'd typically 3bet preflop but I thought that flat-calling should be okay too for a low variance approach. I have a speculative hand and by flat-calling, I'm able to keep the SPR high (perfect for speculative hands), even if it does mean giving up the betting initiative.

I just don't understand how the river can be a fold. Like surely any 2 spades would be barreling the turn, potentially any combo with the Ace of spades in it, so the villain is going to have a flush here less than 50% of the time. Given the price we're getting (calling $6 to win a $25.50 pot), we only need to be right 23% of the time to justify a call and I would expect the villain to show up with a bluff far more than 23% of the time.

The villain did show up with AKo here with no spade (so hero won the pot). I'm sure that checking twice on the turn and river induced a bluff from all these Ace high and King high hands, so I was almost obliged to call.

I only played 100NL for a few minutes because I was bored. I usually play 5NL and 10NL.
 
IPlay

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6s improves almost every hand you call flop so it makes sense for him to check back all his spades on turn since he has no fold equity. (besides made flushes) and he has a flush much more often then you think on river, he probably makes this bet with Js+
 
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6

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6s improves almost every hand you call flop so it makes sense for him to check back all his spades on turn since he has no fold equity. (besides made flushes) and he has a flush much more often then you think on river, he probably makes this bet with Js+

The question is: do we expect him to have Js+ more than 77% of the time? If not, we should call. We're getting such a great price on the river call and I think it's fair to assume that his range is somewhat polarised (I don't think he's thin value betting a hand like Qh Qd here, for example), so as long as he doesn't have Js+ more than 77% of the time, it's +EV to call.
 
IPlay

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I think you are confusing his range that gets to the river with the range he bets on the river. But if you feel inclined to call read less in these spots then do you.
 
6

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I think you are confusing his range that gets to the river with the range he bets on the river. But if you feel inclined to call read less in these spots then do you.

Even so, do you expect the villain is really going to show up with Js+ more than 77% of the time here? That would imply that the villain gives up the majority of the time with all his Ace high, King high, Queen high and Jack high cards with no spade in them, when in reality, I think that the villain would see this as a perfect spot to bluff with those cards.

Also, the fact that I'm readless makes me want to call even more. When you don't have a read, you should generally be a little stickier than normal with your pairs. You only want to be making huge laydowns when you have a good read on the villain.
 
Beanfacekilla

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Even so, do you expect the villain is really going to show up with Js+ more than 77% of the time here? That would imply that the villain gives up the majority of the time with all his Ace high, King high, Queen high and Jack high cards with no spade in them, when in reality, I think that the villain would see this as a perfect spot to bluff with those cards.

Also, the fact that I'm readless makes me want to call even more. When you don't have a read, you should generally be a little stickier than normal with your pairs. You only want to be making huge laydowns when you have a good read on the villain.

I think you are a bit too fixated on the results.

The way you played the hand was passive. Some of us even recommended folding preflop (I did, but said call is ok).

In the long term, I don't think this hand was played very well (overall).

You just coincidentally got lucky V didn't have anything, and your call OTF didn't mushroom into a disaster.

Like what would you have done if V bombs the turn as well? Would you call? If I were V, you would be faced with a 2nd barrel for sure, and I don't know how you could call.
 
Dutchtegon

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I would say that hero better could have raised after the flop because it is unlikely that the other one has that 8 or 9. He checked and that meant this time that this flush draw came up
 
Trabendo_daze

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We're just always check folding middle pair vs. LP open? This seems like a pretty big mistake to me
 
John A

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I'd typically 3bet preflop but I thought that flat-calling should be okay too for a low variance approach. I have a speculative hand and by flat-calling, I'm able to keep the SPR high (perfect for speculative hands), even if it does mean giving up the betting initiative.

I just don't understand how the river can be a fold. Like surely any 2 spades would be barreling the turn, potentially any combo with the Ace of spades in it, so the villain is going to have a flush here less than 50% of the time. Given the price we're getting (calling $6 to win a $25.50 pot), we only need to be right 23% of the time to justify a call and I would expect the villain to show up with a bluff far more than 23% of the time.

The villain did show up with AKo here with no spade (so hero won the pot). I'm sure that checking twice on the turn and river induced a bluff from all these Ace high and King high hands, so I was almost obliged to call.

I only played 100NL for a few minutes because I was bored. I usually play 5NL and 10NL.

Calling always keeps the SPR down, but let's not use that for justification for calling in spots that aren't usually profitable OOP. If you're 3-betting, you're not 3-betting to make a big straight. It's purely as a bluff or to make a big draw that you can push your opponent off a hand.

You only need ~23% on a call, but the sizing will be non Ax spades a lot. So a lot of the betting range will be for value, so you need that bet to be a bluff 24%+ of the time. If you step back, and don't get results oriented, it's really close. Like I said originally, I think it's going to be close to neutral to slightly -EV long term imho.
 
6

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Calling always keeps the SPR down, but let's not use that for justification for calling in spots that aren't usually profitable OOP. If you're 3-betting, you're not 3-betting to make a big straight. It's purely as a bluff or to make a big draw that you can push your opponent off a hand.

You only need ~23% on a call, but the sizing will be non Ax spades a lot. So a lot of the betting range will be for value, so you need that bet to be a bluff 24%+ of the time. If you step back, and don't get results oriented, it's really close. Like I said originally, I think it's going to be close to neutral to slightly -EV long term imho.

I'll concede that it probably was a mistake to flat-call preflop OOP.

But on the river, could you please explain the maths to me? I just don't see how the villain can have a decent spade here anywhere near as much as 77% of the time. If he has zero spades then I win (since he's never turning a better pair into a bluff). If he has two spades then I win (since he would've bet two spades OTT). So it's only the 1 spade combos that I have to worry about. And even the Ace of spades I would expect to barrel the turn at least some portion of the time, so I can discount some combos of that. So just from the quick calculations I did, I would expect to win this pot more than 50% of the time... am I missing something here?

I know that it's easy for me to get results-oriented here, but I just can't understand how the villain could have a spade here more than 77% of the time. What is the maths behind that? What would his range look like?
 
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