$4 NLHE Full Ring: Pocket TT on 888 board with an aggressor

$4 NL HE Full Ring: Pocket TT on 888 board with an aggressor

A little context: I haven't been at the table for very long, and really don't know how this guy plays. I make my raise with TT and he re-raises me. Like I said, I don't really know him, so I feel like maybe I can get a feel on how he plays, and I call his threebet. The flop, interestingly enough, comes 888. I figure I very well may have the best hand here, although because I don't know what this guy's style is I'm afraid he may have a higher pocket pair.

Have been the initial aggressor, and not wanting to simply concede control of the hand to him here I come in for a raise of .20 which I think will give me some information, but realize after he's re-raised me for .54 more cents that I'm really not sure where I stand here. Is he holding a huge pair, does he just have AK or AQ and his hoping to scare me off and/or hit big on the turn or river? Without more reads on his play, I'm finding it very hard to make a decision.

If I knew him to be a very LAG player I'd probably instantly re-raise him (maybe even shove), whereas if I knew him to be a very TAG player I'd instantly fold. But given my lack of info on him, I'm feeling kind of stuck. What's your call here?

Additionally, how would you all have played the hand differently so that you didn't find yourselves in this situation? Maybe I could have 4 bet him preflop, or just checked the flop and given him the chance to check?

Thanks in advance, hand is below:

First this 2nl. blinds are .01/.02.

Second, why such a small preflop raise, The villian is on the button and with making such a small raise his range here is VERY wide. A 4 bet swells the flop against an unknown but you are oop so that isn't so bad as you are oop. But stacking 10's preflop is not a particulary profitable play against unknowns, which you almost be forced to do if you 4 bet this and get shoved on.

This hand I am sorry to say looks like crap, I would shove as played but not be happy about it. He can 3bet shove your flop raise and you will stuck. His bet can be a cbet/value bet you don't know. Any raise you make is pot committing anyway so just jam it.

In the future make is easier on yourself and raise a real amount .06-.08 3-4xb anyway, not .05 2.5xbb. That will make understanding his moves easier.

Adopting the principle of never flatting a 3-bet out of position preflop is very unlikely to lose you money in almost any situation. So consider 4-betting or folding. If he doesn't 3-bet wide (and off-hand I'd say that most players don't at these stakes) then just go ahead and muck it. With the risk of sounding condescending - which you can trust is not my intention - an expert may be able to turn a profit from calling 3-bets OOP with medium strength hands at micro stakes, but as a general rule of thumb you won't be able to profitably do it at the stakes you play. That's to say that experts don't typically play the stakes where their edge is big enough to allow them to do it profitably, if that makes sense.

Whether you want to 4-bet (in that case, you should do it with the intention of calling a shove) or fold is up to you. Folding is the default for me; only versus very aggressive players (who hate giving up preflop) would I consider 4-betting. Admittedly there seems to be a lot of them at my tables, but you have to know who they are.

As played, I think leading the flop is fine. You've turned your hand essentially face up, but that's not always a bad thing: He doesn't know that you're (or should be) capable of folding TT to a raise, so bet/folding the flop is fine because very few players would bluff with a hand like QJ in this spot. He's representing a bigger pair than yours, you have no reason not to believe him, you're out of position and unless you can get him to play for stacks with AK here, you have severely reverse implied odds.

Fold to 3bet preflop.

As played fold to flop raise.

I would definitely fold to the 3bet on th flop, as he has really showed strength. Sure, he might have AK, but I would pick another place to put money in the pot, since he is betting so strong.

Many thanks to everyone who took the time to take a look at my long-winded post and share your thoughts on the hand, especially from all you CardsChat veterans. I ended up folding, feeling that I had no real way of knowing if he was on a strong draw (in this case any two face cards) or already had me beat with a higher pair. Of course I can't call because any face card, ace or even a 9 if I include pocket 9s in his range, on the turn or river (that's potentially 20 cards or almost half the deck) and I'll be frozen stiff. And of course after reading your comments I realize now that I could have avoided this situation entirely by either folding or 4 betting on the flop, committing myself to a shove. As played, really the only sensible option left was folding.

It seems that everyone shared the same opinion, but I think FP put in a very clear, easy to understand way when he said that:

F Paulsson said:

Adopting the principle of never flatting a 3-bet out of position preflop is very unlikely to lose you money in almost any situation.

Click to expand...

I will be incorporating this principle into my game immediately. It's one of those deceptively simple, easy to follow principles that immediately makes sense to me because of the complexities inherent in it. Whenever I have decided to flat call a 3-bet out of position, I've always felt, for lack of a better word, awkward, once the flop comes; I've never quite known what to do (unless I hit a monster), and I never really understood why (shows how smart I am). But I think finally get it.

And please, feel free to set me straight if I'm off base; the only wisdom I claim to have is that as long as you're too proud to admit when you're wrong, you won't learn; and if you don't learn, you don't improve; and if you don't improve all that's left is frustration. (I love it how so much in poker relates to life in general, but I digress...) As you can see I am very eager to improve and learn more from all the smart people here at CardsChat; so no risk in sounding condescending with me, even when it is your intention .

Back to the topic at hand, I feel that flat calling a 3 bet out of position is a lot like open limping and then calling a regular raise out of position. You leave yourself dangling in the wind on the flop, with no real certainty as to the relative strength of your hand, no initiative and no position; you're basically praying for cards, which I've come to suspect is something you want to minimize as much as you possibly can in poker.

Thanks again for reading the post and sharing your thoughts. I promise to get better at being more concise in the future. What can I say, I like to write. Best of luck to you out there,

T.