.5/.10 NL Flopped Quads...

SeanyJ · Jan 11, 2008

pokerstars Game #14474915689: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) - 2008/01/11 - 05:14:03 (ET)
Table 'Tantalus III' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: ShupaMan ($13.80 in chips)
Seat 2: rjmunro ($18.15 in chips)
Seat 3: jigsaw305 ($1.90 in chips)
Seat 4: MrG9_oz ($9.70 in chips)
Seat 5: SeanyJ24 ($19 in chips)
Seat 7: ontilt4life ($11 in chips)
Seat 8: tommyla112 ($6.20 in chips)
tommyla112: posts small blind $0.05
ShupaMan: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SeanyJ24 [5s 5h]
rjmunro: raises $0.30 to $0.40
jigsaw305: folds
MrG9_oz: folds
stylo31 joins the table at seat #6
SeanyJ24: calls $0.40
ontilt4life: folds
tommyla112: folds
ShupaMan: folds
*** FLOP *** [5d 5c 3d]
rjmunro: checks
SeanyJ24: ...?

Villian is 19/4/11 over 42 hands.
I am at 10.2/4.1/2 over 49 hands at this table (4 tabling) All of these numbers seem pretty low but I guess most of my hands have been at other tables.

What's the best line to take here?

F Paulsson · Jan 11, 2008

"Why is he not c-betting," you wonder, and decide that it's possible that he's slowplaying a big pocket pair, so you go ahead and bet 3/4 the pot.

Look at it this way: If he's checking because he's slowplaying, not betting is a huge mistake. If he's checking because he missed and is so timid as to not even c-bet, you're not going to win a whole lot from him anyway. If his stats are any indication, his raising range consists of AA/KK/QQ/JJ/AK, and here he's under the gun - perhaps tightening his range further. If 11 is his aggression factor, he's likely setting you up for checkraising.

The amount of value you give up on the flop by not betting is so big that even considering slowplaying actually makes me a little bit nausious.

shinedown.45 · Jan 11, 2008

I prefer to slowplay here.
If he is also running PT and has your aggression factor, any betting here may put up some red flags and you may chase the "ATM"(lol) away.
I would let him catch his A/K/Q high flush or boat, with an agression factor of 11, he will be betting by the river whether he hits or not.
IMO, you will make more off this by slowplay, as the only hand that will beat you is a str8 flush with that board and with what FP had mentioned about his range, I think you are safe here.
Sure, if he didn't hit and you bet the flop you'll take down the pot right there.
But the amount of value you give up by NOT slowplaying and allowing him to catch up makes ME a little nauseous.
I'm not saying that FP doesn't have valid points here, he does, I'm making a point on how I would play it and why.

F Paulsson · Jan 11, 2008

What I'm getting at is that with his extremely narrow range, he's basically either slowplaying a big pocket pair, or he's checking AK UI. Given his aggression factor, it seems exceedingly unlikely that he'd just give up with AK on a 5-5-3 board. Does he never c-bet?

The reason that slowplaying sits so badly with me is that by checking this flop, we're vastly reducing our chance to take his entire stack because future betting rounds will be into a very a small pot. I mean, when are we planning to put in action? On the turn? So he bets the pot on the turn - $.80 - and we raise to... Raise to what? How do we possibly hope to get all his chips in against any hand that isn't automatically going to stack off (in this case, I suppose that would be 33). On a paired board, an obvious slowplay (and checking behind on the flop and raising the turn sure qualifies) is going to scream "strength!" much, much more than just betting the flop and taking a shot at it would.

Even if we put him on the weakest hand that seems to be in his range, AQo, and then an ace or a queen falls on the turn - he leads out for the pot, and we raise, and he... It's going to be difficult to stack him here, at least if he's the kind who easily folds to a little flop aggression after checking.

The only argument I could see for slowplaying is if we somehow knew he had a flushdraw. But flushdraws are a very small part of his range.

robwhufc · Jan 11, 2008

Bet 50 cents. No point slowplaying when the pot is only 80 cents, and you need to build the pot up yourself if he's not betting.

switch0723 · Jan 11, 2008

i check here, he wont put you on a five, sdo you need him to spike an ace or something, slow playing is the way here

baconn · Jan 11, 2008

Bet half the pot. You need to build up the pot, you've been playing so tight, you probably won't get much action anyways.

c9h13no3 · Jan 11, 2008

F Paulsson said:
we're vastly reducing our chance to take his entire stack because future betting rounds will be into a very a small pot.

Do you think we have that great of a shot at taking his entire stack on a board that very rarely hits anyone other than us? There is a chance that he's slowplaying TT+, but I think a hand that strong would lead here. I'm narrowing villain's range down to mostly un-paired overcards.

That said, I think we need to bet 45-60 cents here. Hopefully that will be cheap enough for him to see a turn card. If you've been doing a decent amount of C-betting, it won't say "I have a monster" all that often.

WVHillbilly · Jan 11, 2008

Have you normally been betting when checked to? If so bet. Don't do anything different here than if you missed holding AQ.

ChuckTs · Jan 11, 2008

F Paulsson said:
What I'm getting at is that with his extremely narrow range, he's basically either slowplaying a big pocket pair, or he's checking AK UI. Given his aggression factor, it seems exceedingly unlikely that he'd just give up with AK on a 5-5-3 board. Does he never c-bet?

The reason that slowplaying sits so badly with me is that by checking this flop, we're vastly reducing our chance to take his entire stack because future betting rounds will be into a very a small pot. I mean, when are we planning to put in action? On the turn? So he bets the pot on the turn - $.80 - and we raise to... Raise to what? How do we possibly hope to get all his chips in against any hand that isn't automatically going to stack off (in this case, I suppose that would be 33). On a paired board, an obvious slowplay (and checking behind on the flop and raising the turn sure qualifies) is going to scream "strength!" much, much more than just betting the flop and taking a shot at it would.

Even if we put him on the weakest hand that seems to be in his range, AQo, and then an ace or a queen falls on the turn - he leads out for the pot, and we raise, and he... It's going to be difficult to stack him here, at least if he's the kind who easily folds to a little flop aggression after checking.

The only argument I could see for slowplaying is if we somehow knew he had a flushdraw. But flushdraws are a very small part of his range.

Well even if he had only a flushdraw we'd want to bet to build the pot for when he does hit the flush, and to get value for the times he misses (ie when he's still drawing).

I do agree with everything else you say though. Had villain bet it would have been the same old argument of whether or not we want to play the hand fast or slow (see my recent thread on that very same subject), but here he's checking and again, given his aggression factor I think it's pretty unlikely he's doing that with AK. Even with only ~40 hands on the guy.

c9h13no3 said:
Do you think we have that great of a shot at taking his entire stack on a board that very rarely hits anyone other than us? There is a chance that he's slowplaying TT+, but I think a hand that strong would lead here. I'm narrowing villain's range down to mostly un-paired overcards.

That said, I think we need to bet 45-60 cents here. Hopefully that will be cheap enough for him to see a turn card. If you've been doing a decent amount of C-betting, it won't say "I have a monster" all that often.

Well again take a look at his AF - it's way too high for him to be checking with overcards here. What type of overcards does a guy with an 11AF check with here? If he was getting tricky with JTs or whatever he's definitely going to bet, if he's got AK he'll do the same.

This smells to me like a trap and I think we should start building the pot now.

OP, could we get some c-bet stats and/or his flop aggression please?

SeanyJ · Jan 11, 2008

I don't have his stats on me right now, I'm not on my computer with PT. I might be able to get the stats later tonight but for now we'll have to do without them

*** FLOP *** [5d 5c 3d]
rjmunro: checks
SeanyJ24: bets $0.40
rjmunro: calls $0.40
*** TURN *** [5d 5c 3d] [Kh]
rjmunro: checks
SeanyJ24: ...

Obviously I need to keep betting, but how much?

F Paulsson · Jan 11, 2008

SeanyJ said:
I don't have his stats on me right now, I'm not on my computer with PT. I might be able to get the stats later tonight but for now we'll have to do without them

*** FLOP *** [5d 5c 3d]
rjmunro: checks
SeanyJ24: bets $0.40
rjmunro: calls $0.40
*** TURN *** [5d 5c 3d] K♥
rjmunro: checks
SeanyJ24: ...

Obviously I need to keep betting, but how much?

Your job is to stack him, basically. Trying to maximize value vs weak hands while missing value vs. his monsters is going to be very expensive in the long run. Look at his stack size, figure out the minimum you need to bet here in order for the last barrel on the river to put him all-in (without being a huge overbet) and go for that amount.

Stack sizes are what really matter in this hand.

c9h13no3 · Jan 11, 2008

Yeah, I definately agree with Paulsson's line. Now that he's called a smaller bet, I would be inclined to drop a pot-sized bet (or bigger) out there. The bigger our bet, the more it looks like an attempt to get him off the hand, and if he was playing AK, or KQ, he caught something on the turn to hook him. If he folds his pocket Q's, so be it.

The pot on the turn is $1.75, and we want to get as much of his stack in as possible without this bet just looking insane. He's got $17.35 left behind. Thus, for him to call an all in on the river, we need to get the pot & his stack to be roughly the same size. I don't think we can accomplish this while looking sane, so I'm going to say hit him for $2.50. I think that's about as big as we can possibly bet without looking really scary to our opponent.

ChuckTs · Jan 11, 2008

I'm only realizing stack sizes now (180bb effective), and agree with you c9 in that we probably aren't going to be able to stack him unless he's been slowplaying AA with the intention of stacking, he's got KK, or we play the rest of the hand insanely wild and just pray he looks us up.

Even so, we still have to basically extract the maximum from him. It looks to me like he's either slowplaying, or is doing something else really odd (like calling the flop with AK?

Anyways, I don't mind the overbet, but betting ~3/4 pot or full pot is fine too. Whatever you think he's going to call, basically.

switch0723 · Jan 11, 2008

i say about 3/4 pot from here, hoping he is on a flush draw and catches it. If he is slowplaying something big, i think from here we need to build the pot to enforce him to bet big on river with his monster. Although we dont want to overbet here since we wont him to hopefully bluff with a missed draw if he doesnt hit, so we need to make it cheap enough for him to be able to bluff without risking to much of his stack. So i reckon 3/4 pot is a good amount

SeanyJ · Jan 11, 2008

*** TURN *** [5d 5c 3d] [Kh]
rjmunro: checks
SeanyJ24: bets $1.20
rjmunro: raises $2.80 to $4
SeanyJ24: ...

My bet was probably a little too small but this really looks like he could have been trapping me with Aces or Kings.

NineLions · Jan 11, 2008

F Paulsson said:
Even if we put him on the weakest hand that seems to be in his range, AQo, and then an ace or a queen falls on the turn - he leads out for the pot, and we raise, and he... It's going to be difficult to stack him here, at least if he's the kind who easily folds to a little flop aggression after checking.

I dunno, FP. I think at this level AQ that you let catch an A or Q on the turn will still stack although admittedly you have to do it much faster with only 2 streets to do it in. But a lot of them will help you out.

One point in favor of betting out is that the paired flop is so low that they won't expect trips (although A5 is not out of the question at this level) and they won't expect quads since 2 are on the table.

robwhufc · Jan 12, 2008

SeanyJ said:
*** TURN *** [5d 5c 3d] K♥
rjmunro: checks
SeanyJ24: bets $1.20
rjmunro: raises $2.80 to $4
SeanyJ24: ...

My bet was probably a little too small but this really looks like he could have been trapping me with Aces or Kings.

I'd do a - "oh bugger, he's re-raised me, lets have a think, oh i've got to call and try and catch the river" delay call. Obviously the chips are going in on the river, either from him or from you.

F Paulsson · Jan 12, 2008

When he checkraises the turn, it's most often one of three things:

1. A slowplayed AA or KK,
2. AK who checked the flop UI and hit what he thinks is an out on the turn, or
3. A bluff.

If it's 1 or 2, you're going to manage to get the rest of the chips in on the river regardless of what you do on the turn. He's not going to stop betting, and all you have to do is to put him all-in on the river.

If he's bluffing, you don't want to raise now since there's no value in it. Force him to try to bluff again on the river.

In other words: Call the turn bet. Put him all-in on the river no matter what happens. And don't worry about a river all-in being a big overbet, since he'll call any bet on the river with what remains of his non-bluffing range, and he won't call any bet on the river with his bluffing range.

SeanyJ · Jan 12, 2008

SeanyJ24: calls $2.80
*** RIVER *** [5d 5c 3d Kh] [Ts]
rjmunro: checks
SeanyJ24: bets $5
rjmunro: folds
SeanyJ24 collected $9.30 from pot

Now that I think about it that five dollar bet just looks like me saying "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease call!" An all in would have been better, you're probably right.

I was talking to the guy just before I was heading to bed and he said that he had AQ without any diamonds in his hand. He used up half of his time bank before he folded on the river, so I don't know if I can actually believe that but he said he put me on a busted flush draw and almost called with Ace high.

6x6x6x · Jan 13, 2008

im not saying any1 is wrong or right . i know i would slowplay this 1

.5/.10 NL Flopped Quads...

SeanyJ

Legend

F Paulsson

euro love

shinedown.45

Legend

F Paulsson

euro love

robwhufc

Cardschat Elite

switch0723

Cardschat Elite

baconn

Enthusiast

c9h13no3

Is drawing with AK

WVHillbilly

Legend

ChuckTs

Legend

SeanyJ

Legend

F Paulsson

euro love

c9h13no3

Is drawing with AK

ChuckTs

Legend

switch0723

Cardschat Elite

SeanyJ

Legend

NineLions

Advanced beginner

robwhufc

Cardschat Elite

F Paulsson

euro love

SeanyJ

Legend

6x6x6x

Rising Star

About CardsChat

Our Community

Our Site