$50 NLHE 6-max: Good turn shove with K10o?

The other day I played a poker session, currently on a downswing, and I'd like to know if I played this hand poorly, or was it just due to pure bad luck.

It was a 5-handed friendly home game

Blinds: $0.36/$0.36 (Sorry for the awkward blinds, they're converted. For the sake of simplicity, I'd just refer to bets in BBs).

Approximate stack sizes:
Solid Player 1(UTG): 200BB
Villain (Cutoff): 300BB
Hero (Dealer): 200BB
Solid Player 2 (Small Blind): 150BB
Fish (Big Blind): 150BB

Hero tendencies: Tight-aggressive player, low VPIP, never bluffs in an all-in situation. Hand range is small.

Villain tendencies: Calling station, very very loose-aggressive player, VPIP is probably around 85% and above. Tends to bluff very often. Hand range is very wide. Constantly calls preflop raises. Aggressive bettor postflop.

UTG puts a straddle of 4BB. Everyone else calls and UTG checks his option.

Flop is:



Small Blind checks, Big Blind checks, UTG makes a bet of 12BB into a 20BB pot. Everybody else calls.

Turn is:



Small Blind checks, Big Blind checks, UTG makes a bet of 60BB into a 80BB pot. Villain calls, Hero shoves his remaining stack of 180BB into the 200BB pot. SB and BB instafolds, UTG folds as well. Cutoff goes into the tank, shows his cards. He talks to me, tries to get some information, and eventually reluctantly calls, even saying "I know you made your hand, but I feel lucky so I'm calling you."

River is:



Hero shows (Straight, 9 to K)

Villain shows (Straight, 10 to A)

Question: Was the turn shove alright? Or should I have just called to maintain pot size control? What I had on my mind was that I wanted to get rid of spade and club draws, so I decided to shove all in. Another question, should I have re-raised the flop? I knew villain was just lucky, drawing me out. But was there anything I could've done to chase him away from the pot?

You're on the button right? K10 is perfectly fine to raise on the button if it's been limped around. Do a sizeable open raise, K10 is playable on the button, but not multiway.
At this point, if the dude knows how to play AK properly , and he is agressive , he will most likely 3bet and you can just fold. If you look at it this way, you can see how you'd still have chips after this hand. Villain should have opened though ideally, but it's obvious this table wasn't playing optimally at all.


The way its been played though, your shove on the turn is fine. You have draws to hands that dominate you (AK and flush draws) if they hit. So atleast you're putting the pressure on. You can't just call and hope for a brick, you need to apply pressure.

You want this situation %100 of the time with villain, because he paid to chase a gutshot, getting the wrong price and played like a fish. Because over 100 hands you'll be the one who's won this hand what, %95 of the time I think?

You just got super unlucky, and plays like this are what make you want to throw tables, but other then the preflop play, it was played decently. I would have check/folded flop though. People get too attached to gutshots, they're terrible.

lukeellul92 said:

You're on the button right? K10 is perfectly fine to raise on the button if it's been limped around. Do a sizeable open raise, K10 is playable on the button, but not multiway.
At this point, if the dude knows how to play AK properly , and he is agressive , he will most likely 3bet and you can just fold. If you look at it this way, you can see how you'd still have chips after this hand. Villain should have opened though ideally, but it's obvious this table wasn't playing optimally at all.


The way its been played though, your shove on the turn is fine. You have draws to hands that dominate you (AK and flush draws) if they hit. So atleast you're putting the pressure on. You can't just call and hope for a brick, you need to apply pressure.

You want this situation %100 of the time with villain, because he paid to chase a gutshot, getting the wrong price and played like a fish. Because over 100 hands you'll be the one who's won this hand what, %95 of the time I think?

You just got super unlucky, and plays like this are what make you want to throw tables, but other then the preflop play, it was played decently. I would have check/folded flop though. People get too attached to gutshots, they're terrible.

Click to expand...

Yes, I'm on the button. I did not want to raise it preflop because I wanted to maintain pot control. Pots get really out of hand in these home games, and I wanted to see a cheap flop so I just called. I suspect the villain just called in order to trap other people, trying to get good implied odds? I'm not sure he understands this concept though, probably just trying to add some deception to his play.

It's good to know that my shove on the turn was fine. I did not want to check/fold the flop because I knew I had huge implied odds. I decided to see a turn with relatively good pot odds, because I knew that the SB and BB would not re-raise unless they had a really good hand. Is this mindset correct?

Pre flop limp is fine on the button although there are 3 players left to act so risking 4BB here depends on how aggressive the 3 players in question are. If there is a high probability of a raise I would just fold otherwise call is fine.

Your flop call on the other hand is a little controversial. You are 200BB deep which is nice but you gotta know you are only chasing a 3 outer here. A J of clubs could be disastrous and even if not you will still not be able to extract the sort of value you need in order to justify chasing gutshots.

You say Villain is very aggro which means we are almost certainly not going to see the river if we miss the turn. So basically only an 8% chance we can continue after the turn and only a 6% chance we love our hand on the turn.

We do have 1 over card but on this board its not gonna be a great card a lot of the times even against fishy opponents.

So basically you are only barely priced in to chase the gutshot here.

Obviously the turn shove is 100% correct play. Shoving the nuts can never ever be the wrong play in Holdem if you get called.

Thinker_145 said:

Pre flop limp is fine on the button although there are 3 players left to act so risking 4BB here depends on how aggressive the 3 players in question are. If there is a high probability of a raise I would just fold otherwise call is fine.

Your flop call on the other hand is a little controversial. You are 200BB deep which is nice but you gotta know you are only chasing a 3 outer here. A J of clubs could be disastrous and even if not you will still not be able to extract the sort of value you need in order to justify chasing gutshots.

You say Villain is very aggro which means we are almost certainly not going to see the river if we miss the turn. So basically only an 8% chance we can continue after the turn and only a 6% chance we love our hand on the turn.

We do have 1 over card but on this board its not gonna be a great card a lot of the times even against fishy opponents.

So basically you are only barely priced in to chase the gutshot here.

Obviously the turn shove is 100% correct play. Shoving the nuts can never ever be the wrong play in Holdem if you get called.

Click to expand...

Why is the limp fine? I don't think the limp is ever fine here preflop at all...

lukeellul92 said:

Why is the limp fine? I don't think the limp is ever fine here preflop at all...

Click to expand...

Because when the entire table limps in a live game there isn't much fold equity to raise unless you make an outrageous raise which I wouldn't recommend with KT. You basically have to hit the flop to win the hand.

My live game with friends is very different from online as the table dynamic is just so different from most online tables.

Thinker_145 said:

Because when the entire table limps in a live game there isn't much fold equity to raise unless you make an outrageous raise which I wouldn't recommend with KT. You basically have to hit the flop to win the hand.

My live game with friends is very different from online as the table dynamic is just so different from most online tables.

Click to expand...

You do not "have to win the flop to win the hand"... IF you limp in then yes, you need to hit the flop to win.

You should raise, but more then 3bb, more like 7-10bb here... CO played like a donkey just limping with AK, but you should definately raise your button with a hand like K10 when it's been limped around...

lukeellul92 said:

You do not "have to win the flop to win the hand"... IF you limp in then yes, you need to hit the flop to win.

You should raise, but more then 3bb, more like 7-10bb here... CO played like a donkey just limping with AK, but you should definately raise your button with a hand like K10 when it's been limped around...

Click to expand...

Not when 2 of the 4 opponents are fishes unless you are saying that we should be barrelling fish with air.

I think you missed out the little detail that there is a 4BB straddle.....

Thinker_145 said:

Not when 2 of the 4 opponents are fishes unless you are saying that we should be barrelling fish with air.

I think you missed out the little detail that there is a 4BB straddle.....

Click to expand...

+1. By raising, we're basically bloating the pot with K high with no suited equity against fish/calling stations who will NOT fold pre or post. We are lighting money on fire by doing that. Even online K10o is way too weak to isolate 2-3 limpers for example OTB. They won't fold, we don't have card advantage, and people do limp in/especially limp behind with hands that dominate K10o like A10o, KJo, KJs, KQo, and will call an isolation raise.

MinhANguyen said:

+1. By raising, we're basically bloating the pot with K high with no suited equity against fish/calling stations who will NOT fold pre or post. We are lighting money on fire by doing that. Even online K10o is way too weak to isolate 2-3 limpers for example OTB. They won't fold, we don't have card advantage, and people do limp in/especially limp behind with hands that dominate K10o like A10o, KJo, KJs, KQo, and will call an isolation raise.

Click to expand...

Absolutely correct.