6-max $50NL: J9s against what appears to be big hand

Effective stacks are $70.

I open with J-9 of clubs to $1.50 in CO and it's folded to BB (very aggressive preflop) who raises to $4. I call.

The flop is K-T-7, one club. Pot is $8 and he bets $6. I call.

The turn is the deuce of clubs, which adds a flush draw to my outs. How big of a bet are you willing you call in this situation?

I do not know if this is correct, but I would be willing to call 3/4 pot. Any higher I would fold.

Assuming hes got the kings here u have 17 outs, 9 for the flush plus 8 for the open ended straight. Theres one card left i.e. the river so..... 36.2% chances to turn an out. If the pot is $20, then ill call for nothing more than $11.

Devilpoker78: The flush and straight outs overlap, somewhat. So that only leaves me 15 outs.

This is a question about implied odds, by the way, not pot odds.

Pot-size - you have around 30% equity with your 15 out double-gutter / flush draw + implied odds. If he checks, you bet for fold equity.

You should probably fold pre-flop though.

Do you mean before or after his raise? I liked my position, the stack sizes and the fact that I'll know what kind of board I want to see.

I meant after the re-raise - J9 doesn't play too well against most opponents' re-raising ranges, although looking at it again, his re-raise is only small so it's not too bad given you have position. You may be offering high reverse implied odds if you flop a pair though, and most of the time you're saying goodbye to that extra $2.50.

Btw you can call a PSB on pot-odds alone, so the implied odds just make it more attractive. Unlikely he'll overbet the pot, so the fact you have implied odds doesn't really come into it.

Yeah were about 30% to hit, so even if he bets pot, Thatll give us 2-1 on a 2-1 hand. That plus what we could make on river makes me call just about any bet.

Bombjack said:

I meant after the re-raise - J9 doesn't play too well against most opponents' re-raising ranges, although looking at it again, his re-raise is only small so it's not too bad given you have position. You may be offering high reverse implied odds if you flop a pair though, and most of the time you're saying goodbye to that extra $2.50.

Click to expand...

I'm not intending to pay him off with top pair, though. When I open, I do it as a semi-bluff. When he re-raises me, I'm looking at that $2.50 as an investment to steal his entire stack. He says he has a big hand, and I think I can stack him if I flop a strong draw or two-pair+.

FWIW, I'd rarely open - and never call the re-raise - if they were offsuit.

So you're folding to any bet on a flop of J32 rainbow?

Against this guy, I call one barrel but probably not two (unless the turn is somehow very favorable or other weird things happen). By "pay him off" I meant that I'm not taking top pair-no kicker to showdown if he's betting all the way, though.

If the guy has a big hand and you keep smooth calling and a scare card comes odds are he is going to bet big on the turn. If you call a pot-sized raise on the turn you will surely break him on the river if you hit either of your cards. You have a decent enough stack to take that pot-sized bet and still survive afterwards and you know that he is going to stick to his hand on the river. I think calling up to a pot sized bet would not be a bad move.

id call about a half pot bet. more if i think i can eek out some value on the river if the straight lands. kinda depends on how blindly aggressive he is.

Good question. To answer I would say as small as possible. If I felt the player would stak all his chips against a flush then I would be willing to call a higher amount. If the player was a good player then it would be less as I am less likely to get the money if a flush card hits.

However .....I would NOT have called the bet on the flop. End Of.

i dont think it's out of line if the guy is extremely agg preflop. for all we know he could have a naked ace or a7 a10

I understand joosebuck, I would just look for a better opportunity than 8 outs if I am the person who is acting second. - especially against an over aggresive player.

For me its a re-raise or a fold on the flop.

A call means that you are favorite to miss the turn and then likley to face another bet from an overly aggressive player.

However the raise would change the context of the hand somewhat ( if you want to play here instead of waiting for a better opportunity )


Thats my personal prefered way to play it......

well my understanding of the OP is that he's only that aggressive preflop. i feel that we can also snap a cbet here and bet or raise the turn. especially since it gave us another 7 outs.

joosebuck said:

well my understanding of the OP is that he's only that aggressive preflop. i feel that we can also snap a cbet here and bet or raise the turn. especially since it gave us another 7 outs.

Click to expand...

I agree that the first post says he is agressive pre-flop. ( It does not mention post flop, - i think )

However lets assume he is not agressive post flop, but does a 3/4 bet like he has.

He knows that his image is that he is not agressive. A raise on the flop calls his bluff or he confirms that he has a good hand....in which case You are likely to slow him down and have an easy decision to make ( fold ) or no decision to make if he slows down and check the turn.

This way you give yourself two chances to win.

Just an opinion,....but basically I will fold any further bets after my raise on the turn. ( unless I hit or future bets are laughably small). I may even try and steal the pot. ( unlikely but possible depending upon my image at the table to him. )

yeah, good point.

joosebuck said:

id call about a half pot bet. more if i think i can eek out some value on the river if the straight lands. kinda depends on how blindly aggressive he is.

Click to expand...

Joose do you understand why you have to call a pot-sized bet when you have 15 outs to a winning hand on the turn? You have at least 30% equity, and with a pot-sized bet you get 2:1 on a call. If you fold to a 3/4 pot bet, you're always on a loser.

However .....I would NOT have called the bet on the flop. End Of.

Click to expand...

Yeah I agree, calling 3/4 pot with an OESD and no overcards heads-up with pretty marginal.

We should be willing to call almost any reasonable bet, up to and sometimes slightly beyond pot-sized, against most opponents. We have pretty good equity, as BJ mentions, and the fact that we're in position makes our implied odds pretty rad because we get a much better chance to get max value when we hit than we would if we were first to act. There was only one club on the flop when we called a reasonable bet, so if a third club comes out, it's hard for him to put us on the flush. If an 8 or Q comes it's pretty hard for him to put us on the straight.

Point is we have pretty good equity, our position increases our implied odds, and all our outs being pretty well disguised increases our implied odds even more.

F Paulsson said:

Effective stacks are $70.

I open with J-9 of clubs to $1.50 in CO and it's folded to BB (very aggressive preflop) who raises to $4. I call.

The flop is K-T-7, one club. Pot is $8 and he bets $6. I call.

The turn is the deuce of clubs, which adds a flush draw to my outs. How big of a bet are you willing you call in this situation?

Click to expand...

Let's assume you have 15 pure outs for the str or flush. Of course if he has AQ or higher club draw, that's incorrect, but a starting point. Pot has about $20.25 and each of you has $60 back. The chances of hitting on the river are 2:1. Strictly based on pot odds then, you should call up to a $20 bet. But based on implied odds, I'd go a bit higher. Assume you get his whole stack when you hit. So effectively, what bet will you call to get $80 -- that would be about $40 (for 2:1 based on implied odds).

I'd throw this away on the flop to be honest but as played I have a few questions. How have you made the assumption that you'll stack him? Is this the type of player who'll give you his stack with TP on a three-flush/or a straight type board?

Schatzdog said:

I'd throw this away on the flop to be honest but as played I have a few questions. How have you made the assumption that you'll stack him? Is this the type of player who'll give you his stack with TP on a three-flush/or a straight type board?

Click to expand...

When I said "I think I can stack him" it wasn't meant as an assumption that that would always happen, I just meant that the chance was there.

Calling the flop bet is probably marginal. I felt at the time that he wasn't going to slow down on the turn if he actually had something which made my draw - which was very concealed - a lot more powerful than just the pot odds being given. And the same thing happens on the river; given that it's a backdoor flush draw, he has much less of a reason to slow down if the third club hits. The flop call was half for value, and half for meta-game. I had been making a lot of flop laydowns so far at the table and wanted to break that spell a little.

On a sidenote, the point that not all of my outs may be clean, as Skoldpadda points out, is very valid.