Top pair in nigh-family pot

Emperor IX

Emperor IX

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pokerstars Game #17316672504: Hold'em No Limit ($0.10/$0.25) - 2008/05/09 - 18:58:03 (ET)
Table 'Kurhah IV' 6-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: gosuminh ($24.85 in chips)
Seat 2: spavone ($28.95 in chips)
Seat 3: cKranezz ($24.65 in chips)
Seat 4: P_Athena ($9.80 in chips)
Seat 5: onsencalisse ($10.40 in chips)
Seat 6: Emperor XIX ($25.40 in chips)
spavone: posts small blind $0.10
cKranezz: posts big blind $0.25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Emperor XIX [Jd Th]
P_Athena: folds
onsencalisse: calls $0.25
Emperor XIX: calls $0.25
gosuminh: folds
spavone: calls $0.15
cKranezz: checks
*** FLOP *** [8h Tc 6s]
spavone: checks
cKranezz: bets $1.50
onsencalisse: folds
Emperor XIX:

No reads, only been here for an orbit or so. What's the plan?
 
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switch0723

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against an unknown, just let this one go. You have no idea what villains range is, but i can't imagine they are betting here without at least top pair in which case our jack kicker isn't looking to tasty, but i imagine that 7,t and 9,t is the bottom of their range, these are the only hands in his range that we beat however.

If you do call, you would have to fold to a turn bet, and would be put in an awkward situation if checked to on turn since villain could be trying to maintain pot control.

This pot can get too messy down the road if we continue with it now, so let it go early
 
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bw07507

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Why are you limping JTo here?? If you want to play it, raise it or else dont play it, especially if you dont want to put in any more money postflop when you hit top pair. I dont think you should be limping very much at all at 6max, especially not here.

As played I probably call this and see what he does on the turn and try to see a cheap showdown. If he starts betting large though you will have to lay it down.
 
vanquish

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against an unknown, just let this one go. You have no idea what villains range is, but i can't imagine they are betting here without at least top pair in which case our jack kicker isn't looking to tasty, but i imagine that 7,t and 9,t is the bottom of their range, these are the only hands in his range that we beat however.

If you do call, you would have to fold to a turn bet, and would be put in an awkward situation if checked to on turn since villain could be trying to maintain pot control.

This pot can get too messy down the road if we continue with it now, so let it go early

wtf, folding there is so weak.
just call and reevaluate on turn
 
WVHillbilly

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Call. You're in position and you can see what he does on the turn. I fold this exactly never.
 
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switch0723

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wtf, folding there is so weak.
just call and reevaluate on turn

all we have is top pair no kicker, you really want to get involved in a pot here. If we fold we lose .25, but by calling, most of the time we will be forced to fold later streets thus losing more than necassary. For us to reach showdown, villain will have to check turn and bet river small or bet both streets small which is unlikely, we also have to reevaluate on what may be overcard streets.

I can only see calling her being profitable if we turn a jack or a ten.

tbh though i suck at 6-max if that makes a difference (can't imagine it does in this situation)
 
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vanquish

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all we have is top pair no kicker, you really want to get involved in a pot here. If we fold we lose .25, but by calling, most of the time we will be forced to fold later streets thus losing more than necassary. For us to reach showdown, villain will have to check turn and bet river small or bet both streets small which is unlikely, we also have to reevaluate on what may be overcard streets.

I can only see calling her being profitable if we turn a jack or a ten.

tbh though i suck at 6-max if that makes a difference (can't imagine it does in this situation)

if this is your problem with the hand, reevaluate your ring 'game'.

any time when your hand beats your opponents' range, tend to call/raise rather than check/fold


we call flop because our hand (most likely) beats his flop betting range on that board (and there's no argument that it does, JT on a T86r is a strong hand), and we should def not be afraid of having to make more decisions later in the hand. if he bets the turn, we can evaluate his bet-size/decide whether he would two-barrel a hand we beat/decide whether or not the turn helped our opponent/decide if we have odds to call/decide if we should raise for value. similarly, if he checks the turn, we can check behind for pot control, and perhaps get a value bet in on the river (yes people will show up with middle pair + busted gutshots, underpairs, bottom pair, and a ton of other hands we beat here and will hero call us all the time).
 
shinedown.45

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Why are you limping JTo here?? If you want to play it, raise it or else dont play it, especially if you dont want to put in any more money postflop when you hit top pair. I dont think you should be limping very much at all at 6max, especially not here.

As played I probably call this and see what he does on the turn and try to see a cheap showdown. If he starts betting large though you will have to lay it down.
^^^I completely agree with this^^^

all we have is top pair no kicker, you really want to get involved in a pot here. If we fold we lose .25, but by calling, most of the time we will be forced to fold later streets thus losing more than necassary. For us to reach showdown, villain will have to check turn and bet river small or bet both streets small which is unlikely, we also have to reevaluate on what may be overcard streets.

I can only see calling her being profitable if we turn a jack or a ten.

tbh though i suck at 6-max if that makes a difference (can't imagine it does in this situation)
^^^we're already involved, the only course of action is a call and re-evaluate the turn.
 
dj11

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IMO, the most important info Emp gave us was that he has NO reads.

At the cost of the blind, I can let this go at this point.

However, I too would have been more inclined to raise this preflop if I had any desire to play this here at all. That didn't happen, and there are cheaper ways to get reads than calling this hand. It's a long game (hopefully) and a mistake this early in a session just would not appeal to me.

The alternative here is to re-raise. An Unknown Villain is likely to bet a large variety of hands. For some reason here I put villain on AK, or AQ. He does not want any action. He wants his big cards to pay off now.

It's 6 max, so the general table temperament is going to be looser than full ring, giving credence to the probability that JT is good here. But again, with no reads, to me it just isn't worth it.
 
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switch0723

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if this is your problem with the hand, reevaluate your ring 'game'.

any time when your hand beats your opponents' range, tend to call/raise rather than check/fold

How sure are you that we are ahead of his range? He is oop for the hand so against an unknown you can't imagine they are betting middle pair, or even top pair no kicker. Of his range id say we are ahead of t,9 and t,7 but losing to bigger tens, 2 pair, sets, maybe even a flopped straight
 
vanquish

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How sure are you that we are ahead of his range? He is oop for the hand so against an unknown you can't imagine they are betting middle pair, or even top pair no kicker. Of his range id say we are ahead of t,9 and t,7 but losing to bigger tens, 2 pair, sets, maybe even a flopped straight

because we have JT and the guy checked from the BB?
basically he has any single hand that bets into two preflop limpers on a middle-connected board. we have top pair against any two cards that would bet after a check on the flop? an unknown can be expect to be here with any single pair/any draw/obv any 2pr+, fortunately his range is weighted towards weaker holdings (one can argue that PPs will tend to raise preflop, as will overpairs), and there is no reason for us not to call a single bet on this flop with a hand as strong as top pair.
and to the "omg no reads = fold ldo" camp, what better way to get 'reads' on a player other than to play a pot with him? even if he shows up 3 barreling here, or c/fing turn/river, or whatever, we will gain more info than just folding TP in position.

basically, against an unknown in this spot, our hand is strong enough to at least call, and folding here is purely scared poker.



note: this is a spot where ring is completely different from a tournament situation. we can play this pot, and even if we happen to lose $1.50 (OMG!!), we can just reload and adapt accordingly. we can not fold here.
 
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I think you should have folded preflop, since your hand isn't suited and the first limper isn't deep stacked (only 40 bbs) so you aren't getting amazing implied odds. And I agree folding on the flop is very weak. Either call or raise. His bet is kinda big, a little larger than the pot, so I think he has a ten. Middle or bottom pair would probably bet a little less. If he does have a ten, he most likely has a weaker ten than ours, since there are more kickers worse than a J than there are higher, and AJ or KJ might have raised pf.
 
SavagePenguin

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Call. You're in position and you can see what he does on the turn. I fold this exactly never.

I'm quite the opposite.
Fold. I flat call this exactly never. All we need is an A or K to hit the turn. Too many in the pot to mess with a top pair and a J kicker.

$1 in the pot and he raises $1.50? He could have way too much (a set of 6's or 8's, T/Q+, TJs, etc.) that has us beat, so let that quarter go.

Now, if I read the guy as over-aggressive, I'm three-betting this to $4.50 (so he has to put in another $3). I fold if he raises at that point. But really, how much respect can you give a guy who limps in UTG? I bet he does that a lot.

If he calls I'd check/fold the turn, and maybe check/call the river depending on what the board looked like. I wouldn't be looking to fire another bullet, even if he checks the turn, because he's only going to call us if he has us beat.

Anyway, I'd never limp with this hand anyway. If I'm going to play it (and I seldom do, unsuited from that position), I'm raising to $1.25 (because of the limper) and I'm pretty much making a 2/3 pot bet on any non-Ace board.
 
c9h13no3

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I fold this quite often out of position, unless villain is very aggro. Top pair no kicker multiway is the definition of a trouble hand.

Since we're in position, I wouldn't fault calling & re-evaluating the turn, but its certainly a more marginal call. And if villain has the ability to double barrel us, we pretty much have to give up to a turn bet.
 
blankoblanco

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folding is weak. just call in position and reevaluate turn, probably folding to a good sized bet that doesn't improve us. he can have T9, T7, 98, 78, A8, K8, J9, etc. etc. etc. any 8 really, any T in the deck with a weaker kicker, because he was the big blind.
 
ChuckTs

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Raise/fold preflop, as played I'm with vanq and combu on this one. Sorry, not much else to add.
 
Dwilius

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folding is weak. he can have T9, T7, 98, 78, A8, K8, J9, etc.
so an A K Q 9 8 or 7 could put him ahead if he doesn't already have us beat, because we have little idea of what he has. Who cares if its weak, why would we want to stay in this hand with .25 invested. Limping is weak. We didn't raise so we didn't try to narrow his range and must be playing TJ for nut straights right? Its only 1.50 but thats a couple of raises preflop and we've let him see 3 cards for free. Not the best place to put our money. I agree with switch on this one, could get too messy.
 
blankoblanco

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so an A K Q 9 8 or 7 could put him ahead if he doesn't already have us beat, because we have little idea of what he has.

and he has little idea what we have. the difference is we're in position. he's at a disadvantage, not us. we're going to have more information to work with than he is. if you're that afraid to play postflop poker in position, you're probably better off playing turbo SnGs or something other than cash
 
Dwilius

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limping and calling overbets with mediocre hands is the way to play postflop poker? I just thought we'd want to put ourselves in better situations.
 
Dwilius

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It does look like a bet T7 makes and seeing how the turn plays out in pos. is alright but being new to the table I'd rather fold now than look even weaker if I have to fold the turn. I'm out early/In all the way as much as possible. Dead money is no fun.
 
AlexeiVronsky

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I'd be tempted to raise here, he's in the big blind so he has a pretty large range, much of it JT's pretty good against. It doesn't seem like a bet he'd make with a set,qj, j9 or 97 so I'd probably guess he has something like top pair weak to decent kicker, a pair and a draw or bottom two pair or rarely an overpair. If you raise here you'll probably end up heads up against him, and if he doesn't have much you'll probably get a cheap showdown with the raise in position. If he reraises or calls/bets the turn you can just drop the hand.
 
c9h13no3

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I'd be tempted to raise here, he's in the big blind so he has a pretty large range, much of it JT's pretty good against. It doesn't seem like a bet he'd make with a set,qj, j9 or 97 so I'd probably guess he has something like top pair weak to decent kicker, a pair and a draw or bottom two pair or rarely an overpair. If you raise here you'll probably end up heads up against him, and if he doesn't have much you'll probably get a cheap showdown with the raise in position. If he reraises or calls/bets the turn you can just drop the hand.
That's gotta be the best way to win a small pot or lose a big one that I've heard in a LOOOONNNGGG time.
 
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