$0.25 NLHE STT: KJo on a 84J rainbow board

$0.25 NLHE MTT: KJo on a 84J rainbow board

Hey All,

I am trying to learn how to read hands and assigning opponents hand ranges and narrow it down post-flop etc.

I have a question about a hand I was in.

It was early stage 0.25c 45 SnG (everyone has 75 big blinds) and the blinds and ante were 10/20/3. We was a few hands in when I was dealt KJ offsuit on the big blind.

UTG raised it to 4 BB to 80 and their was several callers, the pot was 374.

I was getting 6:1 odds to call, so I did.

The flop came 84J rainbow.

I check in BB, UTG+1 made a pot size cbet to make it 674, MP2 snap calls making the pot 974, it is folded around back to me. I thought about the pot odds (3:1) and UTG hand ranged (i.e. AJs, AA-88, t9s) and assumed I was beat, so I folded my hands.

Turn was a K (I would've made two-pair) UTG bets 450, MP2 snaps calls.

River was a K (I would've had a full house) UTG shoves all-in and again MP2 snap calls; showing 88 for a full house (888KK), UTG had AJs (JJKKA).

Questions:

1) Should I have mucked KJo on the BB regardless of odds (6:1) as it is a trap hand.

2) Should I have check/called the flop (3:1) to see the turn (for two-pair JJKK)

3) How can I make hand reading easier, as I didn't consider hand ranges for post-flop callers? (and folded because pot bet and snap call on flop-thinking I was beat).

4) Can they be ever bluffing (i.e. semi-bluff J9s)

5) should I only play KJs from MP2+ for min raise?

6) What can I do to make post-flop decisions easier

7) Other things I could've done instead

Thanks all

shive at flop, have top pair and good kicker!

renatoAD said:

shive at flop, have top pair and good kicker!

Click to expand...

Don't listen to this.

You should fold preflop, 6-1 odds to call but your hand is dominated almost always. It's a bad spot to put any money in, especially in an MTT. Save the chips for later. Raise or fold mentality is usually the way to go (unless you're set mining)

calling is fine preflop, but there are certainly good reasons to not call also. number one reason is to make decisions simpler and allow you to play more tables, the second one is overvaluing TPDK which you did not as you folded. Fwiw i would have likely folded to one huge pot sized bet regardless. We don't really make much money in spots like this, so folding preflop is also totally cool.

So basically if you tend to overplay these spots postflop then fold them preflop. if not you can call if time permits, if you are busy on other tables just dump it, your not missing out on much value.

hello , emperod .. i am not a elite but i would like to give my point of view
first of all when somebody raise utg ,they likely to have some pretty strong hands as they will be out of position after the flop ..so we can range them JJ+,AKs/o.
the mp2 might have a range of 77+,AJs+,AQo,KQs
so basically ur KJ is getting crushed by all the above and u will have worst position after flop ,so its a standard fold.
even if u play checking make it worse because UTG will definately gonna bet on flop regardless he hit his card or not as he was preflop agressor and ur checking showing weakness there .so u can bet 2/3 on flop which would be showing strength as well as getting some info ,and u can fold the hand if somebody reraise u or u didnt improve in next street ..
so fold is correct play preflop when there is raise and so many caller
when utg bet pot size he definately caught big on flop as he was showing strength there and a set of JJ is possible as its on his range and the MP2 by just calling telling he caught a piece of flop but not yet strong enough to reraise or he wanna slow play his set or he get TPTK as AJ is also on his range and u did the right thing by folding there .
just make a note on UTG that he play 88 there and he raise 4x ,that would be good info for u ,next time when u caught him again and u might get some chips from him..
I hope u like it ,m also learning day every day

Pre-flop: Good points made by the players above. Folding is fine if you don't trust yourself to play spots like this well post-flop. When we're in a 5-way pot (I'm guessing it was 5-way?) we usually need a minimum of 2 pair to think about continuing, because the chances that a player flops a better hand than one pair goes up the more players enter the pot. So, I do call here, but we should usually fold unless we make 2P+.
Now, a 4x raise from UTG is very strong. His range is going to be medium-large pairs, and big aces with an occasional SC or small pair. The callers are going to have increasingly wide ranges (because they're in increasingly better position with an increasingly better price... And I'm saying increasingly at an increasingly high rate..)


Flop: Now, even though this flop looks very safe for us, we should still X/F. There's very little chance that UTG+1 is betting the size of the pot into 4 players with a hand worse than TPGK. As I say, you're only really continuing when you hit a flop like KK4 or KJ8, something like that. Anyway, good fold.

I'll just fire through those questions:

1) Based on this hand, you're able to exhibit some discipline post-flop. So, I'd say call. Folding isn't a bad play, but you want to see lots of flops cheaply early on in tournaments.

2) Absolutely not. 2p+ only.

3) Making hand-reading easier. Look at all the factors. Every single thing another player does is information. The key is putting the pieces of the puzzle together to understand how your opponent is thinking. In this hand, the combo of a 4x raise and the position of UTG gives me a picture of a very strong range for him. The pieces of the puzzle for the first caller are that 1) He is in early position, 2) He has seen that the UTG player is showing strength, 3) He doesn't have a hand good enough to 3-bet, but he also doesn't want to fold it. You put these together and you see that he's got a range of hands that is strong, but not premium and likely plays well post-flop (suited or connected broadway cards, or a decent pair like TT or JJ). For all the other callers, as I mention, they get better odds and position, so you add worse hands to their range for each of them. That's the way I like to explain hand-reading. It's like a puzzle.

4) Never say never, but I'd almost never expect to see bluffs here. Bluffing is much harder to achieve when it's a multi-way pot, and when some of those players have very strong ranges. There's also not many draws, so that decreases the amount of bluffs even further. No, this isn't going to be a bluff.

5) I think raising to 2x is a poor play when everyone's so deepstacked. Playing KJs from MP2 (and better positions) is fine, but you'd want to open it for at least 3x (at least while the tournament is deep).

6) There's no easy fix for this. Post-flop play is nuanced and difficult (if not impossible) to master. The key is working on your hand-reading skills, that'll help. You can work on maths, such as equity, pot odds and so on as well. That'll make some decisions more simple. But the beauty of poker is in the post-flop play, there's no easy answer a lot of the time.

7) Could have folded pre-flop, that wouldn't have been bad (still prefer the call though). Any other path apart from the one you took in this hand would be disastrous though.