KQs early

micro stakes tournament, second hand
I have KhQh on button, 9 players, 10/20, 1500 around
fold, call, fold....fold to cut off, he raises to 80
here i decide to call based on my position, position of raiser and the fact that average player here is calling station
BB calls, second position calls, pot is 370
flop: 2 3 Jh rainbow
two checks, cut off raises 100
I have two overcards + longshot straight + longshot flush
he bets about 1/4 of pot, so I guess he is bluffing, but he probably wont back down, so I call, two folds
turn: J, pot is 570
he makes 300 raise, I fold

I am not sure if it was better to raise on flop?
any other opinions?

iamnothere said:

micro stakes tournament, second hand
I have KhQh on button, 9 players, 10/20, 1500 around
fold, call, fold....fold to cut off, he raises to 80
here i decide to call based on my position, position of raiser and the fact that average player here is calling station
BB calls, second position calls, pot is 370
flop: 2 3 Jh rainbow
two checks, cut off raises 100
I have two overcards + longshot straight + longshot flush
he bets about 1/4 of pot, so I guess he is bluffing, but he probably wont back down, so I call, two folds
turn: J, pot is 570
he makes 300 raise, I fold

I am not sure if it was better to raise on flop?
any other opinions?

Click to expand...

flat pre is fine, lol that you called him a station then went on to call though.

you can 3bet if you think he's calling all the time with worse, which is applicable but calling is probably optimal.

the cut off bet 100, not raised. (it goes bet, raise, 3bet, 4 bet, 5bet etc)

you have 2 overs with a back door flush and a backdoor straight on a pretty dry board, so calling again I think is the best play. If he is bluffing, its likely he is bluffing with a hand that has you dominated already (AK/AQ) so we are calling to bet the turn when he checks to us (known as a float) and our pair outs may be dirty.

raising the flop makes no sense since you only make AK/AQ/underpairs to the board fold that beat you already, and all of these are going to slow down on most turns that doesn't improve them.. as well as the fact there's still 2 other people left in the hand to act after you.

folding the turn seems standard, the whole hand seems to be ok actually.

Personally I think that in this situation, you should consider either raising or folding on the flop, bc when you call you really don't get any information...

If you had more chips, raising might be a good option: If you raise, and he calls, then you know he probably has a jack, and you can play accordingly afterwards.

I think that I would probably fold in this situation.

If he is a calling station, he is probably also kind of a simple player, betting when he actually has good cards

I would think he either has a Jack, or he has some overcards like AK or AQ (indicated by his preflop raise), or he has nothing.

The problem with calling is that what happens if a King or Queen comes on the turn? Will you bet? He could easily have AK or AQ... in which case you will lose a lot of money

and what about if another heart comes and again you are offered decent pot odds? seems like a hand where you could lose a lot of money

So despite the attractive pot odds, since you don't have many chips to work with and they are precious, I would advocate a fold. I generally try to avoid betting in these marginal situations unless I have a good read on my opponent..

This is an interesting situation and I'm interested in hearing opinions from other players...

All the best,
Dave

keep in mind that he raised preflop from cut off, meaning a wider range of hands, possibly Ax,but possibly low to middle pairs or suited connectors for this level, only 4 5 hitting the board

i dont see what information I can get from a raise on flop, being that I estimated he would probably not fold, I already knew he has some sort of equity...any aggression here is not smart, I think he would go hard, as he did on the following hands

If a king or queen came on turn I would bet once, then pot control all the way, if a safe card hits the river I would call all in

I definitely don't mind floating the flop, but I don't think a raise on the flop is terrible because you could very well get better hands to fold (small/mid pairs and Ace high hands).

Plus the board is so dry that the villian isn't drawing to anything besides hoping to hit top pair so unless he has the jack I think you could definitely see him folding, or calling and then checking to you on the turn where you can take the pot (if the river is a brick) for even more profit.

my 2cents

raising the flop for info is stupid.

but what about to fold out smaller pairs and Ace high hands? There aren't many hands that he *should* be calling a raise here since there aren't any draws. If he calls I think he clearly has Jx (maybe a set, I think QQ+ reraises us) and we can be done with the hand.

I could be wrong, just would like to know why. In your post you say they will slow down on turns where they don't improve, but wouldn't we prefer to fold out Ax (especially AK/AQ where we could lose a ton of chips) on the flop if we can?

but its still 4 way, and we aren't ever raising any part of our range on this flop ever anyway.

not that we'll get played back at, but people aren't letting go of anything here.

and if Ax are letting go on the turn regardless, we might as well get them to fold for less money by calling and betting turn than raising flop.

+ when we bet turn we can also be semi-bluffing good cards.. and when we brick and they bet the turn we can assume we're behind instead of raising the flop and losing by either:

- original bettor calling/3 betting us
- one of the others calling/3 betting us