$10 NLHE Full Ring: Flop a set of Queens with A overcard on the board. How to play?

[MungBeans]

$10 NLHE Full Ring: Flop a set of Queens with A overcard on the board. How to play?

8 players
UTG (Hero): 260bb
HJ (Villain): 125bb

Hero dealt QcQd

Preflop
Hero bets 3bb, folds to HJ, HJ calls, folds

Flop (7.5bb): As Qh Js
Hero bets 4bb, villain raises to 8bb, hero calls

Turn (24.5bb): 2d
Hero checks, Villain bets 8bb, hero raises to 26bb, Villain calls

River (76.5 bb) hero bets 38bb, villain calls


I'm thinking I should have bet more preflop to narrow the field, I got lucky that I only got one caller. I'm unsure of how I played the flop. I'm not sure why I opted to flat call the raise. I'm not sure about my river play, betting into board where the flush completed but in retrospect it doesn't seem like a flush draw would min raise the flop. What do you think?

 

[teh_colonel_saigon]

I don't think you posted the River card.

You really lose to just 2 hands here. You should be looking to get it in, and sooner rather than later. He has plenty of 2 pair, straight draws + top pair, etc.

Flop bet bigger out. When reraised, go ahead and reraise back. He's not folding. Try to size it so you can shove the turn. Esp. when the turn comes as a brick.

 

[MungBeans]

I don't think you posted the River card.

You really lose to just 2 hands here. You should be looking to get it in, and sooner rather than later. He has plenty of 2 pair, straight draws + top pair, etc.

Flop bet bigger out. When reraised, go ahead and reraise back. He's not folding. Try to size it so you can shove the turn. Esp. when the turn comes as a brick.

Oops, river was 9s.

Thank you for the response, I did some equity calculations and I agree, I think I should be reraising the flop and like you said getting it in on the turn.

 

[gustav197poker]

In preflop the bet size is standard, it also depends on the sizes you usually use to open boats. It is convenient that you use a conventional size, to open out of position, so you do not arouse suspicion. And I think 3bb is a good guy.

In the flop you get a very good set, but behind another set of aces and the K-T pocket. You also exceed any double pair.

That is, you are a favorite in the flop 71% of the time, compared to all possibilities, and you can only lose 1 in 3.44 times, if you play until the push on the flop.

Considering this panorama, the rise of the villain in the flop to 2x could transform it into a 4bet, perhaps to x4 or x5 to close the gap of hands, which could look for open lines (both stairs and color)

Anyway, it is a good situation at the moment, so re-raising is a very comfortable option for you. Also the call is a standard movement, what happens is that you can afford to exert more pressure on the villain, since you have it completely covered in chips.

On the turn an absolutely inert street falls, which favors your entire range.

At this time many lines for the villain have failed and its range consists of many combos bluff, which could not complete stairs or color.

Now on the turn you are 80% favorite, that is, you will win 4 out of 5 times that you go to the push, from this place.

On the river the situation changed a lot, now you only win at most 50% of the time. The necessary scales for the villain have arrived and you are in a very difficult place to continue.

I think that everything could be solved more easily on the turn, and avoid a very uncomfortable place on the river, where it is probably closer the fold than the call.
Greetings.​

 

[Gohaku94]

You played well preflop. I would raise that minbet on flop, bet the turn and bet the river and by this point we would be all in

 

[fundiver199]

You played well preflop. I would raise that minbet on flop, bet the turn and bet the river and by this point we would be all in

I pretty much agree with this. On the flop we have the best hand literally always, and its a very wet board. So why not take advantage of the fact, he reopened the betting, and get some more money in now, before the board possibly get ugly? Any K or T will create a 1-liner to a straight, which if nothing else will often kill our action, unless he just got there.

By just calling that mini-raise with the absolute top of our range, we are playing the game on his terms rather than our own. In this case he did bet the turn, which gave us a chance to take back initiative with a check-raise, but its a disaster, if he check back turn, and why even give him that option? Because the board is so wet, I might actually even go very large, when I 3-bet the flop, and then simply jam the turn. It is after all NLH, so nobody say, we always have to bet 2/3 pot or less.

As played yeah I am betting the river for value. Sure its not great, that the flush came in, but how many flush combinations can he realistically have? AK, AQ, AJ, AT, A9, A8, A7, A6, A5, A4, A3, A2, KJ, K9, QJ, Q9, JT, J9, T9, 98 are all impossible because of the flush cards on the board. These are most of the just somewhat reasonable combos to call with pre, which leave him with KQ, KT (which flopped the nuts and would not play like this), QT and then some low suited connectors like 87, 76, 65 etc.

Its very few combos, and he can also have a lot of two pair hands, he can have JJ, or maybe even just top pair. So yes this is still a value bet, and if we happened to value own ourselfes against a hand, that just got there, thats ok. If we always win, when we bet the river for value, we are not value betting thin enough. And if we did in fact end up losing to the flush, that just reinforce the point, that we should have gotten the money in earlier. Its ok, if he fold his flushdraw, when we overbet jam the turn after 3-betting the flop.

 

[TheDude6622]

I think you played the hand perfectly fine with the straighty and flushy flop. You protected your hand. Not sure what the outcome was though?

 

[gustav197poker]

The villain plays with a position from Lp, so we must expand his range. On the river we have combos that defeat us, for example: T-8; K-T; K-8; K-7; K-6; A-A; 8-7; 7-6; 6-5; K-Q
And it was not your fault to let these hands come in, they just got in because they play with equity in this type of board.
For example 7-6s, it is a marginal hand that wins only 18% of all possible combinations of the deck. However on this board, it has good gameplay get up against a tight Utg player.
Personally I prefer to avoid this type of river, but choosing to take risks is also a valid option. This is poker so all opinions are welcome.

 

[MungBeans]

I think you played the hand perfectly fine with the straighty and flushy flop. You protected your hand. Not sure what the outcome was though?

He showed AQ at the end.

 

[TheDude6622]

He showed AQ at the end.

Nice scoop then! Pretty easy to stack the opponent when they got the bad end of a cooler.

 

[fundiver199]

He showed AQ at the end.

Then you definitely missed value by not 3-betting the flop. Its always nice to win, but cooler situations like this dont happen very often, and not getting his entire stack in a perfect spot like this is going to seriously hurt your winrate in the long run.

 

[gustav197poker]

The villain juice badly according to my opinion, you probably have been stacked from the flop with an aggressive, although I still think that your best moment arrived in the turn.

 

[delirium1129]

I think you had to make 4bet on the preflop. Postflop you played well. But also I'd like to raise flop 1 more time. Did opp showed AK?