$10 NLHE Full Ring: KQ hits 2-pair on Turn, Backdoor flush and Ace on river.

[newtront]

MP: hero (stack: 72.5bb) Kh Qd
HJ: villain (stack: 100bb)

Preflop
fold, fold
hero: raise to 3bb,
fold
villain: call 3bb
fold
button calls 3bb

flop (pot 10.5 bb) [4s 7c Qh]
hero: bet 6bb
villain: call 6bb
button folds

turn (pot 22.5bb) Kc
hero: bet 15 bb
villain call 15 bb

river (52.5 bb) Ac
hero: bet 48.5bb allin
villain: call 48.5bb


Villain had Qc Jc


I dont think I did anything wrong till the river. However, should I have checked the river and maybe folded my hand since there was no draw on the flop (besides 56) and the Ac is a bad card for me? He could have had AQ A7 A4 and the backdoor flush got there too. The main reason I think about checking is that theres no hand I m beating that will call the river. Villain will have sets, better two pairs, and flushes when I get called. Unlikely that I will get called by a one pair hand and all two pairs are better than mine.

 

[kkonicke]

The more I look at this, ay man that is just an awful river. The only hands I'm concerned about on the river are 44, 77, and Qx suited clubs...maybe A7 if this guy is really bad. All the better sets and AK/AQ are 3 betting preflop. J 10 shouldn't be continuing on that flop. Qx suited clubs makes so much sense, and obviously is exactly what villain had. Q9, Q10, and QJ all make a ton of sense through the flop and the clubs aren't blocked at all...but you'd think those hands all give up on the turn or certainly the river...unless of course they are clubs. I think I'm checking river and throwing up everywhere when villain jams...

 

[QA77]

I agree with your assessment. There aren’t hands that you are beating that will call on the river. Depending on the opponent, I might check call the river. If I know opponent is capable of bluffing. With that being said, its hard to imagine a hand your opponent has that bluffs the river. The only hand he value bets that you win any chips is a split pot if he has KQ.

 

[teh_colonel_saigon]

What about your turn bet? Perhaps consider betting smaller there so that his Qx hands are less inclined to fold. Half pot or less? This would also make the river much smaller.

 

[fundiver199]

As others have said, that is just a really ugly river card. However I think, you kind of painted yourself into a corner by creating this situation, where you had a pot sized bet left, and now a not very great card came on the river. I have also been in these spots and jammed, because frankly I did not know, what else to do, and there was an element of entitlement tilt about it.

I would much rather see this river with more stack behind, and this for me would start with topping up, so I did not begin the hand with 72,5 BB. I always enable auto top-up, which is a function, most if not all poker sites offer. By always having at least 100 BB, I only need to adjust to shorter stacked play, if someone else is short.

On the flop you bet rather large, and on a dry board like this I prefer a small bet to keep their range wider. You want to put hands like 88-JJ
and 7X in a tough spot, where they feel, they have to peel at least once, and there are not many bad turn cards for you on this texture. Solvers and AI software is generally saying, we should bet around 1/3 pot in a situation like this, and I think, it makes a lot of sense.

Great turn card obviously, but even here I would bet a bit smaller. Now its not so much, that you are sometimes behind, its more, that most of the hands, you want to call, will probably fold to a large bet. Even AQ will hate this card, because its now negated down to second pair. I would bet around half pot on the turn.

Arriving to the river with a smaller pot and much more stack behind, for me this would be a check-call or check-fold depending on his bet size and my read on him. If he pots it or overbet, I will probably fold, but if he give me a price, I will pay him off. In both cases I will really hate the fact, that he bet at all, because I dont think, we are good very often in that situation.

 

[nameless1537]

As others have said, that is just a really ugly river card. However I think, you kind of painted yourself into a corner by creating this situation, where you had a pot sized bet left, and now a not very great card came on the river. I have also been in these spots and jammed, because frankly I did not know, what else to do, and there was an element of entitlement tilt about it.

I would much rather see this river with more stack behind, and this for me would start with topping up, so I did not begin the hand with 72,5 BB. I always enable auto top-up, which is a function, most if not all poker sites offer. By always having at least 100 BB, I only need to adjust to shorter stacked play, if someone else is short.

On the flop you bet rather large, and on a dry board like this I prefer a small bet to keep their range wider. You want to put hands like 88-JJ
and 7X in a tough spot, where they feel, they have to peel at least once, and there are not many bad turn cards for you on this texture. Solvers and AI software is generally saying, we should bet around 1/3 pot in a situation like this, and I think, it makes a lot of sense.

Great turn card obviously, but even here I would bet a bit smaller. Now its not so much, that you are sometimes behind, its more, that most of the hands, you want to call, will probably fold to a large bet. Even AQ will hate this card, because its now negated down to second pair. I would bet around half pot on the turn.

Arriving to the river with a smaller pot and much more stack behind, for me this would be a check-call or check-fold depending on his bet size and my read on him. If he pots it or overbet, I will probably fold, but if he give me a price, I will pay him off. In both cases I will really hate the fact, that he bet at all, because I dont think, we are good very often in that situation.

I will preface my comment/question with saying that I haven’t played NLHE at this level yet... but I’m thinking poker is poker, so might as well ask the question and learn from the discussion.

I see your points made around managing the pot size in a situation that you have a decent hand but not great. So a 1/3 pot bet on the flop makes total sense to me... although when you make a bet that size, does it look like a weak cbet that leaves yourself vulnerable to a raise? Especially if you cbet 2/3 of a pot all of the other times? In any case, likelihood of that happening here would have been slim with this kind of board though so I’ll just move on.

You are advocating a smaller turn bet, but if I make second pair on the turn with a backdoor flush draw on a suit that doesn’t match high card on the board, wouldn’t I want to protect against that draw by doing at least a pot-sized bet on the turn? Possibly overbetting the pot... or even jamming on the turn if your intention is to go all-in on the river? Only one that would call that would be someone with a set, I would think and those always seem stealthy and hard to anticipate so I wouldn’t sweat that is that’s the case. Only reason I’d say this is because I’m already OOP on the hand. If the villain calls with a QcJc and you get rivered by the backdoor flush, then you throw up and give them a NH and move on.

If I was in position, then I could do a 1/2 to a 2/3 pot bet on the turn and see what happens on the river. Possibly fold on an all-in bet with the potential for a flush made.

 

[gustav197poker]

It may not be a good situation to push.
The villain's call on the turn leaves you in a very weak position on the river.
And with that call we are estimating its rank on the highest scale.
What hand can pay you a bet of 75% of the pot?
Minimally we can say that LP is paying for the large amount of odds it has.
So if we make that assumption, we fall into a hole in the river, since the third street that completes the backdoor appeared.
And if that were not enough, the A. appears
This is a negative impact on our range.
It is very difficult to know if the villain will abandon his hand, believing that we complete the color.
This is more unlikely even if in your range we include some flopped set perhaps.
In that case the villain will protect his check range, although it hurts if he is a solid player will pay your bet, in most cases.
So in this river I think more of a check-fold than a push.
Greetings.

 

[fundiver199]

You are advocating a smaller turn bet, but if I make second pair on the turn with a backdoor flush draw on a suit that doesn’t match high card on the board, wouldn’t I want to protect against that draw by doing at least a pot-sized bet on the turn?

Whenever we bet for value, we always need to think about, what hands we are trying to get called by. In this situation the Villain can not really have top pair, because how would top pair have gotten to the turn? He is 3-betting AK preflop, and KJ is not calling a large flop bet. So the strongest made hand, he can realistically have, that we are ahead of now, is AQ, which is only second pair.

Now if he was a fish, maybe he would call us with anything, and we could go larger for value. But no information was given about that, and since its 10NL we should assume, that he is probably a somewhat reasonable player. And this is why, in this spot, I feel, we need to give him a somewhat attractive price on the turn to come along.

I am also not so concerned about draws here, because while he did in fact turn out to have a draw, there are not that many of them. Finally flop and turn sizing is related, and if we bet smaller on the flop, we keep his range wider, and then there is more merit in a larger turn bet around the size, which Hero made. So mostly its the flop bet, that was to large, but as played a smaller turn bet would also have been slightly better in my opinion.

 

[newtront]

Thank you for all the replies.
So everybody suggested checking the river and probably folding because its unlikely that villain will have a missed draw that will bluff the river. Most also advocated betting smaller on the flop and turn. I agree with everything, but the reason I bet close to 2/3 on the flop and 2/3 again on turn is because I thought that at these stakes people that will call a 1/3 bet or 1/2 bet on the flop will probably call a 2/3 bet as well. I might be wrong but I will consider betting smaller to keep their ranges wider on these types of boards. I dont like overbetting or jamming the turn tho, because I want villain to call me with the kind of hand he has. He has less than 20% equity against my 2 pair and I dont want him to fold.

 

[fundiver199]

I agree with everything, but the reason I bet close to 2/3 on the flop and 2/3 again on turn is because I thought that at these stakes people that will call a 1/3 bet or 1/2 bet on the flop will probably call a 2/3 bet as well.

I think, you are using logic here, which is more applicable to 2NL than 10NL. Sure there are still fish at 10NL, but the regulars are those, who have graduated from first 2NL and then 5NL. So they are generally not making huge mistakes. And even the fish are generally less bad than those at 2NL. You typically dont see the same kind of crazy calling mistakes, maybe also because the money matter at least a little bit more.