JJ; set on a flush board

[joeeagles]

I didn't 3 bet this PF, being on the button I decided to look at a flop first. Hit my set but on a bad board and a 3-way pot:

Stacks: - UTG+1 with $70.30 - UTG+2 with $69.30 - UTG+3 with $50.00 - UTG+4 with $45.50 - CO with $11.35 - BTN with $49.75 - SB with $56.10 - $treetShark with $88.00 - UTG with $74.00

Site: pokerstars
Holecards:
- BTN (Hero) is dealt

Preflop:
- UTG+4 raises $1 to $1.50
- BTN (Hero) calls [$1.50] $treetshark calls [$1]
- Folds: 6
- Potsize: $4.75
Flop:
$treetShark: checks
- UTG+4 bets [$2]
- BTN calls [$2] $treetshark raises $8 to $10
- BTN ?

I don't have pokertracker but he seemed loose(ish) to me. What's your next move? Fold, call, raise or shove?

 

[xtreme_calibur]

call or raise, but i personally wouldnt fold the hand. you could pair any card on board and they flop flush and never get away from it. depends on how much your willing to gamble in the end.

 

[phatjose]

How loose was he? The kind of loose that calls a preflop raise with any 2 suited cards loose? I would probably put him on either 2 pair or top pair with a flush draw. Either way I don't think you can lay it down.

 

[viking999]

I personally wouldn't just call. JJ has too many hands in bad shape here. The best part is that those hands will likely think they're in good shape. If he's loose, he'll probably go all the way with any two pair, a set of sevens, or top pair with a strong spade. I'd pump it up to a pot-commiting amount. Say $30 or $35. If he has the flush, screw it. Just hit the full house. No sense in balking at a good spot just because you MIGHT be a SLIGHT underdog.

 

[calibanboy]

Push All In............

If he has the flush he is not going it 8$ to stay in. He wants to extract , not scare in that situation.

He has Ax maybe AJ and want to get rid of anyone drawing to a further flush. Either that or he has King-spades

 

[xtreme_calibur]

I personally wouldn't just call. JJ has too many hands in bad shape here. The best part is that those hands will likely think they're in good shape. If he's loose, he'll probably go all the way with any two pair, a set of sevens, or top pair with a strong spade. I'd pump it up to a pot-commiting amount. Say $30 or $35. If he has the flush, screw it. Just hit the full house. No sense in balking at a good spot just because you MIGHT be a SLIGHT underdog.

totally agreed. and if he did have flush and you hit boat on river, he cant say you sucked out cuz he shouldnt have played XX spades to begin with!

 

[calibanboy]

totally agreed. and if he did have flush and you hit boat on river, he cant say you sucked out cuz he shouldnt have played XX spades to begin with!

Nothing wrong with completing with XX spades on the BB.

 

[xtreme_calibur]

Nothing wrong with completing with XX spades on the BB.

i disagree, but depends on the player i guess. not that even though he was in BB, BTN raised it to $150 preflop, which means another $1 to call. maybe its just me, but BB or not aint no way in hell ima gamble with 27 in bb with any raise, just because its suited. that only hads like 2-3% to it preflop anywho, which is a very minute difference.

 

[calibanboy]

OK - granted 2,7. But what about 8,10 or Q,9?

Even more what about 8,10 or Q,9 if you think you can outplay your opponents on the flop based on reads?

Mix up that play. I recognise that this argument thread runs contradictory torwards my original analysis - but this is a slighty different debate about preflop card selection.

 

[TubaMark316]

Well, if he just called pre-flop and didn't reraise...you have to put him on something small...

I mean, he could have hit the flush...but you gotta push with this hand and see if he actually has it.

I wouldn't be surprised if he had the King of spades and tries to hit it...

But yeah, push and try to rock that boat and kick him OUT!

 

[joeeagles]

From the responses I see so far, it appears that the majority likes the shove. I decided to flat call, which most of you will view as weak and you're probably right, but the reason I decided to do so was because on this kind of board if I do shove I figured the only hand that would call would be a flush. I think I overestimated, throughout the hand, the fact that I was on the button. When this player check/raised I realized I might have made a mistake by not 3-betting PF with this villain in the BB.

It is possible he has a flush but also, as mentioned here by more than one poster, it could be 2 pair trying to get some info on how strong the other hands were. Another chance was a pair with the Ks. Also, being that he was on the LAG side, he could have sensed weakness and tried to just steal the pot. I figured that if his raise was w/o a made flush, if I shove I'll lose him. In the same time the price wasn't too bad to see a turn. There was, of course, no chance in hell that I'd fold.

Anyway, I'm open to any kind of criticism for just flat calling rather than shoving. Here's what happened on the turn.


Site: Pokerstars
Holecards:
- BTN (Hero) is dealt

(Sklansky group 1)
Preflop:
- UTG+4 raises $1 to $1.50
- BTN (Hero) calls [$1.50] $treetshark calls [$1]
- Folds: 6
- Potsize: $4.75
Flop:
$treetShark: checks
- UTG+4 bets [$2]
- BTN calls [$2] $treetshark raises $8 to $10
- BTN calls [$8]
- Folds: 1
- Potsize: $26.75
Turn:
$treetshark bets [$73.50]
- BTN ?



We missed our boat and villain goes all-in. What's your next move? We have $40.25 left.

 

[CromMitra]

the check and re-raise on the flop makes me think he has a flush.if you raised more on the flop to help define his hand i think would have helped you decide your next move.on the turn his huge raise makes me wonder about the flush or not,i would think he has at least the king if not the flush,at that point it would be down to if i want to gamble on him having the flush or the draw.i don't see a problem with just calling on the flop but the action on the turn would definitely make me think.he might have a weak flush and think you have the king.

 

[lottomode777]

"It is a fundamental truth of poker that you make your money when your opponents make mistakes - Aliengenius"

Sorry for being off topic, but I just had to say something about this quote. You make your money when your opponents mistakes are made at the right time A.K.A. not sucking out on you more times than poker odds say they should. Bad runs + luckboxes/gamblers = trouble for any good poker player.

Anyway, back to the hand. I would have probably would have checked it down on the flop to see a turn card cheaply, hoping it boats or quads me or at least doesn't land one more spade. Otherwise I would fold to any large over sized pot raises. It sounds timid and weak, but I never pay flushes chasers off. Letting him see a flop for only 1.50, catch his flush, then take 50$ from me is not my idea of profitable poker. It's highly unlikely he has just a draw, no pair, and wants to outprice himself to see the next card, but this is where reads come in handy, knowing how aggressive your opponent is with their draws.

Villain might have an Ace with a flush draw. But this hand looks more like a 9 10s or Q 10s and that he's worried of the King spade, because if he had a King spade suited (nut flush), I imagine he'd just bet the pot or 1/2 of the pot, as to not scare an Ace out. Usually i'd be quick to let this go against crazy large raises, even if I think he's just on a draw or weaker hand, because guessing wrong will cost 100 Big blinds (I assume this is 25c 50c game), when all you have commited to the pot is a measly 3 blinds. I'd rather lose the 3 blinds and wait for another opportunity and better flop.

However, if this were a tournament and I was in a shortstack/ low rank position Or my opponent had a small stack, I'd jam all in on the flop. If I had a bigstack and villain had a big stack, I'd just stick to the original gameplan of giving the aggressor the few blinds and waiting for better hands and flops.

 

[vanquish]

I like the flop call (you want 3rd guy in the pot to maximize return on equity), and now that he's folded, you can call villain's all-in pretty comfortably and expect to be way ahead (only real hand that plays this way is a flush Q-high or lower, and the only real hands that call there are Q9-Q8s, in which case you are coolered and you still played it right imo).

 

[daxter70]

i would want to put villain on A with high spade here..(K,Q,10)

shove on the turn suggests that play to me, made flush, (unless its baby 45, 36 maybe ) would be value bettin if they knew what they were doing....but if his play has been total donk up till now, i would probably fold here

had same play today in FT FR..flopped a set and 46 spades UTG+1 (imagine that) ck raised flop bet and shoved on turn on a draw and bottom pair..HIT THE FLUSH BUT WHAT THE HELL CAN U DO???

 

[loopmeister]

Some BOE (back of envelope) calculations.

You need a 38% win rate to make a call +EV (spending 40.25 to get 2*40.25+26.75 back).

I think he has a flush, where you have a ~12% chance of catching up.
But there is a strong possibility of a semi-bluff (with a single spade) - say 15% - in which case you're ~82% favorite.
There's also a small chance the has Ax - say 5%, in which case you're ~96% favorite.

Your overall win rate is (0.15)(0.82)+(0.05)(0.96)+(0.8)(0.12) = 26.7%

It looks like -EV here.

 

[Dorkus Malorkus]

Your percentages are way off - villain does not have a flush 80% of the time here.

His likely range is something like AxKs-AxTs/77/random high spades. AK/AQ is possible (lower Aces too but he's hideously overplaying his hand if this is the case), but it's not overly likely he has no spades given his action.

I don't like the flop call because the majority of the time it will leave us in the exact situation we ended up in on the turn - facing a big shove having not improved. Plus I doubt we're going to keep the initial flop bettor in - his flop bet was likely a small probing bet and he got his answer. I shove the flop pretty much every time here. As played, I call the turn.

 

[loopmeister]

I would also have raised the flop; and then the call on the turn becomes trivial. I'm looking here "as played".

His range must also include any suited spade connectors.

He's told me twice he has the flush, and I'm inclined to believe him, so I'm sticking to my analysis. DM obv doesn't agree.

So, let's put it another way then. To measure our difference in opinion, the EV becomes positive if he actually has the flush less than ~65% time. i.e. if you believe he's only holding a flush less than two-thirds of the time, then by all means call.

Poker is not science, and a lot of what separates winning players from losing players is getting their opinions right more often than not. Most of you will probably trust DM's gut over mine. That's fine

 

[tosborn]

I'm not going to get into the flop call. I don't really like it either.

As played we call this. An overbet shove is generally a hand that does not want a call. I would be more concerned that villain was raising with T9 than anything else. This fits the line so well that I would almost bet that is what he is holding. I really don't like putting someone on strictly one hand, but it fits too well coming out of the big blind.

Villains range has already been explained by DM so I make the call, but I don't feel great about doing it.

Edit: I should have added that at this level villains flop bet appears like a steal attempt to me. No one has shown any real interest in the hand and villain could have been trying to make a play.

 

[Dorkus Malorkus]

Obv.

You don't think villain can quite feasibly have AxKs-AxTs or 77 here though? If he does, he's not got a flush 80% of the time because the feasible flushes (KsQs/KsTs/QsTs) simply don't account for 80% of the hands in his range (there are three flush hands there, and an AxKs-AxTs/77 range comprises 12 total hands here). Even if we start including mid suited connectors, the probability of a flush in terms of number of hands in villain's range won't go past 50%.

Yes, we can skew it a little because he probably plays something like AxQs like this marginally less frequently than he does with say KsQs, but still, we're talking in terms of altering probabilities by 5% or so (which is probably negated anyway if we consider the similarly very small probability that he's squeezing the flop and following through on the turn with absolutely nothing).

 

[joeeagles]

I don't like the flop call because the majority of the time it will leave us in the exact situation we ended up in on the turn - facing a big shove having not improved. Plus I doubt we're going to keep the initial flop bettor in - his flop bet was likely a small probing bet and he got his answer. I shove the flop pretty much every time here. As played, I call the turn.

I'm not too sure I'm understanding this (I don't understand Tosborn's edit line even less). I respect your opinion of not liking the flop call, but your explanation as to why you dislike it isn't making much sense to me. Villains hand is broken down pretty easily:

a) he has a flush

b) he doesn't have a flush but has the Ks (or the Qs)

c) he doesn't have a flush and has no spades at all

If villain has a flush he'll call our shove. If he doesn't have a flush and has no spades he'll fold to our shove. Scenario b is the only grey area. We might get a call if he has a high spade. I really don't see why the shove is such a great move as opposed to instead looking at a turn and waiting to see what villain does since we have position on him. I mean really, the only advantage we could have by shoving is to induce a call by a hand with the Ks, and not every player, actually only a small percentage of players, will make that call. If we shove to his flop raise he'd have to put $40 in a $66 pot. Would you guys make that call? I doubt it since you're clearly outpriced and also wondering if I have a flush giving you 2 less outs.

I don't see why shoving the flop is the +EV play since it will fold the hands that we're crushing and get called by those that we're trailing. The only other argument that can be made is that, by shoving, if he folds, we protect from getting sucked out if another spade comes.

Now, you say that the majority of the time the flat call leaves us in this situation - facing a shove w/o having improved. Why is this necessarily bad? The turn didn't improve our hand, so now we either give him credit for a flush (and fold) or we don't (and call). In what way would shoving the flop change our situation? We still would miss the turn (lol, or maybe not since it's an online hand). By shoving, if called, we get to see the river. We can still call and see it now, that option is still available to us.

In conclusion, I'd think that against the right opponent (one that would call a shove on a draw), flat calling the flop raise would be -EV. But when our opponent shoves into us on a turn that is not a spade, then the advantage is ours and we actually benefit from not having shoved the flop as long as we make the correct read. That because if we think he's playing his draw aggressively (or bluffing) we succeeded in getting all his chips in the pot whereas shoving the flop might have made him fold. If instead we think that this player would only do it if he actually has the flush we now have the option to escape if we want to since a call vs a made flush is -EV.

@Tosborn: you say that his flop bet looks like a steal attempt. I honestly don't understand how you can be so sure of that. But even so, lets say you're right. So why shove into it? Or raise it? If we do that we'll force him to fold as opposed instead of letting him attempt it again on the turn. As for DM, I try to understand why you don't like the flop call but it seems to me that you guys don't like it for the wrong reasons.

 

[calibanboy]

Did you call the turn? If so what was the result?

 

[ChuckTs]

The only reason I don't like calling the flop is because we give him a cheap(er) turn than we'd like. What happens if we're faced with this same shove and a spade drops? We'll feel like poop, and know that we botched the hand, that's what.

I see your reasoning, Joe, but I think we're getting calls from AXs a lot of the time here, and we have tons of equity vs a made flush. We'll also see 77 here (a lot more than AA), which adds to the hands we beat.

IMO he's semibluffing here most of the time, occasionally has a weak flush, 77 once in a while too, and occasionally the nuts.

As played this is an easy call.

 

[joeeagles]

Did you call the turn? If so what was the result?

Turn:
$treetshark bets [$73.50]
- BTN calls [$38.25] [ all-in ]
- Potsize: $138.5
River:

Results:
$treetShark shows a flush, Ace high:

- BTN doesn't show. $treetShark collected $100.25 from pot


This hand was clearly played poorly on my side, and was then followed by an even worse read. I think the biggest mistake was not 3-betting PF, and I realized it even before seeing the flop when the BB called the PF raise. As I said before, this player was on the loose(ish) side and I should have realized right away that if I didn't 3-bet he was likely going to come along which is certainly something you don't want with JJ (pot going 3-way). I think Lottomode 777 put it best when he posted that letting someone see a flop for $1 more and then, because of that, allowing him to take $50 from me is definitely not profitable poker. Not 3-betting this PF is the biggest regret I have, much much more than calling the all-in on the turn.


About the call on the turn, again it comes down to believing him or not. His raise on the flop seems to be saying he has the flush, same for the turn shove, but this particular player could be making this move with a high spade trying to get me to fold since pot was almost $27 and was worth it. Either that, or he had a smaller flush and thought I had called the flop with a high spade (of course, he doesn't know I have a set). If you go by probability it's much more likely that he does have the flush rather than drawing, which, as pointed out by Loop, make this play -EV. Other possibilities (77, 2 pair, etc) are less likely.


So in conclusion my judgement on the turn stunk also, and the hand was overall so poorly played (but mostly PF) that I got what I deserved, I lost my stack. Again though, I do insist that IMO vs this type of player shoving the flop is a mistake. I'm not saying that because he had the flush, but because on the turn if he were drawing with the Ks he is the type of player that might shove if he misses, where instead he'll probably fold if I shove.


I truly appreciate and thank everyone for their comments on the hand and I really enjoyed the discussion that followed. Situations like this one, hitting a set on a flush board, happen often (lol, I see it a lot on-line. Rigged? Lmao). The way to play them, in my mind at least, is kind of opponent-dependant. I just don't think there is a standard way that applies to all cases.

 

[joeeagles]

IMO he's semibluffing here most of the time, occasionally has a weak flush, 77 once in a while too, and occasionally the nuts.

Thanks for your comments Chuck, I always appreciate your posts.

I wanted to focus on the part that I highlighted. You say, and I totally agree with this type of player, that he's semibluffing a lot of the time here, and occasionally has a weak flush (and he did dammit ). But that's just it, the semibluff part. If he does have a high spade I think he probably folds to a shove, because in order to call he has to put $38.25 in a $63 pot, not to mention that at that point he might put me on a higher spade, if he doesn't have Ks, or a flush which means he loses some outs.

I do understand your point that if another spade comes on the turn we're screwed and have to fold, so if we shove and he folds we avoid that scenario. But if you're faced with the kind of player that you think will semibluff all-in, then from a value standpoint I think you're better off to call the flop raise and hope no spade hits the turn and if he does semibluff you can get his stack (with a small risk of getting outdrawn, you're better than a 4 to 1 favored if he's semibluffing).

I know this is a bit confusing and I'm not insisting that I'm absolutely correct, but it's just another way to look at it and I think it has some merits.

Again, I deserved what happened for not 3-betting PF. I got caught up on the whole having position thing and I payed for it dearly.