Are there any better lines I can take on this hand?

[Jillychemung]

What range do you put him on, where you think he'll fold 90% of his hands to a turn bet? I just don't get it.

22-TT any higher pair and he'd have 3-bet, JT-AQ, AK would have 3-bet so for the majority of his range he'd be chasing and only a small part would have 2P or a set.

 

[bw07507]

JT-AQ, AK would have 3-bet so for the majority of his range he'd be chasing and only a small part would have 2P or a set.

Most people are not reraising AQ here at 25NL and Id say JT-KQ are almost never ever reraising here at 25NL.

 

[blankoblanco]

Slowplaying, believe it or not, has very little to do with your actual hand strength nor how likely it is you will be drawn out on. It all has to do with how likely it is that your opponents range is strong enough to continue or not. In this spot, the opponent has a very strong range, consisting mostly of 2pair and Pair+SD hands. Therefore, we raise to build a pot so that we can get all the money in the middle.

ding ding ding

 

[Jillychemung]

BW07507, I meant he'd call w/ JT-AQ and if he had Ak he'd 3-bet.

 

[F Paulsson]

I don't get most of the logic in this thread. OP flops the nuts to a rainbow. It is extremely likely it will remain the nuts throughout this hand. I don't have figures but I would guess 95% + it will not be beat. It might end split, but seldom will it get beat.

If not slow play prime, WTF would be slow play prime?

1. A small pot.
2. Very small chance of being outdrawn on if we currently have the best hand.
3. Decent chance of villain improving to a better - but second best - hand.
4. Very likely that villain will fold if we bet or raise right now.

(I seem to remember Sklansky listing seven criterias, but my memory escapes me)

Slow play prime:

JT in the big blind on a J-J-T flop where two of them are spades. The preflop raiser likely has SOME kind of a draw (any two broadway cards has a straight draw, not to mention two overcards, etc) but it's not a draw that's going to beat us. However, given our own two cards, it's unlikely that he connected with this flop in any way.

This is NOT the case on the flop we have now. Villain either connected, or is blatantly bluffing. It's very rare to get more action from a pure bluff. It's very likely we'll get action from just about his entire legitimate range.

... but it's not certain we'll get action from it if the next card is a scarecard (e.g. an ace or a nine or a queen) and he suddenly becomes nervous about stacking off with two pair. Really, what we all agree on is that we want our opponent to put in as much money as possible. I assume we also all agree on that it would be awesome if he put it in on the flop, but we may not agree on whether or not that's likely.

Since I did the ground work on setting up a range, it's not entirely fair of you to dismiss it without either coming up with a range yourself that would give a different result, or at the very least claim that "KQ would fold if we raised the flop" or something similar.

 

[feitr]

I have to assume FP, combuboom and others who are raising the flop are doing so to eliminate that 25% draw possibility, and on occasion I will put villains to the screw doing the same thing, but in this case I'd let villain think he was killing me.


My vote is still for the slow play/trap.

Nobody is saying that you need to protect your hand here at all. You are a billion miles ahead and the odds of losing to a boat or something is incredibly small. The reason is entirely that by slowplaying this hand, when 100bbs deep, means that you are unlikely to build a decent pot. The only way you will get paid off in a big way, is if, as in this case, you luck out and villain hits a big hand and the river becomes a huge overbet fest. You want to slow play when you don't think that the villain will be able to call/reraise your bet with their hand and that you have a reasonable expectation that they will attempt to bluff further streets. Slowplaying doesn't even make sense if you are hoping that they manage to draw to a strong hand that you beat, because you should still be able to charge them to draw to their hand (and they still pay you off if they hit).

By donk betting, villain might have hit a big hand (2 pair/set/straight) and attempt to induce a flop reraise, might have hit a draw/pair + draw or might have complete air. If it is the first situation, reraising the flop greatly increases the likelihood that you will be playing for stacks and there is no way that villain is folding. Villain isn't folding whether you slow play or not, but if you do slow play you are potentially losing out on value. In case 2, villain isn't folding to a flop reraise and may or may not fold to a turn bet. But again, if villain is willing to bet a blank turn after you call flop, then they will definitely be calling/raising a turn bet. So again, you are risking that villain checks and pot remains small by slow playing. If villain will fold to a turn value bet after a flop reraise, then it is very likely that they will check/fold turn to a float. In the third case, villain will probably shut down on the turn no matter what. I don't see inducing a double barrel bluff representing much value in this hand.

So yea, raise flop. It would be fairly expected for you to raise flop here in any case (especially since this flop hits your range so so hard) so you might find you get combo draws/2 pair/sets etc all in on the flop. Villain isn't donk betting into a completely dry board...this board hits smak in the middle of hero's range and for villain to fold this flop to a reraise would be absolutely bizzare.

Some examples of what might actually happen.

Slow play (assuming blank river for all cases):

Dealt to Inscore77 [Ah Qs]
BenjEMS: folds
Inscore77: raises $0.50 to $0.75
nicuaug joins the table at seat #5
crovax4444: folds
sanofito: calls $0.50
*** FLOP *** [Js Kd Th]
sanofito: bets $1
Inscore77: calls $1
*** TURN *** [Js Kd Th] 3♦
sanofito: bets $2.50
Inscore77: calls $2.50
*** RIVER *** [Js Kd Th 3d] blank
BenjEMS leaves the table
sanofito: checks
Inscore77: bets $5
sanofito: folds

And in alot of cases here, villain should shut down on the turn and if you want to continue your slow play you have a TINY pot. So you are pretty much forced to abandon your slow play if villain checks turn (which would have made alot more sense with the hand he/she had). In which case you probably will make about the same in the ^^ example (difference being instead of sanofito: bets $2.50 Inscore77: calls $2.50 it would be sanofito: checks, Inscore77: bets $2.50, sanofito: calls $2.50).

Raising flop

Dealt to Inscore77 [Ah Qs]
BenjEMS: folds
Inscore77: raises $0.50 to $0.75
nicuaug joins the table at seat #5
crovax4444: folds
sanofito: calls $0.50
*** FLOP *** [Js Kd Th]
sanofito: bets $1
Inscore77: raise to $3.50
sanofito: calls $2.50
*** TURN *** [Js Kd Th] 3♦
sanofito: checks
Inscore77: bets $5
sanofito: calls $5
*** RIVER *** [Js Kd Th 3d] blank
BenjEMS leaves the table
sanofito: checks
Inscore77: bets $10
sanofito: folds

And, vs an aggressive player (as villain seemed to be) in the latter case he might very well have got all in with the combo draw on the flop, and certainly got all in with 2 pair/set hands. Slow playing is missing out on this value however.

Another example, this time where villain has KJ

Raise flop

Dealt to Inscore77 [Ah Qs]
BenjEMS: folds
Inscore77: raises $0.50 to $0.75
nicuaug joins the table at seat #5
crovax4444: folds
sanofito: calls $0.50
*** FLOP *** [Js Kd Th]
sanofito: bets $1
Inscore77: raise to $3.50
sanofito: reraises to $14
Inscore77: goes all in
sanofito: calls

Slow play

Dealt to Inscore77 [Ah Qs]
BenjEMS: folds
Inscore77: raises $0.50 to $0.75
nicuaug joins the table at seat #5
crovax4444: folds
sanofito: calls $0.50
*** FLOP *** [Js Kd Th]
sanofito: bets $1
Inscore77: calls $1
*** TURN *** [Js Kd Th] 3♦
sanofito: bets $2.50
Inscore77: calls $2.50
*** RIVER *** [Js Kd Th 3d] blank
sanofito: bets $5
Inscore77 raises $10 to $15
sanofito calls.

Which is ok...but we still lose out on like $6. And if villain takes the line below, we lose out on ALOT of value

Dealt to Inscore77 [Ah Qs]
BenjEMS: folds
Inscore77: raises $0.50 to $0.75
nicuaug joins the table at seat #5
crovax4444: folds
sanofito: calls $0.50
*** FLOP *** [Js Kd Th]
sanofito: bets $1
Inscore77: calls $1
*** TURN *** [Js Kd Th] 3♦
sanofito: bets $2.50
Inscore77: calls $2.50
*** RIVER *** [Js Kd Th 3d] blank
sanofito: checks (got to be wondering what the hell he is calling 2 streets with)
Inscore77: bets $5
sanofito calls $5.