Playing against a nut flush blocker

[FreshmanJoe]

It's 1-2 no limit Holden. UTG straddles for 5$. I limp from UTG+1 with KhTh with the intention of calling a raise. Cutoff calls, big blind calls, UTG (loose aggressive) makes it 30. I call. Everyone else folds. Flop comes Ac6hQh. He bets 40, I call. Turn comes 2s, he checks, I bet 70, he yells "pot control, pot control" and calls. River is 2h. He goes all in for 700$ into 291$ pot. I have him covered by 100$. He was a little maniacal, but I thought there was a method to his madness. I fold my K high flush. He shows Ah8s. Afterthought, I could've checked the turn and called the river, Or maybe check the turn, bet the river. But he probably would've pushed in any case. So what do you do in a situation like this?

 

[Hermus]

You're not just playing against a nut flush blocker you're playing against villains entire range. It's your job as a poker player to estimate his range as accurately as possible and play accordingly.

Against a tight player you're probably up against a boat (or maybe not because they would've bet the turn) or ace high and king high flushes the majority of the time. Against this range you have 17% equity and you need 41% for a profitable call. If he's betting all his ace of heart combo's to as low as A8o you're getting 60% so it's a profitable call. Any other weird bluff combo's, two pair, and trips, villain has just increase that number. It's hard to do all these calculations at the table so make sure to study with an equity calculator off the table. Still, I find it weird that you describe this player as a bit of a maniac, but you're still not calling him down with a strong made hand. Sure you're going to lose sometimes, but folding the king-high flush against a player that you know gets out of line seems a little bit to nitty.

Sidenote, don't open limp. Treat your position as UTG when facing an UTG straddle in UTG +1. KTs is a fine open raise fold to a 3-bet.

 

[Highsolation]

I agree with what Hermus said, if you consider him a maniac, then you should've called as it was a +EV profitable call in the long run.
I think if you checked turn, he might not have pushed at the river (although we will never know), as he would have top pair and not a real good kicker, if he bets would've been for thin value, as his shove will be called by better hands only.

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
KTs is good enough to play here, but its better to be the person opening the pot rather than limp-calling. It makes it much easier to represent a big hand postflop and it actually also tend to keep the pot smaller.

Flop
I can see merits for both calling and raising here, so maybe look to do a bit of both with this kind of hand.

Turn
Seems fine enough to take a stab at it, when he check to you. It allow you to represent a stronger range on the river and at least consider bluffing, if you miss your draw. It also builds the pot for, when you improve. If I had the preflop betting lead, I would certainly dubble barrel this hand.

River
This is of course the interesting part of the hand, and its always difficult to not be results oriented, when you shared the result. So I recommend not doing that next time. Anyways I will do my best, and obviously you now made a flush, but you lose to a boat and to the nut flush.

So lets do some hands reading and see, how many combos of those, we think, he can have. Starting with boats would he really isolate out of position with A2 or Q2? I dont think so, so these hands got removed preflop. Would he check-call the turn with a set? That also seem very unlikely, so I actually think, its fair to say, that with his previous actions, he never have a boat on this runout.

That leaves the nut flush, which he can certainly have. However AhKh, AhQh and AhTh are not possible, because you hold KhTh, and Qh is on the table. I also think, most players would bet the turn with AhJh for value. The nut flush with a weak kicker makes the most sense for him as played so Ah9h, Ah8h, Ah7h, Ah5h, Ah4h, Ah3h for a maximum of 6 combos.

You are facing an overbet, but when your opponent has a maximum of 6 realistic combos for value, I think, you just have to close your eyes and put the money in. I understand, its uncomfortable, because this is a live game, and you are very deep, so its real money unlike most of the hands, that are played online. But this is probably, what he is trying to take advantage off. His line of thought is basically, that if he bet 700$, you are unvilling to call with anything less than the nuts, and since he block the A high flush, he will only get called, when you have a boat.

And this is where, we need to go back to preflop and the reason, why its bad to limp. Because you are probably not limping AA or QQ. So your only boats here are 66 and maybe A2s, which mean, that if you fold a K high flush, then he can very profitably bluff you, even his bluff needs to work a large amount of the time.

Conclusion
By limping preflop you set yourself up to get owned on the river by someone, who presumably knew, what he was doing. So my main advice to fix this hand is to stop open limping in cash games. Its fine to sometimes limp behind, but there are no benefits to limp, when you are the first player to enter the pot. Also consider if its really benefitial for you to sit with 800$ in a 1/2$ game. It exposes you to being put in tough spots like this by players, who might be thinking about the game on a more advanced level than you. If you only had 200$ left on the river rather than 700$, I am sure, it would have been much easier for you to make the call. Or maybe he dont even attempt a bluff.

 

[blueskies]

As played, I would call.

You entered a multiway pot passively with KT suited and you got your dream result.

If you aren't gonna get it all in after you make a big hand then don't play KT suited from early position.

Like fundiver said, it is highly unlikely he has a set by the turn given the check/call action with a flush draw on the board so we are only afraid of the nut flush. With a nut flush I think he'd want you to call so the over the top shove makes little sense.

 

[Batarang96]

You probably won't like this answer—don't play KTs.

Rarely are there value bets that you will be able to call profitably, with this hand, and rarely will there be hands that will call your value bets when your KTs is the best hand.

Play suited Aces and suited connectors, instead.

If you don't have a major position advantage, then trash anything with a K unless its AK or KK.

 

[jj77jwj]

I love the hidden flush got to be my favorite hand it won me some tournament people cant read what you got that's the best part

 

[Recreationalplayer]

If you are folding K high flush then you are folding too much. It was the best possible river card you could get. I mean why did you call on flop and bet on Turn. In all probability your King and Ten was not live against UTG range. You had a gutshot straight draw and Flush draw and you are folding when you hit the draw.

Also you know that the villain is loose aggressive, which makes it all the more reason to call.

 

[Vilgeoforc]

Even on a paired board when the flush is closed, there is no point in folding. You can control the bank and put the initiative in the hands of an aggressive opponent, but you will have to go to showdown.

 

[takinitSLEAZEE]

I'm wondering if you were at a 6-max table? If so I can understand the limp w/K10std. At the time the villain put in $30 the pot was $21. That's more than a pot-sized bet. It seems, to me, that he/she's trying to take it down right there. A good indication that they probably have an Ax, nothing wired. The shove on the river was a pretty good sign the villain was trying to get you out of the hand because I'm sure he didn't put you on a flush draw. If he had the nut flush I'm sure he would've just bet the pot or something like that to extract max-ev. Same w/a boat.