$2 HU shootout - fire the third barrell?

[OzExorcist]

First round of a four-player HU shootout. Villain has been fairly aggressive - he's toned it back a little bit in the last few hands, since I started to open a bit of a decent lead. He's done this minbet the flop thing a few times now - mostly I've missed so I've just folded, so I'm not really sure what it's meant.

I've mostly been showing down good hands and playing what I guess passes for the HU version of TAG.

Which brings us here: dunno why, but I decided that this hand was the one where I wanted to find out WTF those flop minbets meant. The villain's long wait times are out of character as well, though that could just be a connection thing (game was a little laggy).

Anywho, what say y'all? What do we do, and why?

full tilt poker Game #7381959766: $2 + $0.20 Heads Up Shootout (56135345), Table 1 - 15/30 - No Limit Hold'em - 10:49:37 ET - 2008/07/26
Seat 1: Buzzrock58 (1,030)
Seat 2: OzExorcist (1,970)
OzExorcist posts the small blind of 15
Buzzrock58 posts the big blind of 30
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to OzExorcist [4c Jd]
OzExorcist calls 15
Buzzrock58 has 15 seconds left to act
Buzzrock58 checks
*** FLOP *** [5c 7d 2h]
Buzzrock58 has 15 seconds left to act
Buzzrock58 bets 30
OzExorcist raises to 120
Buzzrock58 has 15 seconds left to act
Buzzrock58 calls 90
*** TURN *** [5c 7d 2h] [3d]
Buzzrock58 has 15 seconds left to act
Buzzrock58 bets 30
OzExorcist raises to 200
Buzzrock58 has 15 seconds left to act
Buzzrock58 calls 170
*** RIVER *** [5c 7d 2h 3d] [Ts]
Buzzrock58 has 15 seconds left to act
Buzzrock58 checks
OzExorcist ?

 

[Pothole]

Let it go, he either has an overpair and is trapping or bottom or middle pair, whatever you bet he will call. Your not pot committed and will only be around 300 behind after the hand.

 

[Kenzie 96]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
yup

 

[Mr Alacran]

Advice: Don't limp from the button with hands like J4o. Either raise, or muck'em, because if you're just limping to try to hit a flop, that's just unprofitable play.
About the hand, he must have a 5 or a weak 7, and he's calling almost anything. If you think you can push him off his hand, then go ahead and bet. I would save my chips for a better spot.

 

[Zorba]

Like Mr Alacran said "Either raise, or muck'em", I think he was on a str8 draw or oesd with 68.

 

[petey5o]

heres what you did wrong...limping in with that hand heads up

 

[OzExorcist]

OK, some interesting feedback so far. A couple of things:

Re: limping the hand. We have three options here - raise, call or fold. Folding the hand is, I think, awful. Remember this is HU, the villain will miss the flop just as often as we will and we have position. So that leaves us with raising or calling.

My decision to raise or call with a marginal hand is based as much on what I've done on the past few hands as anything else. Raising every single hand becomes a major leak in HU, almost as big as folding your small blind on a regular basis, because your opponents will catch on before long and then start re-raising you light. So I'll flat call for variation on occasion.

Variation is one reason to just call before the flop. Pot control is the other - J4 is a difficult hand to play, and not one I really want to build a huge pot with before the flop. I don't want to have to fight for a big pot with that hand if I can help it, and nor do I want to give my opponent a big pot that's worth fighting over. I'd much rather take something like T8 or even 65 into a big pot than I would J4. We can either build a pot if we hit, steal a small pot that villain probably won't fight for if he misses, or get away on the flop if we face lots of resistance.

Re: limping to hit a flop - that's not really what I'm doing, and I think the play of the hand bears that out. As much as anything else, I'm limping to have my opponent miss the flop.

Re: what the villain has

This is the big point, I think. My thinking, and others may disagree, is villain's hand is really polarised into two categories: monsters, and busted draws. A third possibility is a small pair.

Monsters will obviously call us if we fire the third barrell. Busted draws simply can't call us (unless they're ace-high, in which case a desperate villain might take a stab) and small pairs... some villains might call with them, but really, about the only thing a pair of fives or worse can figure to beat is a bluff.

So the question is, how often is this a monster, how often is it a busted draw, and how often does a small pair call, if that's what it turns out to be?

 

[petey5o]

i play a lot of heads up and i play the shootouts. I raise any hand im gonna play pre flop wether its 23 suited. to pocket aces. after a few hands i start getting a lot of action. I almost always bet after one of my raises. what i do in this situation is fold. because i dont want to be getting action with a hand like that.

 

[robwhufc]

Re: limping the hand. We have three options here - raise, call or fold. Folding the hand is, I think, awful. Remember this is HU, the villain will miss the flop just as often as we will and we have position. So that leaves us with raising or calling.

Folding isn't awful at all - if you are the most agressive player which you should be, you have to fold every now and then to keep your raises "honest". I'd fold this 100% of the time in the SB.

Re position, massively overrated Heads up in my opinion. How has position helped you here in this hand?

Re 3rd barrell bluff, it's something that I do way, way too much. t's a major loser for me, sometimes they've picked up a draw which they'll let go, but more often they've hit a pair which they refuse to lay down. If he has got a busted draw, Jack high could even be good?

I wouldn't worry about giving this hand up, he shouldn't be able to beat you with those stupid minibets - you'll be able to call down cheaply, so just take your time. Just call.

 

[Steveg1976]

My guess, villian had a 5. Admittedly I am not an expert but the minraises tend to be "I have a piece of the flop but nothing huge" and to real pressure I will let it go (ie, a shove) but normal raises will be called down. When the ten hit he may have thought that there a really good chance his 5 was no longer good and just checked, but very well might call a reasonable bet. I would shoot from the hip and say 70-80% of time this is a small pair, 10-15% monster, and 10-15% missed draw.

 

[viking999]

It may only be a busted draw, but look at that flop. There are only three decent draws that didn't really get there: the 86, the 98, and the 43. And you beat two of them with jack high!!! So why bet it in position?

I don't expect a 7 or a 5 to fold unless you bet full pot, which is pretty big and risky at this point.

On the plus side, I think this is very rarely a monster, but I still don't think it's good to bet the river.

Edit: Also, I don't see what's so strange about his min-bet. You only limped, so it was a half pot bet. I do this a fair amount in heads up play. It's smallish but not ridiculous.

Edit2: I don't hate that you limped with this hand on the button, but I do hope you also limp with very strong hands sometimes. I'd want 25% of my button limps to be monsters.

 

[OzExorcist]

Folding isn't awful at all - if you are the most agressive player which you should be, you have to fold every now and then to keep your raises "honest". I'd fold this 100% of the time in the SB.

Re position, massively overrated Heads up in my opinion. How has position helped you here in this hand?

Re 3rd barrell bluff, it's something that I do way, way too much. t's a major loser for me, sometimes they've picked up a draw which they'll let go, but more often they've hit a pair which they refuse to lay down. If he has got a busted draw, Jack high could even be good?

Interesting points - gotta admit, it never really occured to me that jack-high could be good in this spot.

I did shove, figuring:

1 - Villain has been acting weak the whole hand. The long, out of character think times followed by weak actions (minbetting / calling) were what really cinched that call for me
2 - I should be able to get some better hands (ie: low pairs) to fold
3 - I don't really have any showdown value
4 - If I lose, blinds / stacks are still at a level where I can grind a comeback

Villain used up most of his time then folded. On reflection, Rob definitely has a point - I actually beat a lot of the busted draws on showdown, so my justification on point 3 may have been pretty poor.

Guess it depends how often we put him on a busted draw vs how often we put him on a low pair. I got the result I was after, but I'm not 100% happy with how I played it. Thanks for the feedback y'all


(General stuff that gets away from this specific hand)

On position, I agree that it can be overrated in heads up. In this case, however, it's given me a pretty fair indication of the villain's strength, as welland it's given me the option to just check behind on the river should I so choose.

On limping, yes I'm occasionally mixing up and limping with big hands. I'm also raising with poor hands often enough that villain can't put me on a monster every time I raise. So I do other things to keep my raises "honest", or to maintain the balance between honesty and dishonesty as the case may be

On folding though... we can disagree on this point, but I'm open folding this pretty much never. Villain (this villain especially) misses the flop and gives up on the pot far too often - this is the other time when position helps us, as we'll know when the villain has given up . Against this particular villain (again, getting away from this specific hand), very occasionally we'd get check-raised, occasionally we'd get called, but mostly when he checked to us on the flop he was saying "take the pot".