$235 NLHE MTT Deep Stacked: Fire a 3rd bullet or check with middle pair?

[jrodders]

Hi everyone, this is my first post so be gentle with me

This is a live tournament. 2nd level, average stack 20,000, blinds 50/100, no ante. It's early in the tourney all 3 players have roughly avg stack. No read on button, UTG+1 has been in ~50% of hands, usually limp/call.

Hero: KhJh middle position.

UTG+1 limps; hero raises to 400; fold around to button, button calls, sb folds, bb folds, UTG+1 calls. Pot: 1350

Flop: Qh8h3c

Hero bets 700, button calls, UTG+1 calls. Pot: 3450

Turn: Js

Hero bets 1200, button calls, UTG+1 folds. Pot: 5850

River: 7c

What do you do? Fire a 3rd bullet? Check? Of course, any comments on play up to this point are welcome too.

 

[Lucothefish]

without a read on button, firing river turns our Jx into a bluff. check and call up to half pot

Your line is fine although I often check that turn. I'm quite passive early though

 

[Jillychemung]

As played - You have showdown value here but I don't like letting the BTN set the terms for showdown so I'd lead for T$1500 and fold to a raise.

IMHO I'm folding KJs preflop up until the BTN at these early levels. A lot of players will just float AK/AJ/KQ behind you and even if you flop a K or J you hand may still not be the best hand. With few/no reads on your opponents I like to stay away from these starting hands that have a lot of reverse implied odds.

 

[TimovieMan]

Bet/fold or check/call are probably around equal EV.

How have you been playing up until this hand? How aggressive were you? Did you play many hands? Did you go to showdown before?
How aggressive did the other guy seem?

I ask, because your (and his) table image is going to be important to distinguish between the two.

 

[jrodders]

It was a table they'd opened up late due to larger than expected turnout. So even though it was the 2nd level, we'd only seen 8-10 hands. This was the first hand I'd played. The button had splashed a little, limp/calling 2, maybe 3 times. So technically I probably seemed tight and he seemed loose, but with so few hands I wasn't putting a lot of stock in that.

 

[TimovieMan]

In that case, I probably check/call for the information it provides. If he checks behind, we win the hand, but if he bets, we need to call to make sure whether or not he's prone to bluff-betting a whiffed flush draw.


If we bet, we're very likely to fold out all worse hands, but get a call by all hands that beat us. I prefer to induce a bluff in that case.

 

[Figaroo2]

Okay so he likes to see flops that means he's going to be super wide floating the button.
I can't see anything worse calling here on the end.. He likely either has a Queen or a heart draw as well. It's actually for that reason I wouldn't semi bluff this turn as you are potentially beat by the nut flush.
I save my semi bluffs for when I have the nut draw so if it hits you're decision is easy.
What you going to do if you hit the flush bet and he sticks you all in....puke. A good player can pull this off even if he only has the Ah as he knows you can't have the nut flush.
This comes back to opening hand selection really with this hand we would rather make a straight, flushes are a bonus. It looks pretty but isn't a great hand to iso with in MP. Limp along or fold pre this deep and early.
Effectively then we can only bluff catch but you have to get to showdown here or people will be floating you all day. Checking opens his full bluffing range but you should call unless the bet is very large.
The alternative is to barrel again and bet up the amount you would have called had you checked, folding to a raise obviously.
As pointed out there isn't much EV difference between the plays but check calling you are more likely to see his cards and potentially pick off a bluff so for that reason early doors I prefer a check call.

 

[Tomasz]

if the turn does not get a raise, you do not expect a strong SDV , and i play third barrel


We can be float with a pocket pair often

 

[MasterOfDisaster]

I wouldn't semi bluff this turn

Turnplay, this (although it is not a semibluff only) plus u can have best hand, button could stab hands turn that would fold 2 your bet
Qx prolly not folding as well and maybe sometimes a T9 that obv never folds, also you are in front of every other draw. so im not betting turn even 3way

 

[jrodders]

Thanks guys! Great feedback.

I ended up checking the river and calling a 1/3 pot bet. He turned over AA. I was relatively happy with how I played it, but your comments definitely got me looking at it from different angles. Thanks again.

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

Preflop: Fine, but optional. Limping along, raising the limper and folding are all acceptable. I tend to assess the table a little longer before I start isolating limpers with medium hands (or even playing medium hands) but there's nothing technically wrong with your play provided that you won't get into too much trouble post flop with hands like this.

Flop: The size of your Cbet is fine. Whether or not to Cbet is up for debate. not a terrible board to Cbet, so I like it OK. once they both call though I'm making a mental note to calm way down on this hand. I'll figure one of them has a Q and the other has a draw (possibly a better draw than me).

Turn: Sweet! we have something now. 2nd pair plus a decent draw. we are in a 3way pot where we are most likely behind. I see no reason to fire again on this turn. The button may like to float, and now he might take a stab at the pot when we finally have some nice equity. And for the times we are behind we get to the river a little cheaper by either A) getting a free card or B) calling one bet instead of possibly getting check raised. I would check/call up to half pot.

River: Well, we brick out but it's not a terrible result. 2nd pair on this board rates to win a decent % of the time because there are a fair amount of busted draws in his range. So I would check this river both to induce bluffs from busted draws and to limit pot size from better hands. I would call reasonable bet sizes here.

......The alternative is to barrel again and bet up the amount you would have called had you checked, folding to a raise obviously.
As pointed out there isn't much EV difference between the plays but check calling you are more likely to see his cards and potentially pick off a bluff so for that reason early doors I prefer a check call.

I agree with this quote except for the part where he says there isn't much EV difference between betting the amount you feel comfortable calling on the river or check calling. It's actually quite different from an EV perspective because once you fire 3 barrels you ONLY get called when you're beat.

If you check, it could go check check which is fine or it could go check call which is fine. All outcomes from checking are fine.

If you bet it could go bet/fold which is fine. or it could go bet/call which means you're beat or it could go bet/raise/fold which is a disaster. you could be beat or not beat but you don't even get to see his hand. 2/3 of the outcomes from betting are bad.

 

[TimovieMan]

Ignore my posts (or any of them, really). ^missjacki just won the thread, imo.

 

[Delvuter]

BTN would have 3-bet QQ, AK, and maybe AQ, they would have called KQ and maybe AQ, and folded QJ and less. So they may have AQ or KQ in their pre calling range. I like to low ball, so pre I would have only bet 3XBB in MP, even 1BB more is 1BB wasted. The second you got multi calls I would have slowed down, so flop I would have checked. If HU I would have C-bet. So I would have checked flop and only called if price was right and after turn if no heart came I would find my exit. Not going any further w/ a J pair.