KJo in a multiway pot
Effective stack: approximately $190
A very loose player opens to $15 from early position. He had already lost around half of his stack and had approximately $150 left. During the time I had been at the table, he had been calling a lot of hands preflop and raising frequently, so he appeared to be playing quite loosely and possibly tilting.
I am in the CO with KJo and call the $15 open. The BTN calls as well, and both blinds come along.
Pot: approximately $75
Flop: K-x-5♣-2♣
The blinds and the original raiser check. I check, and the BTN checks behind.
My reasoning at the time was that, at live $1/$2, I have noticed that players tend to call flop bets quite widely when there is a possible draw, even with fairly weak holdings. I thought that checking and waiting could allow me to avoid building a large multiway pot too early with only top pair and a medium kicker.
Turn: 9-x
The action checks to me again. I bet $40.
The BTN, who covers me, raises to $140 total.
I had approximately $135 remaining after my turn bet, so calling the raise would leave me with only around $35 behind.
The BTN had already made a couple of large raises during the previous 30 minutes, although I had not seen enough showdowns to know whether these raises were value-heavy or whether he was capable of doing this with draws or weaker hands.
Hero?
4 Replies
Fold pre. KJo is trash, probably 3bet if you want to play it.
Flop easy bet for value. If you aren't betting tp might as well fold pre with such hand.
Turn raise are usually underbluff. But I guess v's range is combodraws and 99?
Probably fold unless you have a read on villain.
First, if we believe that EP is opening too wide and possibly tilting, then we want to iso him. By flatting, you're inviting the button in with a very wide range, he has position and you're monkey in the middle. So if you're going to play because you're targeting EP, then 3!. KJo is a bit light given that you're probably pot committed if EP jams. So it's probably -EV, but if I believe that EP is going to jam with hands like 55, K9, QJ etc it might not be horribly -EV and good for the game. Calling is just horrible and the worst of the three options.
Second: "My reasoning at the time was that, at live $1/$2, I have noticed that players tend to call flop bets quite widely when there is a possible draw, even with fairly weak holdings. I thought that checking and waiting could allow me to avoid building a large multiway pot too early with only top pair and a medium kicker."
Ok, so you reason that Vs are going to call too wide and call with a lot of hands that you have beat. If that is true, why aren't we betting? We want to bloat the pot if the hands that are calling include a bunch of hands we are ahead of. Specifically, it's a huge win for us if button folds because than we get position for the rest of the hand and if we bet and button folds, the turn will check around to us more often than not, allowing us to get a free card if we want (and we probably do).
So if we're going to play KJo as a flat preflop, then I think we should bet here. You don't have to go large, bet $25-$30. If the button wakes up and raises you or even flats you, then you can just fold because the button is next to act and the button has to deal with the reality that the players in the blinds would go for a x/r with almost all their monsters. So if button raises us on the flop, we can just go away content that at best we are against a big draw willing to play for stacks and we aren't willing to play for stacks. If button calls, there's a high probability that we're behind, and we can check/eval turn hoping he lets us get a free/cheap showdown.
By checking around to the turn, it's more complicated because now the button has seen the other players check twice. The button can be reasonably confident that your range is pretty wide and includes a lot of marginal made hands like TPWK because if you had a set or 2p, would you check with only one player behind on this board? Not as much as the blinds might. It's much lower risk for the button to raise as a semi-bluff with draws OTT than it would have been OTF. So for the button, its a good spot to bluff, but K9 and 99 are obvious hands that would flat pre, check back flop almost always, and now want to get the money in. I think buttons sets and 2p OTF probably bet. AK/KQ probably bet flop a lot. So button has 99, K9, and bluffs, which are likely FDs with additional equity maybe hands like A9cc, QJcc, QTcc, JTcc.
Your turn bet is rather large and now you're getting a reasonable price to get it all in. You're putting in $135 to win a pot that is $425; are you good 1/3rd of the time? Against a random $1/$2 player probably not, but you've seen this guy bet big a few times so maybe he isn't an average $1/$2 player. I'd call, expecting to lose a lot. But I think that's a smaller mistake and possibly slightly +EV if V does semi-bluff here compared to the mistakes preflop and on the flop, and at least you learn something about the button that might be useful in the future. If you fold, you just spewed this hand and have no new information to show for it.
First, if we believe that EP is opening too wide and possibly tilting, then we want to iso him. By flatting, you're inviting the button in with a very wide range, he has position and you're monkey in the middle. So if you're going to play because you're targeting EP, then 3!. KJo is a bit light given that you're probably pot committed if EP jams. So it's probably -EV, but if I
Just to clarify, the player who raised me on the turn was not the loose player I was targeting. I had position on the original raiser, while the BTN had position on me.
The BTN therefore saw me check back the flop, but he did not see me check twice. On the turn, the action checked to me and I bet before he raised.
I understand the comments about the preflop and flop decisions. My intention was to keep the pot relatively small with top pair and a medium kicker, especially in a multiway pot. However, in hindsight, a 3-bet preflop may have been better if the objective was to isolate the loose player and avoid going to the flop five-handed.
Grunch:
PRE - 3B or fold. Either is fine. Folding is probably slightly better than raising. Calling is the worst option.
FLOP - just bet your hand for thin value when action checks to you. You're not going to get punished anywhere near often enough. You'll have the best hand here a lot. I might check it through with worse KX combos, but KJo seems just good enough to bet here.
TURN - what's the goal when you bet around half pot?
I think we should probably bet bigger, to target all the worse 1P and draws. What hands call $40 but fold if we bet $50, or $60, or full pot?
As played, V would seem to be repping K9 or 99 for value. Can't count the combos of K9s without knowing the suits of the K on board or in your hand. Assuming he's got maybe as two. So he's repping 5 combos that beat us.
Maybe he has some combo draw bluffs with hands like QJcc/QTcc/JTcc/87cc/86cc/76cc. Maybe he does this with A9cc, or some KXcc combos that we have out-kicked. But he might stab with some of those hands on the flop, at some frequency.
I'd think he'd bet flop with 43cc, and 55/22, so I'd be discounting those hands somewhat.
I dunno. Turn raises tend to be under-bluffed. The flop check, turn raise line from IP tends to be under-bluffed, and people tend to under-bluff in multi-way pots, though maybe this spot gets bluffed more when everyone in front of you checks twice.
V could have a super wide range on the BTN, allowing him to show up with K9/99.
Unless we have a read that he's frequently out of line, I'd think his raising range is going to be made up of hands that have us beat, or have a good amount of equity when they don't.
We're drawing dead vs 99, drawing to 3 outs vs K9, and we're trying to dodge 12-15 of his outs if he's bluffing.
I don't like how we got here, and don't like folding a decent top pair, but it seems like the best play.
