A Bad Fold??

[Dante]

Effective stacks are
300 me
350 villain
1/2 NL

From +3 I raise w/ 54hh to 10
BtN calls, BB calls
Just started playing and not much in terms of live reads
BB is asian in his 30’s

5cJh6h
BB Check
I bet 15
BtN calls
BB calls

Td turn
I bet 30
BtN folds
Asian calls

Rivr is Kh
BB checks
I value bet 70

After a min, he acts like he is going to fold then raises all in for 220

I tank, he plays with phone like he’s uninterested and right over his cards he holds this posture holding phone with Two hands over table-

I lay down eventually after a few min, thinking he almost never has a bluff right there
He shows Ah5s

How often do I have to be right to call profitably? Or is this not the question I should be asking?

[Dave Thompson]

If I’m adding it all up correctly, you need to call 150 to win 425. So you’re getting almost 3 to 1 on a call. This means you would need to have the best hand a little over 25% of the time in order for your call to be profitable.

The way you described his actions was quite suspicious. If he really looked like he was going to fold and then went all in, you have to ask what kind of hand he would do that with. I suppose it’s possible he might do this with the nuts as a deception. But it seems a lot more likely that he was genuinely undecided as to what he should do. The naked Ah would fit that description quite well. That in turn suggests that your flush is likely good. So given the math above and his observed behavior, I think I’d call here.

[David Wibel]

Before tackling your question let’s look at how the hand plays out fully.

Pre-flop: as UTG+3 45hh may be a bit loose but not a bad hand to have in your raising range. If you have a limping range at all this is a good candidate if you balance it out with things like Axsuited or big pairs like JJ+. However this is a hand where we need to hit the flop hard to be comfortable.

Flop (pot is $31): This flop is what we are looking for without just flopping a flush or straight. A C-bet for half pot seems appropriate representing hearts, top pair, an over pair or possibly a pair between the 6 and J. Both players call and we have a pot brewing. ($275 behind)

Turn (pot is $76): Turn is a mediocre card but a good one to continue on. This could improve our opponents to straight draws it the called with KQo or KJ but it may have given our opponents 2 pair if they called with JT. Our story however is that we have a A big pair and the Td doesn’t bring in any draws. Slightly under a half pot bet seems fine and the BB is the only caller. ($240 behind)

River (pot is $136): River brings us our flush be we need to look at the full story so far. Our most likely hands so far are sets, Strong top pair (KJ+) or possibly JT suited. The heart looks like a bad card for that range and we are beaten by a lot of other flushes with our holdings. This card is also a good bluffing card. The BB could have a lot of suited Aces, a set of 6’s (we block 55). The question that you need to ask yourself is “If my opponent jams over my bet, will I call?” If the answer is “No” then we need to be check calling here because the flush coming in is a perfect bluffing opportunity. It allows our opponents a chance to bluff and we can lose the minimum with a cooler. Also, a few naked straight draws get in but that might be the only thing that just called a raise that we beat since we lose to almost every other flush only beating 23hh.

But you bet $70, half pot again and our opponent jams for our effective $170 more. So we would be calling $170 to win the pot on the river ($136) + our bet $70 + our opponents all in $170. In this case we beat all of our opponents bluffs of missed straights with a heart, if he decides to turn QJ into a bluff etc. We beat none of his value hands since all flushes beat us and he is really only representing a Q high or A high flush with the line he has taken. So the ultimate question is how often might our opponent bluff here? If he is going to bluff half the time, we call, if he is bluffing only 30%, we fold.

All said, I have a question for you. If you are folding this here (I’m guessing some of it was because of his body language) what are you calling with? Is an 8h or 9h enough or are you needing Qh or Ah to call this all in? For the body language think about what he is representing here, strength. He is uninterested, confident, it doesn’t matter what you do. Generally, this is a reverse tell and means he’s bluffing. Again, that is very player dependent but he knows what he is portraying, but doesn’t know if you are thinking on that level.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by David Wibel.

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