Call, raise, or Fold to keep the Balance

[Mo]

See the hand using the following link and help me what would be the best action, thanks all. Here is the link to my hand:

http://mysmp.me/vh_mwy

Get ShareMyPair at http://mysmp.me

[Chuck M]

Hi Mo,

Without being result orientend (not knowing villain’s hand), I like your preflop call. Not a super strong hand, but behind two limpers, villain raises quite small, and you guys are deep. I don’t mind getting to see a flop IP with that gapper, hoping to flop a pair or two and/or a draw.

You flat the flop, which I like. No need to raise here, I think, with tp + gutshot. There are a lot of better jacks in the pf raiser’s range (over pairs, overcards). Here, I would be lookink to hit a 9, a T, or a J. You didn’t call preflop to fold that flop, it hits your range imho.

Turn, I don’t like this raise at all. That brick changes nothing, appart from a set of deuces, you rep nothing, anything you called flop with doesn’t need protection on that card. I mean, had you flopped mid set, you would’ve raised flop, or if you flat, then I imagine you’d also flat this turn.
I think we still have a lot of showdown equity not to turn our hand into a bluff (which is a little bit what that raise would imply, imho). So, I’d flat turn.

River… well, had you flat turn, if villain wudda check river, I think I would’ve checked back as well, with our showdown value, expecting to win a fair amount of the time with our jack. I don’t think I’d go for thin value (maybe), but I would expect villain to fold pretty much every worse hands. And I wouldn’t expect him to fold any better hand (like, he’ll chk/call JT here, in my opinion).

If you chose to turn into a bluff with your turn raise, after villain checks the river, I think I’d try to follow up with another bet (kinda big / polarizing), thinking he’s capped to a one pair hand at best. Would he fold QQ+, i dunno, would he fold AJ? i dunno… On the other hand, that raise on that blank turn doesn’t rep much, so… that’s not an easy spot to bluff him off his hand, i think…

Yeah, I think the mistake was to raise turn.

[Mo]

Hi Chuck M,

Thanks for taking the time and explaining clrealy your thought process. I don’t have any problem with your play.
Here are some other things that went to my mind before raising,
1. I would do same raise with Sets or straight on the turn to get value from this hand if I loose here.
2. By Raising I get the control of the play to my hand considering I have position. If I hit on the river I bet, otherwise I check as I did. As you said I have show down value and no need to make my hand to a bluff.
3. By raising I might make the player behind me fold better hand than mine (JT, JQ, JK, or maybe AJ) and in process increase my outs (for example 9 may give me a winner if I make the player behind me fold JT)
4. As you said in this dry board, the better may think what can I have that I raise with, and he might fold hand like JQ, JK (small possibility)

Thanks again Man,
I like your play as well and will use it in some cases.

[Author]

Posts