Missed Value?

[John]

Sitting in BB in a friendly 1/2 game. 5 limpers and I check 86off. 6 to a Flop of 754 with two clubs. I Check. Checks to MP who bets $12. Folds back to me and I call and UTG calls. Turn is 10d. I bet $20. UTG Raises to $70 and MP Folds. I am thinking he is on a flush draw and Re-raise to $170. He tanks and ultimately folds. Tells me that he had 63. Thoughts?

[Dave Thompson]

Wow. That’s a super tight fold. No way a 3-bet on the turn should have prompted a fold of the second nuts, imo. There are definitely hands you could be 3-betting for value on the turn that he beats, like sets and 2-pair combos. You’re the BB in a limped pot so you could have any two cards. Granted you will often choose to raise those hands on the flop, given the wet board, but still…

My take is there are 3 possibilities: 1. your opponent is playing way too tight and you can exploit that in future, 2. you are playing way too tight and thus your opponent decided the only thing you’d 3-bet the turn with is the nuts, so he felt comfortable folding the second nuts, or 3. your opponent is lying about what he had in order to establish a (very) tight table image.

If you think the answer is 1. then that allows you to bluff this opponent more in future and also consider folding to any raise from this opponent unless you are at the top of your range. If you think the answer might be 2. then you should consider opening up your game a bit. If you think the answer might be 3. then you might consider a bit looser call than you would otherwise make (within reason of course) against this opponent in future to see if he is indeed trying to bluff you.

I could be totally wrong, but that’s my take. Interested to hear what others think.

Cheers.

[John]

Thanks for the response. Some really good info to think about. This hand was in the first 15 minutes of me sitting so I don’t think it could have been my image. I agree that I would have gotten paid by second nuts which is why I still think my read of Flush draw was correct. One question that I have is if my read was correct, was my 3 bet sizing appropriate or should I have used a different sizing?

[Michael]

Your three bet was reasonably sized to give a flush draw a bad price to call, but should have kept in the 2nd nuts. In 1/2 though players often mis-value flush draws so Ax clubs would have called plenty high enough percentage of the time to be worth the raise size. If he actually had 63, second nuts, he made an incorrect fold outside of pulling some read off you that splits hairs between – “I flopped an over pair and turned top set – NUTS!” and “yup I have the top end of the straight”. Perhaps he is currently seeing monsters under the bed or a weak player that always folds to 3 bets post flop (keep that in mind for later). Or of course he raised with air like 23o and when you three bet he just dumped but didn’t want to admit to bluff with air, so he makes up some holding under top nuts.

[Jimmy]

Friendly 1/2 games are tough to judge and you haven’t told us a lot about the villain here. If he were to call is he deep enough to rebuy? Or was this a “I lose and go home” situation. Sometimes, you’ll play tighter in those instances. As previously discussed, he may have a line on your play. That you only 3 bet if you had the dead nuts.

Realistically I don’t see him having 3/6.. This looks way more classic top pair that he knew went bad..

[Author]

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