Monster Draw

[Saul Herrera]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

$1/$2 NL at Riverside Casino, Iowa

1 limp to me in LJ with Ad4d, I raise to $12 (pretty standard open is $10, plus $2 for the limp), get called by the BB, limper folds. The BB is the effective stack with $200

[$24] Flop comes Jd5h2d. BB donks for $15. First question, what do you do here, call or raise, and if raise, what size?

[Ethan]

Depends if you think he is a bluffer. If so I would raise this pot and potentially take it down right there. If he is very tight then maybe raise big and make him uncomfortable. The truth is you can’t go wrong here. I think raising big is best (raise him 50$ more on the flop here) and potentially setting up what may look to be like a big turn shove ((for his last 150$) (if you hit your hand)). If you don’t hit your hand he will likely check to you (if he plays in flow) and then you can take the free card and reevaluate river. Hope this helps 🙂

[Chuck M]

Reminds me of a hand i once played.
I had tptk vs villain who had small suited ace + wheel draw, was pretty much a flip on the flop. (I was oop and he raised my cbet).

Here, well, I think we could go either way. We could flat and let him continue barrelling his dominated flush draws. Or if he has Jx, you got huge equity, (even more if we assume your ace would be good).

Another option would be to raise, keeping the lead in the hand. There are jacks in your range, as well as fd’s. Maybe small sets too.

As for the sizing, i’m not sure, i think I’d go somewhere between 45-65.

Im thinking out loud here :

– 45 is 3x his bet, but lay villain close to 3:1 odds (would be 30 for him to call for a pot of 84 (before his call)). Pot would be 114 on the turn with an eff stack of 145 (i assume he started with 200, so 188 postflop (or round it up to 190)…

– 65 (50 on top). Villain has to call 50 for a pot of 104 (2:1). Pot would be 154 on the turn if he calls, and eff stack would be… 125, perfect for a turn shove… Or if villain 3bet-shoves after your flop raise, i think we can call (even against a set we are very live, all of our outs are clean (unless he has 2 black fives, in which case we lose only one out))

So yeah, i think I’d raise around 50-60/65… We might even take down the pot right there. Flatting is ok too i think.

[Saul Herrera]

Thanks for the input. I agree, both calling and raising are viable. I’ve played against this opponent many times, and I think he has a Jack all day.
As he was in the BB, I think any J9+ and all JX suited. Of course he could have a set, but I’m not sure he would have led out.

In either case, I thought raising was better in order to keep the lead, get more money in with good equity and potentially get a better hand to fold, even though I knew it would probably take a turn bet in addition to the flop raise.

So I raised to $45. I question that size, think $55-$60 would be better. He thought for a while and called.

[$111] Turn was Kc. He checked. Stack sizes are awkward here, but I bet $85 to continue the story. My plan was to give up if I get called unless I hit my draw. Villian called.

[$281] River was As. He checked, I checked with showdown value (couldn’t raise as I dont see a hand that was worse that would call).

He showed KhJc for a turned two pair.

I’d like feedback about the line I took, and alternate lines that might be better.

[Robert L]

Hi Saul,

The villain’s donk lead is almost certainly a mistake as you should have a decent range advantage on this board. Once he bets, if you really think he’s only doing this with Jacks or a set of 2s/5s then your specific hand only has about 45% equity and your range has even less, so I don’t think you should be raising here. It’s unlikely V will fold top pair to a raise after leading out, so you really have minimal fold equity. If you think he’s leading out with most flush draws then your A5 does have about 65% equity, but your whole range still has around 35-40%. I don’t think you want to fold out his bluffs and probably can’t get top pair to fold, so I think it’s a call.

Thanks!

[allin67]

My gut here is to flat too, but I can see appeal of raising to gain fold equity. Given that we have position, we get to see how our opponent reacts to our calling (if we flat). If he bets the turn despite our call, I am generally calling given all of our outs (considering his bet size and our implied odds to be sure the math seems right). His betting twice is more likely a sign of strength so I proceed more cautiously. If he checks the turn, I am almost always betting something like two-thirds of pot unless my opponent is very aggressive and likes to trap. But even then I likely still bet because we still have solid equity. Betting the turn this way makes it somewhat harder to read your hand as a draw (simple players bet draws on the flop when they have more equity and slow down if they miss the turn). Notice I am suggesting betting the turn regardless of what the turn is.

[Author]

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