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I would likely fold as well. Check/raise on the flop in 1/2 is almost never a bluff in my experience. The only thing to consider is that, while this play is representing 2-pair or better, some weak players in low stakes games will check/raise a pair like 99-JJ on a flop like this. They are over-repping their hand when they do this (whether they know it or not), but I don’t think they’re trying to get a hand like QQ-AA to fold. They’re trying to fold out hands like AK/AQ/AJ and get value from hands that flopped top pair. Whether a particular player would make the play I describe is something you just have to learn from experience. So as a default in a 1/2 game, I would just fold here.
One crucial piece of information is whether the ace on the board is the ace of diamonds. If it is, then he can’t both have you beat and have a flush draw. If the ace is not a diamond, then he can very easily have AXdd. So if Ad is not on the board, I would fold for sure because a big part of his range is a pair of aces and the nut flush draw. If Ad is on the board, then I might call if I thought this player was capable of over-shoving a flush draw. If I didn’t think him capable of that play, or at least thought that he’s unlikely to make that play, then I’d fold.
Since you know he has a set, you have no fold equity. So it just becomes a math exercise. If you shove, that’s 300 beyond your 20 to win 374. That’s about 1.25 to 1. So you need about 44% equity in order for a shove to be profitable. Your flush draw against his set has about 25% equity. You’re not getting the right price. You should fold.
Flatting here in position is fine, but this is definitely a good spot for a squeeze and AJss is a good hand to do it with. With this many callers you need to go big though. I’d make it a minimum of 100. My coach uses the guideline of 3x the bet in position (4x out of position) plus 1x for every caller. That would make 3×15 + 4×15 = 105 in this case.
It’s always frustrating to miss out on winning a big pot. But given your read of V2 and the fact that V3 cold called V2’s shove, I think it’s reasonable to fold AK here. A lot of folks would stack off with AK for <90bb as a default, but when you’re against 3 opponents, at least one of which is very likely to have a big pair, I think your fold is good.
You can certainly call on the flop rather than raise (and that’s probably what I would do in this spot), but all the money is likely getting in by the river regardless. When you raise with KQ pre, get called by AK with only 60 big blinds and get a K-high flop, you’re going to double her up. It’s just one of those spots. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were just unlucky. It could just as easily have been a Q-high flop and you would have won the pot or an A-high flop and you could have gotten away from it easily. By the way, AK should pretty much always be 3-betting out of position here.
Against a set of 8s (and not removing any dead clubs from other hands) you would have 42% equity on the flop. Getting 1.5 to 1 you would need at least 40% equity to make a call profitable, so your equity is sufficient in that case. 3 ways against KTcc and AJcc (i.e. for the main pot) you have 39.5% equity on the flop, so again it’s about right. Heads up against KTcc with AJcc considered as dead cards (for the side pot), you have 43.5%. So your call was profitable long-term in either scenario. The best way to make these calculations, though, is to assign a range of possible hands that villain might have and calculate your equity against the whole range. If your range assessment was pretty much just sets and flush draws, then the numbers above would still be about right.
FYI I used an app called Poker Cruncher to make these calculations. It’s available for both iOS and Android.
Don’t beat yourself up too much Han. $200 is a lot of money to a lot of people, so being intimidated by a bet that large is understandable. The key is to get to a point where you can ignore the absolute amounts and focus instead on the amounts relative to the blinds and to the size of the pot. The only way to get there is experience. The more you play, the more you’ll just think about the specifics of the hand and the strategy you’re employing and less about the money involved.
In my experience, over-folding in a 1/3 game is generally not a bad thing. People way under-bluff at low stakes, so folding any one-pair hand to significant aggression is a good default choice in those games. (Note this changes dramatically at higher stakes with stronger players.) There’s an important exception to the suggested rule above, though, which is the rare occasion when you have a maniac at your table. Those players are not too hard to identify. When a maniac is going crazy splashing chips around, your strategy should be to tighten up your choice of starting hands, but to play those hands aggressively preflop in order to press your advantage with a strong hand. When you flop top pair or better (and especially when you flop top pair with AK, which is always top pair top kicker when it flops a pair), you’ll need to be willing to call off your stack with any reasonably low SPR (such as the ~2 SPR you had here). This can be an uncomfortable position to be in (and sometimes you’ll lose your stack), but in my opinion it’s the right strategy against this sort of player who clearly loves to shove his weight around and force players to make tough decisions for large bets.
Hope this helps. Hang in there. I commend your dedication to studying, and I’m sure you’ll see significant improvement in your game in the near future.
Cheers!
DaveI would have folded 78o preflop here, likely calling with 78s. Once you call preflop I think your line is good. No need to 3bet when V2 raises on the flop. Let him keep the lead. Nice hand. Always nice to win a big pot. 🙂
I’m glad it worked out well for you in this spot, but I would never check AK on this flop when I was the preflop raiser. You will have the best hand a huge percentage of the time and there will be lots of worse aces and queens which can call you. If I was the BB here I would have checked the flop as he did (to stay in flow), but once you check back the flop I would have led the turn for about half pot (so similar to your 15). Once you call turn I would lead again on the river and probably size up a bit to 70-80% pot for value, targeting a call from a hand like AK or AJ.
As I said, glad you lost the minimum here. But I would suggest that by failing to value bet top pair on the flop with AK (in a single-raise pot when you are the preflop raiser), you’re missing out on value in the long run.
The only thing I’d do differently in this hand is to bet more on each street. In 1/3 I usually open to 15, but 12 is fine. 4-ways to the flop so the pot is 49 (including the folded SB). So I’d probably bet 30-35 on the flop. When a flush draw comes on the turn I’d bet 60-70% pot (so as played maybe 65). You absolutely should continue on the river once you boat up. You can size down a bit to target something like JJ or TT – maybe 40% pot (as played about 80 or 85 – so this street was the one where you were closest to the right sizing imo).
Don’t beat yourself up about not getting called on the river. It’s hard to get 3 streets of value on a relatively dry board. Getting two streets of value is a good result. Well done! 🙂
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.
This is a tough spot which is very hard to get away from. My first comment would be that as the PFR, I would almost certainly lead out on this flop, since I have the overpair with a redraw to the nut flush. As played, I don’t fault your check/raise on the flop, since there are lots of worse hands that could be betting the flop and will call a raise (mostly hands containing the Kh/Qh/Jh). Unfortunately V is very unlikely to have KhKx/QhQx/JhJx since he didn’t 3-bet you preflop. When he shoves, it’s basically just a math problem. If I’m counting correctly, you need to call 150 to win 296. So you’re getting just under 2 to 1. That means you need to have the best hand or draw to the best hand 1/3 of the time in order for a call to be profitable. You have 2 chances to hit your flush (you have 6 clean outs twice since 4h makes him a straight flush). Against the exact hand V had (or pretty much any made flush), you have about 27% equity (according to the Poker Cruncher app). That’s almost the 1/3 you need right there. So basically if you ever have the best hand here (i.e. don’t need to hit your flush), then this is a clear call. If you think you always need to hit the flush to win, then it’s close but it looks like a fold.
I think preflop and flop are fine. I think you should be betting more on the turn. Even shoving, as Joe suggests, isn’t terrible if you think players will call big bets with flush draws.
But I want to stress a key point: you should always be betting here for value and never to try to get a worse hand to fold. If you can charge AXss the max by shoving on the turn and you think they’ll call, by all means jam it in. But you DO NOT want them to fold. You want them to call. If you’re shoving to get a flush draw to fold, you’re doing it wrong. When you are confident you have the best hand (which I think you justifiably were in this case) you should be looking to maximize your value. That doesn’t mean getting draws to fold. It means getting them to pay as big a price for their draw as you can. That’s how you maximize your profit, because most of the time their draw won’t hit.
Now of course if they didn’t have a chance to win some of the time, they’d never call. So you will get drawn out on sometimes, and unfortunately this was one of those times. Those times often come in streaks (as is the nature of anything based on a probability distribution) and it sounds like you’ve been on the losing end of a few lately. I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve been there – a lot. But that is not a reason to move up to 2/5. In fact, when people are chasing flush draws for the wrong price routinely in a game, that’s a game you should want to play in because you’ll make more than you lose in the long run against those players. If you want to move up to 2/5 and you can afford to do so, that’s great. But my advice would be don’t do it because you are getting drawn out on by folks paying too much for their draws at the lower stakes. Keep grinding and playing a solid strategy and you’ll be profitable long term. Good luck at the tables! 🙂
Losing with a full house is never fun. I doubt it would have changed the outcome, but I would not have checked back on the turn. You may fold out worse hands, but I think you need to try to get three streets of value in this situation. Allowing a free river card is not a good idea imo. You will likely get called by flush draws and overpairs and you may get check/raised by something like A9. In this case I don’t think betting turn would have folded out JJ, so you were going to lose either way unfortunately. But in future I’d suggest betting turn for value when it’s checked to you in a spot like this.
