Poker Listings Q of the day - Sunday 10/18/2009

[muzzington]

Call, hit a queen, win muneez.

[bennymacca]

when you raise, what are you getting value from? AJ? KQ?

on a board such as that, your not beating a whole lot that will call your raise, its only really KQ. AJ and AT are thinking long and hard about calling a raise.

i would flat here. the aforementioned hands that we beat are likely to continue if we just flat, but if we raise they are folding or calling and shutting down on later streets

its a way ahead/way behind scenario, as there aren't any straight draws and no flush draws there.

i would flat with the plan of calling any turn card save for maybe a T or J. if we get checked to on the blank turn, then its a bet/fold scenario

[bennymacca]

Wait till you see the answer - fwiw I think it's correct, but the reasoning is all wrong.

i just looked it up then aaron, what is wrong with the reasoning?

they dont elaborate much, but i dont see much wrong with it

[AceLosesKing]

Answer/PL reasoning/why I think its wrong:

Spoiler:

Just in case no one wants to know the answer yet.

Answer:
Call. You have to just call here. Your opponent is rarely going to call with worse. If you raise and he calls, you're pretty much toast. Just call and play poker on the turn.

Wow, how nitty is everyone in this thread? Can we never get value from Ax here? This IS 6max. Even Kx will give us another street of value if we flat the flop. I agree with calling the flop - but only so we can trap for the turn. Depending on villian, I'm pretty certain AJ/AT will put in there entire stack here, and KQ definitely will. We get a lot of value from weaker Aces. I am quite happy putting this in on the turn (either bet/shoving or bet/raising/shove/call).

I think the "if you raise and he calls, you're toast" line is way off. We are good a large majority of the time (there's not many combinations of QQ/KK/AA/AK left). And if we do lose to a better hand on that flop, its a cooler. Bet/folding is of course, horrible. If villian knew we were this weak tight, its correct for him to shove over us all day.

Just because villian is UTG does not mean his range is all big Aces. He should be raising with a much wider range than that. If villian was classed as tight or a nit, then folding (or even check/calling) is correct here.

However, villian is classed as a regular - so we can assume he opens a wide range UTG. Is villian going to cbet a hand better than ours on that flop? Sometimes, yes, but not a lot of the time I think. With history it is the perfect flop to cbet, but vs an unknown I prefer c/c or c/r.

Anyway, just my theory.

[bennymacca]

aaron, think about the reverse scenario. lets say you had AJ and led on that flop, then you get raised. that sends the alarm bells off in your head, but you still think you have good equity, so you call. turn is a blank.

what do you do now? if it was me, i would be very wary about leading again, because if i get raised on the turn again, then what. what if i lead and just get called. do i fire a third barrel?

if it was me, i would call the raise proabbly 80% of the time, but from then on in, i would be looking to shut down, and i would definitely fold to another raise.



conversely, if i led out with AJ and get just a call, well that could be anything from single worse aces, kings maybe, and lots of pair plus draw type hands that i beat. so i might be tempted to go for a second barrel and get value out of KJ or KT or AT.



so by just flatting our AQ, we induce worse hands to continue on further streets. this means that we will still get the same value out of the worse hands (i.e if they bet flop and turn rather than calling a flop raise then shutting down), but we get an extra street to evaluate the hand, and to potentially get away if we think they are better.

by raising we only keep the upper part of his range in, and the part of that range we beat he is unlikely to continue with anyway. so its a classic reverse implied odds scenario once we raise flop.

my (long) two cents anyway