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Close, but not close to the money
This hand is from the Saturday Night $150 at Canterbury.
Blinds are 2/4/4K. 29 players left 12 get paid. I am sitting with a healthyish stack of 111k or 27.75 bigs. With at least 4 stacks under 10 bigs, I think we are healthy enough to cash and aren’t trying to get out of line. We are playing 7 handed and UTG+1 or the Lojack whichever you prefer to call it and open to 9k with KQo and get a call from the cutoff who covers us. Blinds fold. Villian has been active but when shown hasn’t shown any bluffs.
Flop is: K98. Being first to act and not trying to play a big pot we check. Villain Checks behind. Should I be betting large here to try and end it or do we like the check?
Turn: Q (no flush draws that I remember). With top 2 I figure I have a good enough hand to try and pull 2 streets of value and put in a small bet of 12k. After thinking for a little bit opponent asks me for a count and I stack my chips in stacks of 5 for him to count. He comments that he doesn’t believe the Queen helped me and raises to 35k.
I think about it for about 30 seconds debating if he if making the move with 2 pairs, sets, straight, pair plus gut shot and decide to rip it in and let Jim Reid sort it out. In hindsight I think we should have called thinking that the jam allows our opponent to play almost perfect (could still get some 2 pair calls).
We are snapped off with JT and the River bricks.
I thoroughly believe Zach Elwood snap folds to the raise after the talking about the hand which wasn’t common for opponent and I haven’t seen him ask for a count yet and we have been playing together for probably close to an hour.
I am wondering how many streets I played poorly. If I am trying to cash here, folding pre is too nitty, right?
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5 Replies
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I really like your flop check as we’re out of position and short, and we don’t need to do much to get stacks in if we want to on later streets. I also don’t mind the turn bet when we turn top 2. So honestly, I like how you played the hand until we get the live reads. As you point out, this is a classic example of villain weakening their own range and generally screams value. If we didn’t have the tell, this would be a harder decision, but with it, it is a pretty clear fold.
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Nice Run. Congratulations! The first pic is his 15% chip EV calling range. Since it is an ICM situation, he should tighten up 2-4%. Putting the payouts and position into HRC would yield a more accurate range, but I don’t have that, so I tightened it up 4% myself.
On the flop you have 66% equity. The pot is 14.2. Out stack is 25.6. The SPR is 1.55.
So, we can bet everything, nothing, or anything in between depending on our opponent to get stacks in by the river.
On the Turn you have 77% equity. Straights and sets make up 14.28% of his range.
If we bet 25% of the effective stack (6.5), we leave a pot sized bet on the river. If we bet bigger, the money goes in easier. Not betting with 77% equity is a bit paranoid, even at a final table.
When he bets and weakens his range with speech play, it becomes a “you had to be there” type of situation. I would take longer in the tank. Try to see if he gets more stoic or more relaxed over time. If he shows a real smile, run for the hills. If he starts to stare into the pot, then the math tells you to call. Good players can read a pulse, I have a hard time finding it.
Poker is one of those games where you can do better than 95% of the people who entered, and you still feel lousy when eliminated. You had a good run. Don’t beat yourself up. -
You ask about the action on multiple front so let’s try and hit each one.
Preflop: Should we be opening even under ICM situations? Yeah for sure. Obviously we’re hoping to not see any 3Betting and to try and play a flop in position vs a weak range of the BB. But the KQ will play quite easily postflop and will have pretty good visibility (knowing if you have the best hand) post flop.
Flop: I’d love the check here if the board was a bit more disconnected. If we have a K95, or something of the sort, we feel way more safe. the 98 adds a lot of connectedness to our opponents range. So given that, I’m going to bet here.
Turn: Good but not great card for us, as crazy as it sounds. It gives us two pair but can add a lot of draws to our opponents range. Given the flop check, I’m going to play a bigger bet here. There’s a lot of our opponents hands that will want to call here, let’s charge them more. Plus, on the river, we are going to lose a lot of visibility (knowing if we have the winning hand).
And then vs the raise, we just get the chips in the middle and hope we are good. Can’t fold top-two in this spot even though our opponent can have straights and sets. Off of 27 BBs effective to start the hand, this isn’t the spot to try and make a hero fold.
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Thank you everyone for your input. I see I did made a typo, it was 19 left not 29, so 7 to the money with 4 obvious shorties. Looking back now, I don’t believe I was destined to go bust this hand, as I could have just called turn and see what developed on river. I’m probably going bust on the river, but at least I’m making him put me all in and not doing it myself.
If I want to make hero folds based on reads, I should have at least read Elwood’s book by now.
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I prefer a flop bet and sized up (22-25K) to set up a turn jam. Especially if we are 7 from the money, I want to put pressure on my opponents and charge all of their draws.
As played, I prefer a call on the raised turn to evaluate the river.
I am sigh calling off most rivers as I agree this is not a spot to hero fold but if a jack or ten falls, we can fold and preserve 17 bbs.
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