€400 NL HE Full Ring: Can I get Villain to fold top pair on this board?

[primrose]

Game

Hold'em

Game Format

No Limit

Stakes

$2/$4

Table Format

Full (8-10 seats)

Currency

€

In this hand, I'm in the CO with and the HJ limps. I make a standard raise to 16. BN flats and HJ calls. BN is a (probably losing) losing regular, high VPIP preflop, pretty nitty postflop, rarely bluffs. Also someone that I have a history with and who tends to give me a lot of credit when I bet, I don't think I've ever had to show him a bluff.

Flop comes (Pot=54).

HJ checks. I check. BN bets 20. HJ folds.

I could just fold here, but BN could take a stab here with any pocket pair, maybe a bad Queen, maybe a flush draw. And I haven't made any big plays this session. Also I have the backdoor diamonds. I decide to go for a raise to 80. HJ calls -- not what I was hoping for. Now they probably have the Queen.

Turn comes (Pot=214).

Not a good card. No diamond. No King. I could give up here, but I think Villain will fold most Queens if I barrel, and a bluff doesn't have to work that often. I bet 110. Villain thinks for a bit then calls. Not what I was hoping for.

River comes (Pot=434).

Well, this situation is not ideal. What now?

My action:

Spoiler

I bet 180.

Result in case I decided to bet:

Spoiler

Villain thinks for a while then calls. I wasn't happy about showing my hand but if I don't, Villain doesn't have to show his, and I want to know what I was called by. If it's worse than AQ, I need to know. So I showed. Villain showed .

Thoughts:

Spoiler

I think the Flop raise is good. The Turn bet is probably still good, I think everything below KQ is pretty likely to fold, and KQ could fold as well, and even AQ is not out of the question. And Villain is pretty loose preflop, so there could be a ton of Queens.

The River bet, however, was probably quite bad. Opponent is pretty likely to have AQ here and they could actually have a low set as well -- not super likely since he never raised, but possible. Straight is quite unlikely.

I'd have kind of expected AQ to fold to a tripe-barrel given this particular player, so I'm not too mad at myself, but I guess folding top pair is just too hard.

For me this hand was pretty frustrating because I've been running badly in cash for a while (good in tournaments, but not cash) and today was a pretty lucky day. Even after this hand I ended up moderately up. If i just hadn't done this triple-barrel, I'd have had a really excellent day.

This hand is sort of reminiscent of the triple-barrel hand in a tournament that I posted a while ago; however it is a significantly worse triple-barrel spot for several reasons, the most important one being that my opponent didn't really cap their range. In that hand Villain most likely had top-pair-decent-but-not-top-kicker, whereas in this case it was possible for Villain to have top pair top kicker... and unfortunately they did.

Anyway, I think most people tend to select pretty heavily for which hands they post, and I wanted to not do that, so here's a hand where I did something that looks pretty reckless and unnecessary and didn't work at all.

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
Standard isolation spot, although we are near the bottom of our range here. K9o I would probably just fold.

Flop
Check-raising as the preflop aggressor is a cool play, which most of us should use more, since it makes us more difficult to play against. However I dont think, this is the right hand to do it with. Of course we want to have a balanced range consisting of both value and bluffs, but we want to use hands as bluffs, that have more equity and playability than this one. Yes you have a backdoor flushdraw, but thats really clutching at straws.

Cool hands to do this with could be A5 and A3 of diamonds. If it checks though, thats fine, because it gives us a chance to improve for free. If they both fold, thats fine, because we win the pot. And if we get action, thats also fine, because we have a ton of equity, and now we are building the pot up for potentially hitting the nuts. And then we could balance it out by also checkraising top set, since we likely dont have any other really strong hands on this board.

This particular hand I would much rather just C-bet and see, what happen. If BTN fold, now at least you have position, and if BTN continue, you can pretty much be done, unless you pick up equity on the turn or improve to top pair.

Turn
Now you are pretty much running a no equity bluff, and this is, what happen, when you pick the wrong hand to begin with. Check and fold to cut your losses.

River
Check and fold. You are already long into the "throwing good money after bad" territory. This is a terrible card to bluff, because now its even less likely, you had a strong hand on the flop, since 44 and Q4s are now reduced to 3 combos rather than 6. All the draws missed, and you are never checkraising the flop with just a 4 in your hand. Now its also bad to have a diamond, since it makes it less likely, he has a busted flushdraw.

Results
I think, you are falling victim to the live poker boredom problem. Meaning that because the pace is so slow, you are trying to make things happen, rather than wait for the right situations and hands. Like for instance if our check-raising range on this flop is A3 and A5 of diamonds, like I suggested, then we dont have those hands very often. Maybe we can find some more hands as well, but KdTx is not one of them.

 

[primrose]

I think, you are falling victim to the live poker boredom problem.

No, not in this hand. I've got a lot of good hands that session and wasn't feeling bored. Maybe more sunk cost fallacy.

Another thing is that bluffing again was my only chance to not admit that I was bluffing, which would have been nice because I've never had to show a big bluff against this guy.

 

[Station_Master]

I think the flop raise is OK. Tho Based on the villain description, you could just fold if he is rarely bluffing.

The real error is the turn. If you raise backdoor draws on the flop, you need to shut down the ones that miss unless its a really good card for your range. I.e. barrel diamonds and a J, A or 9.

 

[LILSALAH]

If the board runout helps your story, and villain is not a calling station, it's doable. Curious to see how it played out!