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January 10, 2017
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Playing 2/5 the other day and have a stack of around 800 when the hand starts. I am in the SB. Folds to button who is a very active/good player. He has approximately $1200. He opens for $30, I decide to just flat w/AJ suited as I had just called him down with 3rd pair the hand prior and 3 bet him preflop a few hands before that. The flop is A96. I check, he bets 55, I call. Turn is A. I check he bets 75. River is a 2. I bet 150, he raises to 350. Obviously I loved the turn, but based on the action on the river am I ever good here. Is this an easy fold?
TPE Pro
December 6, 2012
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I would fold, but I’m really not a big fan of the river bet in the first place. Your hand is a bluff-catcher. That is, you’re not really ahead of anything that he’s value betting on the turn. It’s a very good bluff-catcher, because your Ace blocks a lot of his value range, but I don’t think you have a good value target when you bet the river. In other words, what were you thinking he would call with? I think your best chance for winning another bet is to check and give him the chance to bluff river. In fact I don’t think there’s any hand with which you should bet this river after check-calling flop and turn.
FWIW, I’m confused about your preflop thought process as well. I’m not saying you should have raised, but I don’t see what “I had just called him down with 3rd pair the hand prior and 3 bet him preflop a few hands before that” has to do with anything. If anything, I’d think that would make 3betting better. I mean, the point of 3betting wouldn’t to make him fold hands better than AJ….
All in all, I’d say you need to start thinking more rigorously about *targets* – which specific hands are you trying to get bets or folds from, when you take a particular action?
January 10, 2017
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Initially I thought he may have a weaker ace, simply based on the fact that he was an aggressive player. I think I focused far too much on player image rather than having a clear range in mind as the hand progressed. A friend of mine who crushes the 2/5 game here locally had comments almost identical to yours. I was giving him a range too wide based on his action by the time we got to the river. As soon as he raised my bet I realized it was a big mistake to lead out on the river. I also think it should have been a fold. I called and he tabled AQ which actually surprised me. I felt AK and two pair were his most likely holdings after his raise.
As for the reason I decided to simply flat preflop, I had stood up to him a few times letting him know he wasn’t going to be able to just run me over. Because of that I felt like he may not be opening very wide based solely on his position. Of course this just compounds my mistake of betting the last street.
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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TightlyWound said
As for the reason I decided to simply flat preflop, I had stood up to him a few times letting him know he wasn’t going to be able to just run me over. Because of that I felt like he may not be opening very wide based solely on his position. Of course this just compounds my mistake of betting the last street.
What makes you think he has the intention of ‘running you over’? He may not even be trying to do that in the first place, in which case you trying to prevent him from doing so doesn’t play into the dynamic of this hand.
Recognize that even if he tightens his button opening range as a result of the way you’ve played against him (which he may not), that doesn’t mean he’s going to go from opening a 50% range to opening 10%. It may mean he shifts from 40% to 35%, or from 30% to 20% – whatever his starting frequency for opening the button, his range doesn’t just immediately condense to a really strong grouping of hands just because you had ‘stood up to him’ before. Is he just going to fold hands like KJ on the button because of you? AT? 55? 98s? Very doubtful.
Focus on putting the villain on a range of hands. Any assertion you can make about an opponent’s strategy is useless unless you can state how it actually affects their range.
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