How do you play this? What's the plan?

jugglegeek

The villian is someone who I have not seen before. Seems to be playing solid poker but gets involved quite a bit. He's not been limping in, rather he's been raising pre-flop frequently which leads me to believe he might be better than your average NL4 newbie. Do you advocate 3-betting here ever? Once I flop the gutshot straight flush draw do I raise the flop and shove/call a 3-bet? I havn't played that many hands at this table but I feel like I don't have that much fold equity here since I feel like the villian is smart enough to see the raise as a draw. Given the circumstances how would you play the hand? I chose to flat call the flop and turn and then check/fold the river if I didn't hit or call the flop and raise/bet when I do hit. Is there any sense in floating the hand? (ie calling can betting big when checked to on either the turn or river)

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
SB	Small blind		£0.02	£0.02	£4.36
x	Sitout
jugglegeek	Big blind		£0.04	£0.06	£3.96
	Your hole cards	K J
UTG	Fold
CO	Fold
BTN	Fold
SB	Raise		£0.12	£0.18	£4.24
jugglegeek	Call		£0.10	£0.28	£3.86
Flop
		9 7 Q
SB	Bet		£0.20	£0.48	£4.04
jugglegeek

KAM99

First off fold equity, as I'm not sure if you get its meaning. Its about the size of your stack in relation to the person or persons you are against in the pot. For example if someone in a MTT shoves and has left it to late like 5bb they have no fold equity to the person on the BB and with 2bb alrady invested they will cal with any two cards because they have shoved with no fold equity due to the BB beign priced in with any hand because you can't be worse than 4:1 in any situation preflop really. So in this case I'm not sure why you'd believe shoving nearly a full stack would have no fold equity.

However, may have read you wrong, and you meant if you reraise the flop and he 3bets you will have no fold equity with a shove then. Would depend on the amounts, but with stack sizes its quite likely if he 3bets and you shove he calls anyway, as good chance you'd be right that then you'd have little to no fold equity with what he'd have left behind to the pot size. Sorry if I misunderstood you and the first paragraph is teaching granny to suck eggs.

As for the hand. You could have been ok to 3bet this preflop blind on blind and with postion, but a call is ok as well. On the flop I'd be tempted to reraise here as if the flush hits he is likely to slow up. Would depend on how villian tends to play his hands post flop and if I have info on how he tends to cbet, and how he plays top pair. IE I might not reraise if I've seen him shove happy with top pair, but I'm generally happy to 3bet lot of times with this draw as I might take it there, or he might call if he has top pair and check teh turn to give me a free look at river if I miss the draw.

There is no major wrong way to do it though. Call or raise is acceptable depending on the person your up against. Really aggresive players I likely call, and more passive ones maybe raise. Only thing I'm not doing here is shoving. As I'm only likely called by a strong hand and fold out marginal hands that I want to keep in a bit longer with my draw.

jugglegeek

By fold equity I mean the chance of him folding to a raise on the flop. If I make it say 80p after his c-bet then we are likely to end up all in on the flop. I don't think raise-fold is a good line here at all :-) If I'm going to make this play there has to be a reasonable chance that the villian folds on the flop or flats and check folds the turn. When I say I have low fold equity I mean that my reads on the villian indicate that a raise OTF will very often be followed by a 3-bet, I shove, he calls situation. Maybe I've missunderstood the term fold equity all this time.

KAM99

In Response to Re: How do you play this? What's the plan?:

By fold equity I mean the chance of him folding to a raise on the flop. If I make it say 80p after his c-bet then we are likely to end up all in on the flop. I don't think raise-fold is a good line here at all :-) If I'm going to make this play there has to be a reasonable chance that the villian folds on the flop or flats and check folds the turn. When I say I have low fold equity I mean that my reads on the villian indicate that a raise OTF will very often be followed by a 3-bet, I shove, he calls situation. Maybe I've missunderstood the term fold equity all this time.
Posted by jugglegeek

No, I just misread your intend in the first post. Bit of wall text blind eye I guess. Sure, if you reraise the flop and he 3bets you then its unlikely he folds to a shove unless he is plain bluffing with it, as your fold equity would be pretty non-exsistant.

Did kind of clarify that in one of my paragraphs that I'd pick my line a little based on person I was up against. If he has been as active as you say and cbets a lot then I'm more likely to reraise. Sometimes when you reraise a draw it goes wrong and you have to fold if they 3bet big enough and don't really make it right odds to play it out, but if they call then its more value in there. Just sometimes it goes wrong when you play that line. So I never mind a call if prefered, though sometimes its difficult to extract value if another heart comes, as that shuts lot of people right down.

I don't think there is any wrong or right way to play it. Case by case basis often on how you play it, and its good to do both on occasion as it balances your play enough to keep people unsure of your holdings when draws are out there.

Spikelad

I have to agree with KAM it is difficult to advocate a one size fits all answer to this hand.You have observed the player seems to know what he is doing,i think a call here and evaluate on the turn would be ok.

Let us know how the hand played out jugglegeek.

jugglegeek

played out like this. I think a raggy queen is likely here or a PP. I decided on the flop to call the flop and float, then bet about 75% if checked to. The shove on the river made it an easy fold but I can't help feeling like he might have had total air.

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
SB	Small blind		£0.02	£0.02	£4.36
x	Sitout
jugglegeek	Big blind		£0.04	£0.06	£3.96
	Your hole cards	K J
UTG	Fold
CO	Fold
BTN	Fold
SB	Raise		£0.12	£0.18	£4.24
jugglegeek	Call		£0.10	£0.28	£3.86
Flop
		9 7 Q
SB	Bet		£0.20	£0.48	£4.04
jugglegeek	Call		£0.20	£0.68	£3.66
Turn
		5
SB	Bet		£0.28	£0.96	£3.76
jugglegeek	Call		£0.28	£1.24	£3.38
River
		5
SB	All-in		£3.76	£5.00	£0.00
jugglegeek	Fold
SB	Muck
SB	Win		£1.14		£1.14
SB	Return		£3.76	£0.10	£4.90

Spikelad

You are right jugglegeek this is an easy fold,the way he played it i think he had a hand.If he did have air then fair play to him and we move on to the next hand.