Time to raise?

silentbob · July 2012

I realise this may end up being a bit if a stupid question but I've hardly played in the last 6 months for various reasons, one of which is because I'd totally lost faith in my game (not that it was really ever that great to begin with!) & have found myself questioning some of the simpler points.

So on to the hand. Standard open on the button & given oppo's stack I'm happy to call the 3b & set mine. My reason for flatting the flop is because it's pretty dry & a queen is quite conceivably in his 3 betting range.

My question now is do we raise the turn here given that it's brought in possible straight & flush draws or are we happy flatting here to disguise our hand? Assuming we raise at this point what do we make it?

I've no solid reads on the oppo but from the little I've seen I've got to give him credit for being a decent player for this level. I've been sat with him on 2 tables for about 10 minutes or so & although I can't remember any of his hands going to showdown, I have noticed that he's never limped & only flat called raises pre once or twice. Generally if he's playing then he's coming in for a raise or 3b. FWIW, on both tables he brought in for the max & waited for the blinds to come round rather than posting.

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
	Small blind		£0.04	£0.04	£8.03
OPPO	Big blind		£0.08	£0.12	£10.60
	Your hole cards	6 6
	Fold
silentbob	Raise		£0.24	£0.36	£9.53
	Fold
OPPO	Raise		£0.64	£1.00	£9.96
silentbob	Call		£0.48	£1.48	£9.05
Flop
		6 4 Q
OPPO	Bet		£0.88	£2.36	£9.08
silentbob	Call		£0.88	£3.24	£8.17
Turn
		J
OPPO	Bet		£1.68	£4.92	£7.40
silentbob	???

jugglegeek · July 2012

Very standard raising spot. Like you say, calling a 3-bet to set mine is fine when you are a little deeper. I would consider a fold here if the villian was say 90BBs deep or was particularly nitty post flop. Good decicion to flat the flop bet in possition. Possition gives you such an advantage in these hands. If he checks the turn then you can bet big to make it look like a float and he may get suspicious and start leveling himself. As it is he did bet and now you have to raise for value. You called pre flop because you wanted to flop a set and get his whole stack. If you don't try and get his whole stack now then the call pre is -ev. If you flat on the turn the pot is £6.60 with him having £7.40 behind so he will have to have a hand strong enough to call a raise on the river.

Make it about £3.50 - £4. Slightly bigger than a min-raise and leaving enough back to give the illusion of fold equity. Make it any bigger and you are showing the villian that you are never going to fold.

Good luck with your return and keep flopping sets!

KAM99 · July 2012

Kind of disagree with juggle about bet sizing the turn, though agree with preflop assessment. Its kind of pointless to raise him £3.50-£4.00 as he only has £7 odd behind, and so with size of pot you may as well shove if you going to raise that much, as he'd be stupid to call that size of a turn bet and then fold the river to any blank card with what he'd have left and the size of the pot.

As for how to play the hand. I don't mind a call on flop or reraise there depending on how often villian will fold to flop reraises, though on dry board maybe call is best. If he tends to fold to them then sure I'd milk in postion to turn maybe and then shove or small reraise to try and keep him in if he tends to fold as even a small raises leaves a fairly easy shove on river.

Lot of the time how and when we raise can depend on villian, as lot of it will depend on how passive they are. If aggressive enough you can just call till river and shove etc if you know they likely to fire 3 streets with TPTK or over pair and so on. Anyway, not saying Juggle is wrong, just that I disagreed a little.

DOHHHHHHH · July 2012

Call, leaves you with a pot sized stack then call/shove all rivers.

Looking at the size of his bets, he's probably planning to shove the river himself anyway.

BorinLoner · July 2012

Well, there's a bit of a divergence of opinion here...

I'm going to add to it by going back to your pre-flop call of his 3-bet. I think this is a mistake if your intention is to fold to a c-bet on any flop that doesn't contain a 6. It's too much of your stack to call an extra 6BB and hope to hit, as you'll need to be able to stack him too high a proportion of the time to make it +EV. So to make this pre-flop call fine, you're going to have to believe that you can outplay your opponent through the streets alot of the time; Perhaps floating a flop c-bet, etc... I don't think a "No set, no bet" attitude is going to be profitable.

That said, on the turn I'm with DOHHHHHHH. I think you can call here and allow him to fire on the river before setting him in. You can't really afford to worry about back-door draws and if he hits one this time, you've just got to say it's unlucky. In the long term your set will be good on the river far more often than not.

I don't have any problem with raising the turn either, and I must admit that was my first instinct when I saw the hand. I've been swayed by DOHHHHHHH into thinking that the call is better but both are fine.

rancid · July 2012

raising turn shouts 2 pr/set on this board, call turn

set mining versus nits is good )

Swog · July 2012

flat the turn bet.

Let him value town himself if he's holding AQ, KK, AA. There's not many draws to protect from either. Finally, you have a psb left on the river that given your in position can be thrown in if not by villian.

jugglegeek · July 2012

In Response to Re: Time to raise?:

Well, there's a bit of a divergence of opinion here... I'm going to add to it by going back to your pre-flop call of his 3-bet. I think this is a mistake if your intention is to fold to a c-bet on any flop that doesn't contain a 6. It's too much of your stack to call an extra 6BB and hope to hit, as you'll need to be able to stack him too high a proportion of the time to make it +EV. So to make this pre-flop call fine, you're going to have to believe that you can outplay your opponent through the streets alot of the time; Perhaps floating a flop c-bet, etc... I don't think a "No set, no bet" attitude is going to be profitable. That said, on the turn I'm with DOHHHHHHH. I think you can call here and allow him to fire on the river before setting him in. You can't really afford to worry about back-door draws and if he hits one this time, you've just got to say it's unlucky. In the long term your set will be good on the river far more often than not. I don't have any problem with raising the turn either, and I must admit that was my first instinct when I saw the hand. I've been swayed by DOHHHHHHH into thinking that the call is better but both are fine.
Posted by BorinLoner

It's 48p and we have £9.77 so it's roughly 20:1 implied odds. We flop a set about 7.5:1 so we have to be able to stack them with out set less than half the time. I agree that sometimes we might get a favorable board to float, especially in possition since people love the "one and done" approach to c-betting. How deep would you have to be to call this bet as a pure set-mine then?

BorinLoner · July 2012

In Response to Re: Time to raise?:

In Response to Re: Time to raise? : It's 48p and we have £9.77 so it's roughly 20:1 implied odds. We flop a set about 7.5:1 so we have to be able to stack them with out set less than half the time. I agree that sometimes we might get a favorable board to float, especially in possition since people love the "one and done" approach to c-betting. How deep would you have to be to call this bet as a pure set-mine then?
Posted by jugglegeek

That's my mistake. I guess I just assumed we were 100BB deep. We'd have more like 115 after the call, so it's probably okay. If we had been 100BB, it would be too much to call the 6BB with only 91BB back. I'll pay more attention next time. lol

JAM888 · July 2012

Im set mineing for 5% or very close round it, think its fine, flop is dry so dont mind the call, i would re raise though and, build the pot take control.

silentbob · July 2012

Seems this might be a bit more of a debatable spot than I first thought.

Going back to flatting pre, somewhere in the back of my mind I always thought it was OK to set mine if your oppo had at least 10x more in their stack than what you've got to call (so in this instance his remaining stack would have to be at least £4.80 for it to be OK for me to call). Maths really isn't a strong point for me & it's a side to the game that I've always struggled with & probably will do.

Although my intention was to set mine pre, I'm also happy floating a c-bet on the flop in position too. Too many players at this level c-bet "because you're supposed to".

With regards to back door draws, is it always just a case of C'est la vie if I just flat & he hits? I'm well rolled for the level but the one thing everyone says is to make people pay for their draws.

jugglegeek · July 2012

In Response to Re: Time to raise?:

Seems this might be a bit more of a debatable spot than I first thought. Going back to flatting pre, somewhere in the back of my mind I always thought it was OK to set mine if your oppo had at least 10x more in their stack than what you've got to call (so in this instance his remaining stack would have to be at least £4.80 for it to be OK for me to call). Maths really isn't a strong point for me & it's a side to the game that I've always struggled with & probably will do. Although my intention was to set mine pre, I'm also happy floating a c-bet on the flop in position too. Too many players at this level c-bet "because you're supposed to". With regards to back door draws, is it always just a case of C'est la vie if I just flat & he hits? I'm well rolled for the level but the one thing everyone says is to make people pay for their draws.
Posted by silentbob

You have about a 8.5:1 chance of flopping a flush. So if you have 8.5x the price to call in the effective stack then it's break even ev if you win the full buy-in every time you flop a set. Obviously there are plenty of ways to flop a set and not win a full stack; your opponent could have nothing at all and miss the flop, your opponent could have top pair but fold anyway because he's a nit and you raised, or worse, your set could end up being the second best hand and you end up losing a stack. Against donkeys who think top pair is da nutz then 10x is ok. But against anyone halfway decent I would say that 20x is a better rule to go by.

Also, floating regs at microstakes is very fun and should be encoraged. Especially if they like to bet the flop but not the turn. Call one bet and 3/4 pot when checked to = easy money

Time to raise?

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