rune

Oaky, so the action preflop was UTG (hero) raises to 400, the CO and BTN call, all else fold.

the question is do you lead out this flop? or do you check to c-r or take another line?

meh, the hand converter bugged out one sec.

Hey there's something glitched with who the hero is and the stack size of said hero.

Could you possibly repost the details?

27/0 over 16 hands is a pretty small sample size to be definitive, however, I have in my recent memory seen a lot of 27/0 .

However, unless he's playing garbage, I don't think he connects with that board all too well.

27% on stove looks like: 55+,A2s+,K5s+,Q8s+,J8s+,T8s+,98s,A7o+,K9o+,Q9o+,JTo. Although I doubt he will be playing all of these hands, I think his hand range will probably mirror this, with some hands like connected low suitors as well (Probably less J8s and more of the 54s+ type of hands).

Bet on the flop seems fine given his pre-flop range. When villain flats, I'd narrow his range to either a flush draw, 99,TT, some kind of Top Pair hand, or an OESD (the 45s mentioned prior). I believe most villains at these levels won't flat to trap with sets here (especially with a flush and some straight draw possibilities on the board), which is why I don't have any sets in his range. QQ, KK, and AA are also possible, but I feel most villains would similar to the sets raise those hands to protect their equity (I included half of the combos of each in my range). Also, there aren't any reputable 2 pair hands that would be in his range I don't think.

The 4s hitting the turn isn't the most ideal hand, but I think your turn bet is a fine value bet as this hand is still very strong against his range and you can extract value from the pair hands that are chasing a back-door flush. That said, after he flats the turn bet, I'd assign him a similar range what I had coming through on the flop.

The 8h is mostly a blank on this river and I think that as played check-calling the river is probably the best line, given that I don't believe worse hands than you (the top pair hands, the back-door flush draw hands that missed, etc.) call you nor do I believe that better hands than you in this spot would fold. Given that, turning your hand into a bluff-catcher and check-calling seems like a reasonable response.


The big question in my mind is whether or not villain would raise his made flushes on this turn. I'm not sure either way here nor am I sure how I would react to a raise. Every raise size on the turn (even a min-raise) sets him up very nicely to get it all-in on the river, which would put hero to a tough decision. Given his 27/0 stats, I would probably assume this villain to be on the tight-passive side, which would probably fold me out on the turn or if I wanted to figure out how he was playing, call the turn and call the river (a spewier action).

I'm curious what other people have to say!

Oh I took this course! Ben Polak is hilarious (and says the same jokes every year). With regards to the readings (for those of you who prefer book forms), I'd recommend The Art of Strategy http://www.amazon.com/Art-Strategy-Theorists-Success-Business/dp/0393337170 , which was added to the syllabus in 2011 and really supplements the material well.

I agree with the earlier comments that cold calling the 4x from UTG with QJs in the BB without reads is generally a losing play.

As played, I would check-raise the flop larger than you did (probably closer to 24 dollars) as hands that will continue will continue on this board texture will probably be indifferent to the raise amount between 20-24 dollars. However, one line that would be worth pursuing would be to check-raise smaller, to 18 as igotya suggests, which will allow you to bet half pot the rest of the way.

On the turn, if we had c-r 24 dollars, then the pot will be roughly 56 dollars, which allows for a continuation of about very small at about 16 to induce (which I feel is probably one of the few ways to get money into the pot on the turn with a 4 to a straight)