WA/WB flop situations and the merits of checking

[hackers238]

Hmm thanks for all of the interesting replies!

Sorry if I'm being thick-headed about this, I'm just trying to learn

Nah, I'm actually not really basing this off experience, rather another thread. I'm also trying to think of this in a theoretical vacuum, so I'm not considering other hands which balance my range in this spot.

I understand building the pot, but I don't feel like TPTK really is the nuts in FR with all 100BB stacks, which is the reason for this post.

I think that's my problem with it. We aren't protecting against anything, (WA/WB), and I don't want to build the pot to 100 BB.

[stormswa]

You should be looking to get max value from your hand at every street, TPTK isnt a time to get cute with your hand. Its not powerful enough to try to trap your villian, if we dont bet we have zero clue where we stand in the hand. When you flop a set you are pretty sure where you stand in the hand unless someone else flopped a higher set and in that case.....well your getting stacked.

Here is the problem if you check there could be a ton of turn cards that could give you problems. The players at that level are not to smart and they usually are not to aggressive with top pair so you should be able to extract tons of value from them on every street. TPTK just cant be checked on most flops, I personally dont ever trap my players no matter what I flop. I always bet out on missed flops and monster flops, I bet quads lol. I do this because im not strong enough in cash games and I know if I always bet then im pretty much unreadable.

But again im not super strong cash game player like Wes and others so take my advice for what it is my opinion. If Wes or any of the other real good cash game players disagree with anything I have said then they would be the ones to listen to.

[hackers238]

This is the part I disagree with... I think there are remarkably few turn cards that give us problems. This is why I think this situation is WA/WB.

It's true, I agree with it mostly. But I think that Ax hands aren't calling 3 streets.

That's exactly what my strategy has been thus far! Literally, I'm 90-95% CBet, and the conditions that cause me NOT to CBet are sitaution dependent rather than hand dependent. For example being OOP in a 4-way flop, or against multiple Laggy opponents, or when my image is totally shot. This is one of the reasons I made this post as well, as it seemed like an interesting spot to check behind for pot control. However now that seems not to be the case.

Thanks again for the thread post, I'm still surprised you posted EXACTLY the thread I was looking for earlier!

[melioris]

I don't know fuckall about FR these days, but there are tons of suited Aces that will call for one, or even two streets, even OOP. You are protecting your hand from the miracle 3-outs by betting, you are building the pot against AT and the like. If you are worried about hands that have you crushed, well sure, don't call a raise if raised on the flop. If called, check behind the turn if you must, but I would rather b/f the turn and then either call (depending on villain's river bet) or bet or check on the river.

We haven't gotten into the whole validate your CBing thing either, which is another reason to bet here. If you are giving the players enough credit at $25NL FR where you do not think you will get paid off by a weaker A here, my god man, think of the information you are giving them if you SD after checking this flop. Expect none of your CBs to be respected after that.

Here is the trick to that last sentence. The second part of the sentence seems a little ridiculous at these levels, no? Well, it is entirely consistent with the first part, which you have stated strongly. So either the second part is not crazy, or the first part is wrong. I go with the latter. Bet this flop. ABC wins the monies.

[Talking Poker]

Cha-ching.

Again, read your own sig!

P.S. Excellent thread!

[hackers238]

First of all, thanks for the help and analysis here. I do agree that betting is better.

All of the insight here is great, and I'll add my analysis now: The problem with going for pot control here is two-fold: there aren't enough hands you are behind, and there aren't enough hands you can milk extra value out of.

There aren't enough hands you're behind

The limp call preflop line looks like either a baby ace, high random cards, or a PP (excluding JJ-AA). If we assign this as a general range for villain, there are only 10 combos ahead of you. This includes 3 combos of each flopped set (excluding AA), and 4 combos total of A8s and A3s. The total number of hands that are behind you but will probably allow you to build the pot here is much greater: Assuming at this level Aces will call multiple streets of value, There are 75+ combos of AQ- and PP behind you. So going for pot control is catering to 10/85 of the villains range.

and there aren't enough hands you can milk extra value out of

My main argument before was that hands are more likely to pay off turn+river with an ace than flop+turn. This has huge holes! What about the flop+river line? What about the higher number of chances for opponent to get frisky and put a raise in somewhere when you start on the turn? At this level it's important to give villain as many chances as you can to make a mistake, and betting the flop accomplishes this.

What about hands that would fold the flop but lead/call the turn? There are some of these imo... many PP, especiall >8 would go for a cheap showdown because you skipped out on the obvious CB. They may even lead the turn. And even though PP are a rather large part of villains range, it's much more valuable in NLHE to get THREE streets of value from AQ- than ONE extra street of value from a PP. Because of the ever escalating size of bets, you may miss out on 40BB if you pot control against AQ where you are gaining an extra 10 from a random PP.

Thanks for all the responses!

[Talking Poker]

I'm glad you've seen the light. I think the key factor you were missing is that the WA/WB scenario only applies when we have a MEDIUM STRENGTH (ie, second pair) hand.... a hand that if we bet the flop will get called only by hands better than ours and will fold out all the ones worse. the KK on A92 example above is a good one.

In your example, we've flopped a very strong hand (albeit not the nuts), so we need to be betting for value and building a pot. A more extreme example that will reinforce this:

We have 33. Flop comes AT3.

Now, we certainly don't have the nuts here, and chances are we are WAY ahead, but if we are behind, we are WAY behind (drawing to one out). But this is not a WA/WB example! Our hand is just far too strong, and there are a ton of worse hands villain can have that will still call if we bet. Yes, it's very unlikely he will improve to beat us, but that also has nothing to do with anything. By checking behind here, we are going to get a max a two streets of value (which I know was your plan), but that will often times cost us the third street of value, which is often equal to the first two streets of value combined!

Bet bet bet. ABC.