Overcaller is 48/4 over 23 hands, while the raiser also has pretty loose stats.

Poker Stars $5.00+$0.50 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t15/t30 Blinds - 9 players - View hand 833651
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP1: t2940       M = 65.33
MP2: t3740       M = 83.11
CO: t500       M = 11.11
BTN: t2955       M = 65.67
SB: t5075       M = 112.78
BB: t1365       M = 30.33
UTG: t2520       M = 56
UTG+1: t4780       M = 106.22
Hero (UTG+2): t6315       M = 140.33

Pre Flop: (t45) Hero is UTG+2 with K K
1 fold, UTG+1 calls t30, Hero raises to t135, 1 fold, MP2 calls t135, 4 folds, UTG+1 calls t105

Flop: (t450) 6 9 7 (3 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets t300, MP2 raises to t780, UTG+1 calls t780, Hero calls t480

Turn: (t2790) Q (3 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero checks, MP2 checks

River: (t2790) A (3 players)
UTG+1 bets t1710, Hero folds, MP2 calls t1710

Yeah, I wonder why you checked the turn.  What was the reasoning?

As played, I am betting out 3/4 of pot ott and getting my chips in with any resistance, or just shoving turn.

Also, probably folding the river as played. Edit: not sure though, depending on the read I may call

The turn check is understandable the way things are played, but Im assuming you fold there to a bet? I just dont understand why we simply call the flop raise, just to check the turn and fold the river. Theres a bazillion bad turn cards, then theres a double bazillion bad rivers - all considering we might currently be behind.

What are we shutting down? I know its semantics but Im assuming you mean check/fold bad turns.

I guess my root question is.. Why are we calling the flop raise to fold the river? The A doesnt change much in my mind, unless villain has A9 here a bunch of the time. I can see why the call was made, using implied odds we can justify chasing 2 outs there, but there is some rio in there as well that gets us owned sometimes.

I know this is a tough spot, just once you cbet, get popped and it gets called especially versus loose passives we arent in great shape.

bigvee: sorry, misread your post when I made that reply.  This is actually quite practical to call and be prepared to fold to aggression on later streets, especially if it's the overcaller who the raiser who's raised into 2 players on the flop and would be betting into both someone who's bet-called and someone who's overcalled.  Really easy spot to re-evaluate with a hand that has very good showdown value in this spot.

ribbybruno: And that line of thinking is how many players end up busting early -- by playing too aggressive at bad times and thinking that too many marginal situations like these with one pair are coolers just because it's a big pair.  Keep in mind, guys, that while a pair can be the nuts preflop, the worst ranking for the nuts on any postflop street is three of a kind, not a pair.  This is why learning fundamentals is so important, because even the beginners know that the best hand preflop is AA, and this fact will apply to many of the trends and common tendencies  -- to be more specific, that most people are now at least vaguely aware of them.  And since you've learned the same basics, you can relate.  Being consciously aware of this often overlooked principle of poker is how you're able to really develop your hand reading abilities and thus play like 5 times the player you were before.

Now, to assess the situation in-depth, let's figure out what beats us, from best to worst:

T8
85
99
77
66
97
96
76
AA

Now that makes KK the 10th nuts on the flop.  It's now the 14th nuts on the turn since QQ, Q9, Q7, and Q6 all got there -- and don't discount AA or QQ from both players' ranges because I've seen stranger lines by players as bad as them and it's plausible for even a fish to exercise caution or suddenly set up a trap when they, say, want to set up a check-raise only to find someone's raised into the preflop raiser.  Anyways, can we really discount all these hands from two different players' ranges?  Of course not, 'cause they're loose, right?  Therefore, their ranges are decently wide, and easily compliment said range of hands.

Let's see some plausible, worse hands that either/both players can have:

A9
K9
Q9
J9
T9
98
87
A8
JT

Now, we're at least a 3:1 favourite, if not a 4:1 favourite, against that entire range of hands going to the river.  But, really, what's more plausible and also more likely?  That at least one of these players has us beat, or that both players are worse off than us?  Based on my experience, I'm going with the former on this one quite often.

And now with the Q turn card that scares off a lot of that "less likely portion" of villain's range as well as the fact that we're not worried about all but a couple kinds of draws, and keeping in mind that the raiser's to act behind us, betting the turn is really, really bad because it rarely accomplishes anything that we want to happen and often only results in something that we don't want to happen.  And if we really do want to get maximum value with our kings, it's going to have to wait until the river when we have a better idea of where we stand.  I mean, you HAVE to keep in mind as well that there's a loose-passive fish who overcalled the flop raise.

And this, people, is why it's just so very profitable to really exercise your brain, gain tons of confidence in your read, and learn to assess hand ranges.  Because putting things in perspective in the sort of way that I do just leads you to much, much better decisions at the tables.

Because, naturally, this is a game where you can't be 100% certain about a lot of a things, and so I wanted someone else's perspective on the hand.


It's showdown value, and yes, we do have it.  And considering we're getting 5:1, we're never, ever folding when we have a solid amount of showdown value with our overpair.  We're also calling because we have room to find a call on the turn and perhaps even the river.  Like I said, our intention after calling the flop raise is to re-evaluate on later streets.


Because we never assumed that we were good on the flop anyways, and now we're facing a strong bet on the river from an overcaller.  The fact that the river is an ace makes this fold fairly easy, but I still probably would have made it on a blank anyways.


I think you're getting completely the wrong idea.  We didn't plan to fold on a later street at all.  Rather, we didn't really plan anything when we called the flop raise, because if we don't know what's going to happen next and we're lost on where our kings stand, how are we supposed to plan anything?  The point is we can't determine where we stand, and our hand isn't monstrously strong, so why put all the chips in the middle when we can be crushed and we're totally lost on whether or not we are?  If we were going to be good here and stack worse hands here a good percentage of the time, then sure, going all the way with kings is worth the risk for the likelihood of reward.  But that likelihood of reward just seems really slim in this case.  With that said, why wouldn't we control the size of the pot with our line here?  Why wouldn't we take a cheap turn card and potentially free river card in an attempt to improve our hand and to get a better idea of what villains' ranges are?


Actually, that's a pretty bad analysis of the situation, and I'm really not sure where you got that idea.  It's either a call or 3-bet type of spot -- never a fold, and never an open shove, and even 3-betting is real thin -- when calling the raise costs only like 8.5% of what we have behind, and we have kings on a 9-high board.  Also, considering we have ~2850 chips effectively against MP2 and ~3850 chips against UTG+1 and the blinds are still 15/30, shoving 3850 into a small raise of 780 when there's an overcaller in the hand as well is a great way to let people know you hate money.  So no, you're actually way off on this one.

btw, check the original HH for a link to thehandconverter.com where you can see the results.

Big +1 there.  The results oriented thing is a 2 way street.  When someone screws up and points to the result, that doesn't make them right.  Validating your strat argument with them is no  different.

As far as the so called "condescention" goes... you know advent.  He didn't change.  He's got a plan for every hand, and he's going to stick to it.  He likes to make his points crystal clear, and you can do with them what you want.  Doubt there's any ill will there, he just doesn't see it that way.

FWIW, the stack sizes IMO are what make this tough.  A 4bet makes it pretty hard to fold if you're shoved on OTF, because you're committed.  And set and straight is in villains' ranges here.  So instead of arguing the semantics of it all here, I'd like to see a pokerstove of perceived ranges and see what kind of equity there is in flatting and shoving,  given that a 4bet is pot committing vs. villains.  If we're really folding on a safe turn and river the same as an ace, you could be looking at some pretty thin value calling the 3bet.  I don't think a fold OTF is bad if you're giving them enough credit to drop to another bet, because the odds of this checking down are almost nonexistent given the action.

Actually, just "sticking to the plan" isn't my sort of thing, especially when we're playing Detective in these sorts of spots.  I play more in the moment, use the fundamentals I've learned to make simpler decisions on the spot, and often re-evaluate constantly in marginal spots with big pots like this one.  I think just sticking to the first plan you make is pretty -EV anyways, since certain cards are going to change everything as well as certain unlikely/unexpected actions.  When pros say changing gears in the middle of a tourney is ideal, that line of thinking can apply to when you're


Bingo.  You'd be surprised at how many people that I've met throughout my life think I'm a dick, and then for every one of those people, there's one person who knows me at least fairly well and knows I'm a good guy with the best of intentions.  Sure, I was a bit critical, but I feel confident in my reasoning for my critique and it was simply meant to be constructive and not didactic or mocking or anything.

 

In conjunction with the raise size and the overcall, yes.  You could mark this as a bit of a cooler if the overcaller folded and we shoved and got shown a set, but there's more than one factor that makes the flop decision a little bit tough.  We're never going to immediately label the overcaller's call as dead money, so it's not like that overcall says to me, "now I really should shove even if it's folded around."

What does make this hand real tough is what can follow after the flop.  Ideally, we should know exactly what type of turn/river cards are bad for this situation, and that much, I can't really tell you because I haven't thought about it that much and am not too sure yet.