Poker Quiz Question #20

Q#20: You're in a $5/$10 NL full-ring 9-handed cash game. Everyone has about $1000 stacks. Your raise UTG with Js-Jh. It is folded to the expert player in the SB, who calls. The BB folds, and you take the flop heads up. The flop is: 2s-2c-Td. The SB leads for $80. You raise to $250, and the SB re-raises you to $650. Your image is tight-aggressive, very tight in EP, and you rarely bluff. What should you do?

1. Raise all-in
2. Fold
3. Call and fold the turn if he bets again
4. Call and get all-in on teh turn if no overcard hits
5. Call and get all-in on the turn regardless of the turn card

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A#20: When in doubt, we go back to our trusty RED-I method, with the emphasis on R is for Reads.

Reads: You're in a full-ring game and you've raised UTG. The SB, who is an expert player and knows he'll be OOP throughout the hand, calls your raise. He knows you've raised UTG, are very tight (especially in EP) and you rarely bluff, so he knows you have a strong hand-- something like 88-AA, AQs, and AKo+ -- and yet he still calls. He's also knows he's going to probably be heads up with you when he calls, so we can throw away suited connectors and the like from his hand. We can also throw away KK-AA, because he's probably RR'ing with those cards preflop. He's an expert, so he's not going to play silly hands like AXs or even KQs by calling here, either. Therefore we can probably put him on a range of small and medium pairs; i.e., it feels very much like he's set-mining preflop. Call it 22-QQ.

Now, on the flop of 2s-2c-Td he donks, which is unusual for an expert. You RR him to $250, which given the range he has to have put you on PF, signals that your range is now something like TT-AA, which is very strong, but then he 4bets you to $650. This indicates he has a very strong hand. The size of his bet and remaining stack also indicates that he's pot-committed to the hand; he's only got ~$300 behind now, which means he's going to have very good odds to call off for his whole stack. He's certainly aware of this, so it just reemphasizes how strong he is repping here. His range now feels like very much like a set of tens, quad twos, jacks, or queens. He could also be bluffing with eights or nines, but this is doubtful and we should probably discount this unless we have a specific reason not to (e.g., if the problem statement had said he's bluffy, or we have a tell or notes that indicate he's capable of pulling a pot-committed bluff here).

Estimate: When we pokerstove the situation including his bluff range, our jacks are essentially a 50:50 proposition. If we take away his bluff cards, our jacks change to a huge dog at something like 90:10. In other words, we're somewhere between a coinflip and dead with our jacks.

Decide: we're most likely beat, and beat badly, so it's time to choose a Fold line.

Implement: Muck.

Answer: Fold.

All-in for now...
-Bug