Poker Quiz Question #37

Q#37: You're in a $10/$20 NL cash game in a Los Angeles casino It is nine-handed, and everyone has $2,000 stacks. You have been at the table for a few laps. In the SB, you are dealt Tc-Ts. The UTG player limps, the button limps, you complete, and an unknown TAG player in the BB raises to $120. The UTG player calls, the button folds, and you call. The BB is playing about 20% of his hands, and raising 10%.

The flop comes out Qd-Jc-Td. You check, the BB bets $200. The UTG player folds, and you call. The turn is the Js. You check. The BB bets $300. What should you do?

1. Fold
2. Raise
3. Call and Check/Call the River
4. Call and Check/Fold the River
5. Call and Bet out on the River
6. Call and Check/Raise the River

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A#37: As is our norm, we're going to apply REDi and see what she tells us.

Reads: The BB squeezed three limpers preflop. The problem statement said that he's [preflop] raising 10% of his hands. For a good TAG firing into a MW pot knowing he will be OOP throughout the hand if called, this typically means he holds hands like 77+,A9s+,KTs+,QTs+,AJo+,KQo.

The pot is $380 before any action on the flop. Our villain fires $200 into this 3-way hand when we check to him on the highly coordinated board of Qd-Jc-Td. This is a smallish bet, so we have to ask whether he's just cbetting with air (and wants to keep the pot small) or whether he's flopped a big hand and is trying to keep us and/or the UTG player hanging around. Because the pot is still MW, I tend to bias my answer toward the latter. I also think that he may not cbet this flop if he holds any of the smaller pairs in his range. This board just plain connects with too many cards in our (and the UTG player's) perceived range, so we're only calling with better hands than medium pairs at this point. Therefore, I think we can narrow the villain's range a smidge to something like JJ+,A9s+,KTs+,QTs+,AJo+,KQo.

The turn is a beautiful black Jack, pairing the board and giving us a fairly nuttish hand (though not the absolute nuts by any means). There is about $780 in the pot when our villain fires another bet heads-up into us of $300. Again, this sizing is on the small side of normal, so we have to question again why he's doing it. The board is even more coordinated, yet he bets an amount that is begging us to call. Ergo, let's narrow his range even further to something like QQ-JJ,AQs+,KJs,QJs,AQo+

Estimate: There's $1080 in the pot, and we've got $1680 behind, so we're not pot committed. Against his range, pokerstove tells us our boat is a huge favorite, with over 80% equity.

Decide: With 80% equity, our hand is definitely a Value hand. We may not be pot committed, but with this much equity we're definitely going to try to get stacks into the middle.

Implement: Of our possible multiple choice answers, we can summarily dismiss Folding. We can also toss out Call/Check/Call and Call/Check/Fold. Calling with the intention of Betting out on the river is also a bad idea, as he's only going to call with better hands at that point. So this leaves us with Raise now, or Call/Check/Raise. The danger with the latter option is our opponent may not feel committed on the river with two-pair type hands, so he may check behind to see a cheaper showdown, or he might just fold to a C/R. Remember, we're on a Value line, which means we want to extract value from our opp. Therefore, I think the only viable action here to maximize the size of the pot and get our opp feeling more committed is to raise.

Answer: Raise

All-in for now...
-Bug