Turned straight, can I value bet river when a potential flush hits?
This week Barry Carter gets a cash game hand he played reviewed by our No Limit expert LemOn36.
In this new series PokerStrategy Editor Barry Carter gets a relatively 'standard' hand reviewed by a professional player to see if it was a trivial decision or not.
I have done a PKO, MTT and Spin & Go hand so far in this series, it is time to turn my attention to cash games (my weakest area for sure) so today I speak with our small stakes No Limit coach LemOn36.
This hand took place in a $0.02/0.05 Zoom game with no reads at all on my table.
OK so UTG limps and it is folded to me in the Small Blind with 88. Before we get started, my x4 raise is pretty standard here right? I am discounting him having a lot of premium hands and I suspect he has a lot of connected hands, small pairs etc.
LemOn36: Yes, even fun players have raising ranges in general. We don't know this one specifically but most will raise or 3-bet QQ+ and AK and even some Broadways. So his range should have a full blast of small pairs, low hands and connectors, plus a mix of random hands and Ax. 88 does really well against that range so we want to raise.
Villain calls and we flop T-9-7 with two spades (we have a spade too). I love this flop and bet $0.30 into a $0.43 pot. I figure a lot of hands we beat will call (draws and lesser pairs), stronger hands we have good equity against with our open ended straight draw and we block made straights.
LemOn36: You have great equity vs his range so the bet is good, I would just size it down here so he can call with hands with poor equity like 22-66, Ace high etc. Your plan here should be to bet flop then check/call blank turns as you beat draws and floats. With that plan you don't mind him having a wider range as you are check/calling almost any turn, so betting 33-55% pot is nice.
He calls and we turn a Jack of Hearts giving us a straight and putting a 2nd flush draw on the board. I bet $0.75 into a $1.01 pot because I am not too worried about KQ/Q8 but I still think a lot of hands and draws can call here.
LemOn36: Yes draws, two pairs and because of your larger flop bet we don't really lose much value from weak hands, so the sizing here is nice.
The river is a Six of Spades putting a potential flush out there. This is where I think I messed up, I felt like a lot of flush draws were calling me on flop and turn. I felt like the set/two pair type hands would have raised me on the turn, so now I was worried a bet would only get called by other 8s, KQ or a flush. I was going to call a bet on the river even though the only hand that bluffs is a missed heart draw that somehow called the flop. How do you play this river?
LemOn36: There are not that many flush draws actually. We expect AT or QT of Spades to raise preflop, even a fun player can fold 32s or 43s under the gun. 7, 9 and 6 are on the board and you hold the 8s yourself, so the hands most people limp are blocked, other than random Ax, Kx and Qx of Spades junk. So his range here is most likely 76, 77, T9, TJ, some flushes, other straights and not much air.
What I would do is go for a blockbet of 30-40% and fold if he raises. Especially as he has shown passive tendencies so far, to raise at the end would be very strong. You don't worry about bluffs here because of your large sizings earlier and at micro stakes people don't really turn made hands into bluffs.
As it happened, Villain checked back and mucked their hands, so I won but never got to see what they had.
This is why you block bet
I think I messed up the river for a couple of reasons. First of all I don't think I thought hard enough about the potential hands that call flop and turn that I still do beat, hands like T9, T7, 97 etc, I just looked at it in terms of flush draw or no flush draw.
Secondly I didn't even think of using a blocking bet in this situation. This is precisely what such a bet was made for and although exploitable, probably not at this level. My thanks to LemOn36 for his analysis.
LemOn36 is a top cash game coach at PokerStrategy.com who amongst other things does two monthly streams for us - The Monthly Special and the Micro Live Grind. You can find him and the details on his latest stream in our forums.
Thoughts on the hand? Let us know in the comments:
