Knowlege from the F-Train..
I was reading my man Asphyxnia at Riding the F-Train and he mentions something I had been mulling over a lot lately. You’re in a situation. You have AK. You raise pre-flop. Get a caller or two. Bet the flop. Turn. You have your Ace with the top kicker and bet the river. WHAM! You get raised on the river and end up losing to K2 when they hit their two pair. It was starting to dawn on me that checking the river is not such a bad idea. Asphyxnia brings up the pro’s of this very well. In my mind I was mulling over for the past week or so: Is this too weak, or is this right? I tend to like this play especially when playing against good players because they tend to have the sense to not pay your river bet off. I can see exceptions to this in the low limit hell I have sent myself to, where second pair WILL ALWAYS pay you off. He can never conceive of a reality when you really do have TPTK.
As an offshoot of his posting it kind of dawns on me why you should raise the turn if you think you have the best hand. I have slow played NUT hands before. I try not to do it very often but sometimes I will. Slow playing the turn is a mistake though. You have to figure whoever is betting has a reason to be in the pot. If you raise the turn and he still has a draw that he thinks will win the hand for him your going to collect that extra bet you probably lose on the river anyway. If you’re lucky he will check-call your river bet too. I always kind of thought it was silly to throw that extra bet in so early. Now I am thinking it is smart. A lot of little things to save you bets over time. Interesting.
posted by SirFWALGMan at
11:00 AM
2 Comments:
With a monster, I like to check/call the flop and then raise the Turn. Two reasons - 1) it's hard for an opponent to put you on a hand (especially when the turn is a seemingly harmless duece); and 2) it forces chasers after you to call 2-bets for their draw.
This works well for me at the 3/6 tables. If someone else leads out betting and I raise on the flop, no one has a problem calling me for the $6, and then on the Turn it'll get checked to me and I have to come out betting, allowing everyone else to continue to draw for only $6. But if I raise the bettor on the Turn, those chasers think twice about dropping $12 for their gut-shot.
Unfortunately this backfired on me once when I flopped a set of 9s with a KQ9 flop. I checked, and there was a bet and a raise after me, so I called, figuring there'd be plenty of action on the Turn that I could CAPitalize on. I was ready to check-raise, but it got checked through... the River didn't complete any draws and everyone folded to my bet, so I lost out on a couple of Turn calls. :(
Was this the right play? I thought so. But like in every other situation in poker... "It Depends!"
12:02 PM
This is a little redundant, but here are two situations where waiting for the turn to raise are advantageous:
1) You have an absolute monster and you're sure you're going to get called down to the river. If you raise or 3-bet the flop, you will likely get check-called to the showdown with his decent hand. But raising on the turn allows you to get an extra small bet.
2) You flop a strong hand after it's been raised preflop, but the board shows one or more draws. Calling as many as 2SB is correct for the guy with the draw (and he didn't semi-bluff it), so you won't chase him out with a raise here (of course, if you have a chance to 3-bet immediately after a raise, do it). Wait for the turn and raise unless the draw appears to complete. Fold if there's a raise in front, depending on the strength of your hand and the opponent doing the raising.
Yeesh. It depends.
3:42 PM
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