Playing A Straight When The Board Pairs

Today’s hand comes from Bob, and Bob wants me to review this live hand played with 76s. In this hand the blinds are $2/$3 – it folds around, hero decides to open. Gets called, gets called, gets called and goes multi-way to the flop which of course is not too too uncommon in the live environment. It checks to Bob who decides to check as well. Bob said he would decide whether to check call or check raise based upon who bet, what the exact action in sizing, etc. I can totally be on board with that. I think this is one of those where if you bet, you’re probably not getting a tremendous amount of folds and turns are going to suck.

I don’t mind taking the more check and aggressive route rather than just taking the mindless seed bet and put yourself into some really uncomfortable turn spots where you have no clue if there’s any fold equity whatsoever. You’re often times going to acquire some.

In this exact spot it goes check, check, check, all the way through. Three on a turn, the SB bets, and hero just decides to call.

I feel a lot of players would look at a situation like this. Obviously, they have the nuts, and just start shoveling money in as quickly as possible. It’s not that raising here is necessarily bad here by any stretch, but I don’t think it’s optimal. This is one where I don’t think anyone has a super strong hand. The bad rec is the only one who I think can really have a strong hand given the fact that he checked flop. Normally, he checked the preflop aggressor. I think in this type of situation, he’s the only one who can have a super strong hand. I think if the passive player or the stock player who only likes two pair or a set of a flop, we would have heard from them with a bet.

Are the CO or button really going to check

the flop behind with strong hands?

In this situation, I actually like calling to try to induce some lighter stuff. Try to induce hands like Ace X to come along, or a pair + weak draw to come along, or pocket sevens to come along. Whatever it is, I want to try to induce some stuff to try to come through. We’re laying in a pretty good price, if anyone has a flush draw, whatever, sucks to be us but who cares. I’m really just trying to induce single pairs and crappy draws to come along.

I think by just calling we can do that where as if we were to raise to something like $100, we blow it off. I’m not even sure if the bad fifty year old is going to get super crazy unless he has two pair plus.

Again, my major point is how can I get the other two goofballs involved and I think calling is definitely going to be the way to do that. In this spot, we actually do end up getting called in both spots which is awesome. Normally I only expect one of them to continue, getting two is fantastic.

On the river board pairs, we face a fifty on our bets and here decides to call again. There are a couple really important considerations to make here. First and foremost, I don’t think anyone has a boat or quads or anything like that stuff. I think if the bad fifty year old had it, he would have bet much larger than just $50 on this river. He only had $140 to start this street into a $183 pot, I think he just rips it or at least bets $100 if he has it. I don’t think he has that, and I don’t think anyone else has anything strong either. I think if someone had two pair or a set earlier in the hand, we would have heard from it. I really feel like we have the nuts here, it’s really not a concern as far as boats are.

With that said, which line is going to be more profitable. Calling here to try to induce one or two calls behind us or induce a lighter ship behind us or just going after the bad fifty year old’s stack our self and just raising it out. Which one is going to be more profitable?

If we rip and go after the bad fifty year old’s stack, we’re really just going after his last $90, whereas if we call, we need both players behind us to call in order to equal that same amount of money, or we need to call and induce one of them to shove. I don’t think the passive dude is ever going to shove bad and the stuck guy may, but it’s one of those where if he has 3x or something like that or whatever, I think if we raise he’s going to continue just the same as if we call and try and induce some kind of raise from him.

I think either way, if someone has a three, we’re going to get money from it whether we raise here or call to induce from it. In fact, a passive player may even call a weak three on the river. It’s one of those where I think raising is going to be much, much better here.

The only time I would call here is if I were very, very confident that one of the two players behind me is going to rip like a whiffed draw or something like that and think that there’s any semblance of fold equity. I think that’s an optimistic thing to consider in this situation, juts because why would they do that? If they wanted to play aggressive why wouldn’t they have just done it one the turn?

If we just call, can we make at least

$90 more from the other players?

I don’t think that we’re going to be facing that very, very often. Keeping all of those factors in mind, I would just much rather shove the river, hope that someone has a sticky three, hope that the bad fifty year old can’t find a fold with whatever hand he has, and try to go after the money that way. I think calling to induce is a little optimistic and I think calling to hope that you get two calls behind you is really optimistic. You’ve can expect that at least one of them has a whiffed draw and is most likely not going to continue, if not both of them having that same whiffed draw and they don’t continue.

This exact situation face a raise to $190, the bad fifty year old calls and hero just calls as well. I think this a leak again. I don’t think anyone has a boat here. I’m not concerned about boats in the slightest. If the stuck dude had 43, I don’t see him just calling the turn. I really don’t. I see him raising it. If he had a set, I think that he either raises the turn or he bets the flop himself. I’m not concerned about the monster here.

With that said, I think just calling here leaves $40 on the table. I’d really like to see here, get after it, get that last $40 and add it to his stack rather than letting the stuck guy hold onto it.

After it’s all said and day we end up shipping the pot of course and we see the stuck guy did end up having the inducer which is great, the bad guy had a second best straight, it is what it is. Again, we shoved the last $40, we never get called by J6, but I don’t expect to see J6 often enough. I’m not shocked to see a stuck three, something like 9x that all of a sudden goes into over value mode. I’d just rather get after it the times he can call me rather than let him keep his last $40.