Maximizing Value on Monotone Boards

This is the free version of the Crush Live Poker subscription podcast. If you enjoy this audio format of poker training and want to hear more complete episodes, check out our membership options at CrushLivePoker.com. What's going on everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Crush Live Poker Podcast. I'm your host here, Bart Hansen, and today's episode here is donk leads, slow plays, and playing big pairs on ace high boards. But let's start off here with hand number one. So this was two five. It was a thousand effective. And this was from last week. I talking a little bit about slow playing and when you would want to do it in a certain situation . So this one starts off, it's right at the beginning of the game, right at the beginning of the game. And the cutoff, who is like an older guy, he opens to 15. He's an older guy, but he's not a net. This was at the right in the beginning of like one of those amazing games that I talked about like last week. He opens to 15, gets folded around to me, and I'm in the big blind with Queen Deuce of Spades. It's probably pretty close, right? I mean the pot's like what 20 bucks and it's 10 bucks for me to call. Or yeah, to the pot's like 20 bucks and it's 10 bucks for me to call. So I guess you could say like I'm only getting two to one with a ten dollar call, but sometimes I will complete with up and down suited cards. It was just a three X open. I guess if I I I mean obviously you could make a case here for folding. You can definitely defend more heads up than multi-way. Like I probably wouldn't defend this hand multi-way unless it was absolutely super multi-way. And you could just stay away from it too as well. So I make the call, and the pot is 30 bucks. I've got Queen Deuce of Spades and we go to the flop. And the flop comes out: 10 of diamonds, deuce of diamonds, deuce of hearts. So 10 deuce deuce with a couple of diamonds. Ooh, and by the way, we're a thousand dollars effective. No straddle on yet, by the way. And you know, jack plots are going off like right away in my head. However, you know, you kind of want to figure out how you want to play a specific hand. So I checked the cutoff bet 15, so an in-between sizing. And again, like the lower that you play, I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with pretty much fast playing your entire range or fast playing your hand all the time. I mean it would kind of be weird, I think, to lead out on a board like this. We'll talk about a couple another situation where I did lead out, but I keep that more for like multi-way types of situations when I don't think the continuation uh the pre-flop razor is necessarily going to continuation bet when they missed, or sometimes might check it back even when they have an overpair. This is not one of those situations when we're heads up. And the thing sometimes with slow playing, especially if you're against a better player,. N nowow this is 10 deuce deuce, but if you can kind of picture if it was like seven deuce deuce, there's just a lot of cards that can come that are going to be overcards that the guy might run into, that he might represent. Whereas if you raise right now, sure , you can look like you can have a diamond draw, but if he just whiffs and he has absolutely nothing, he's probably not going to continue on. Although, again, like if you're playing up against some thinking oppon ents, if they were to sometimes bet like ace hives or pocket sevens, pocket eights, and they didn't think you would ever check raise a 10, they might continue if you were to raise, if they don't think that you're gonna check raise a 10. Because it's gonna be a flush draw or you're fast playing off a deuce. But in this particular case, I was like, you know what? This guy's going to probably gonna continue to bet anyways if he does have something like a 10 or an overpair. There's a couple diamonds out there. And I can just put in a check raise here on the turn. Of course, the issue is that the earlier on in the hand that you fast play, the more action you usually get. Usually if you wake up on a later street, in general, the population tends to be stronger and you might see more folding. Also, your opponent loses to more hands. Like say your opponent here has got like king king or Quene Quene. It comes out 10 deuce deuce and you check graves. No one in a million years is going to fold. If you just call and it turns a seven, like what's going to happen? And you check, and I check with Queen Deuce and he bets and I check Graves. That's another hand that he might lose to now, pocket sevens that actually makes sense. So, you know, there's a little bit of a back and forth, but I decided to just call. And I didn't even think that this was the type of guy that would actually fold an overpair if I did check right. So it you know, it took it like a special player. It was like a guy that wasn't gonna fold, but he was probably gonna bet the turn if he had something and he wasn't gonna fold. So if I check and he checks behind, he probably doesn't have anything, and it gives him the opportunity to probably to maybe catch like a top pair type of hold ing. Also, I think even though I am closing the action and I'm wide because I'm in the big blind, you will see less pot control, less people like checking back at 10 here or an over pair when the trips are low. Like if this was 10, 10 deuce and we check called, I would and like say the term was a three. I I would say that I would see the population check behind more with showdown types of hands or even overpairs scared of trips, whereas on 10 deuce deuce, maybe not. Or I think they just don't as much. So going in with that, I decided to check call and now the pod is 60 bucks. The turn was the seven of clubs. So going along with the plan, I checked, and he quickly just checked behind. So it remains 60 bucks. And now the river here is a king. And this is kind of why I picked this hand. So it's 10 deuce due seven. Front door diamonds. River is the king of hearts. Now remember, he seabat the flop , he checked behind the turn, which usually is indicative that he probably doesn't have an overpair from what I talked about when he because I just don't think he's going to be pot controlling a deuce. So if he doesn't have an overpair, he doesn't have a 10 , what does that usually mean? Well, he could have I suppose like a smaller pair like eights or nines, but a hand like king queen, a hand like ace king, something like that. So when the king comes on the river, this is a spot where if you do slow play and somebody checks back turn, the proper play is actually to go for a check raise on the river. Now that is only if the river brings in an over card to top pair. The proper play would not be to go for a check race here on a three or a four or a five or a six. If I had Queen Deuce on ten deuce deuce with front door diamonds and I played it this way, and you check back a seven turn. If the river was a low card, I would bet and just trying to get called here by ace high, maybe to look me up as a float, like thinking that I was floating, which I have seen guys do, or that I busted out on diamonds. I would not go for a check race, but when the overcard comes to top pair, now he might represent with a bluff or bet a king himself in any type of player. Now, you feel like an absolute moron if you check and a guy checks behind with like King Jack or King Queen or something like that. But even when people in general, even at two five, sometimes are petrified of making thin value bets, I think a lot of guys, even recreational players, will find a value bet if they run into a king here. So as long as they value bet a king most of the time here, and then they also bet bluffs, the play is to check rate. So if you are slow playing, which I don't recommend doing all that often, whether it's a set or trips like in this particular situation, if you're slow playing from out of position like from the blind when you flop something big and the turn gets checked through, if an overcard comes to the top card that usually will hit the pre-flop raiser's range, I actually think the play is to go for a check raise, as opposed to leading out. Because if he has ace king, if he's got king Quene and king jack, and I just bet out he,'s just gonna call. But if I check and he bets, I can put in a check race. Now, again, to play devil's advocate, you could say, well, you might get more money by just coming out and leading out. Because if he folds, like if if you check and he bets King Jack and you check raise and he folds, you get less money. That is an argument, I will say. But the way that this hand went down and against this particular player, I wasn't overly concerned, as long as I kept my sizing in checked that he was gonna fold. So I decided to check, and he quickly just checked behind. And I won, and I sheepishly turned over Queen Deuce for trips and dragged in a very, very small plot. But again, I don't necessarily want to be results oriented. I thought it was an interesting little spot. Now, speaking of fast playing from the same session on to hand number two, I often get asked this question about when do you decide when do you decide to say donk lead a big hand versus go for a check raise? And normally my response is like I said in the previous hand, when it's multi-way and when I don't think that the pre-flop razor is going to see bat bluff all that much, because I don't want to get into a situation on a board where it gets checked over to some field better and then I check raise, the and field better doesn't really have a strong range and he just folds. That's why we kind of play spots a little bit backwards in certain situations. And I say, well, you can attack field betters and you want to check raise your big, big draws to maximize fold equity, but when you actually flop something pretty big, you don't want to maximize your fold equity. Like when you flop something big and you lead out on a board that you don't think that the pre-flop razor is going to see bet bluff all that much because of the texture of the board and or the multi-way nature of the spot, you don't want a field call a field caller who would call a bet