Hero is In Position/Without the Lead/Dry Board
The question is how hero got into this position in the first place. When you are on the button against a single opponent, you should usually 3-bet or fold. However, if hero knows that villain will stack off with AA post-flop, set-mining isn’t a terrible idea. It’s still not a great idea because if there is a set versus set scenario, hero is likely to be on the wrong side of it. In addition, he won’t have a good idea whether villain is being aggressive with AA or top set.
If there is a loose player in the blinds, who is likely to stack off against a set, this would give hero an excuse to just call in this situation. So, we’ll assume that this is what occurred. We’ll also assume that the loose players in the blinds folded.
The Hand: Hero calls a Raise Pre-flop from the Button with 99. The flop comes up K87 rainbow.
This hand looks similar to Ref Hand 1 in the current series. However, there is a difference that you should take into account when deciding how many combos in villain’s range that will fold to a bet.
Your opponent was the pre-flop raiser in this hand. In the previous hand, he was the caller.
Therefore, you are facing a stronger range in the current example.
Villain’s Range
Below is villain’s estimated range from UTG+1. Even with a tight range, villain has missed the flop with almost 33% of combos. The 16 combos that have missed this flop are AQ. In addition, there are 12 combos (QQ-JJ), that are vulnerable to being forced into folding.
We will look at 2 scenarios. The first is when villain c-bets on the flop. The second will be when villain checks on the flop.
Flop: Villain Bets
When villain bets, you should fold against a supertight NIT. He is not likely to be bluffing.
In contrast, a TAGfish player might c-bet his whole range. However, you need to know that this guy is c-betting his whole range to make continuing with the hand profitable.
If you are using a HUD, you could look at his flop c-bet%. It’s also useful to look at your opponent’s fold vs flop 2-bet% and fold vs float%.
If all of these are high, you can consider continuing with the hand. Finally, you have to look at his bet size. When a player like this has a hand that hits this board hard, his bet will be large relative to the pot. It is probably worth continuing with the hand if villain’s bet is ⅔ of the pot or less.
If you do want to win the pot, you have to turn your hand into a bluff. For current purposes, we will assume that your opponent has a pre-flop raising range of at least AK and all pocket pairs.
Villain has 16 combos (AQ) that will definitely fold. He has 12 combos of pocket pairs below top pair (QQ-JJ). We may be able to get villain to fold these.
Villains other combos include AA (6 combos), KK (3 combos) and AK (12 combos).
So, that’s a total of 28 combos that will fold or are vulnerable to folding and 21 combos that are almost never folding. This works out as 33% of villain’s range are AQ combos and 24.4% of his range are QQ-JJ combos. This adds up to a total of 57.4% of combos that have potential to fold.
There are two main strategies available to you. The first is bluff-raising on the flop and the second is “floating”. Floating is usually best against a player, who has a high flop c-bet% and checks the turn, when he has missed the flop.
I have presented the maths behind floating in a my article Is it Best to Bluff-raise or Float on the Flop in NL Texas Holdem?
Let’s have a look at the Floating Calculator results.
The pot on the flop is £10 and villain’s c-bet is $6.67. Therefore, villain has bet 2/3 of the pot. Under “Turn Bet Size%”, I have put in 67%. I figure that you would need to bet, at least, this amount to get QQ-JJ to fold.
We need 57.23% folds on the turn to break even on the whole floating move. I calculated that the total number of folds will be 57.4%. Therefore, it is close between floating and just folding to villain’s c-bet.
It could be argued that many of villain’s strong hands, such as sets, will not be in villain’s range when he checks on the turn. However, if your opponent has seen you float in recent hands, he may check on the turn to trap you.
It’s a close decision.
If I thought villain would bet his sets on the turn, I would call the flop c-bet. Usually, the turn card puts a draw on the board. A lot of villains will bet their sets on the turn when they see a draw. They won’t risk going for the check-raise in this situation.
If I wasn’t sure how villain would play his sets on the turn, I would fold to villain’s flop c-bet here.
Flop: Villain Checks
So, let’s look at what we should do if villain checks on the flop. When villain checks, you don’t have any real information whether or not he has hit this flop. Many NITs do check-fold when they miss a flop. Nevertheless, your opponent’s range will consist of missed flops, showdown value hands and sets. As the board is dry, villain won’t be too concerned about giving you a free turn card.
Usually, players with top pair or an overpair will c-bet at low stakes, even if they miss the flop eg with AQ. If you go with this read, villain’s hand is polarised, with sets, at the high end, and QQ-99, at the low end.
If you assume that villain would raise a small flop bet with a set, you should get folds from the pairs below a king on the turn. Therefore, you can bet ½ of the pot on the flop. If you are called and villain checks again on the turn, you should assume that your opponent doesn’t have a set. Therefore, you can put villain on QQ-99, which is 19 combos. These should all fold to a big bet if they didn’t hit a set on the turn. Therefore, you should bet about a pot sized bet, just to make sure that you get these folds.
If a queen or a jack comes on the turn, you should still bet. Villain will have a set of queens or jacks in his range. However, even if he called on the flop with QQ-JJ, there are at least twice as many combos that will fold relative to his combos of sets. Remember, we are assuming that villain would have raised a small flop bet if he had flopped a set of kings.
However, you can bet small if the turn card is a queen. This is because JJ will have been relegated from a pair below top pair to a pair below the second highest card on the board.
If you face aggression at any time in the hand, you should fold.
Conclusion
When villain c-bets on a king-high flop, it was close, whether to float or fold to a bet. If the flop had been an ace-high flop, it would not have been close at all. It would be a clear fold, with AA, AK, and AQ (30 combos) hitting an ace-high flop. There would be 18 combos of pairs below top pair (KK-JJ). However, you would have too many combos working against you to considering pushing villain off his pairs below an ace.
Therefore, this hand serves as a reference hand, where calling on the flop and floating is close between floating and folding.
Playing without the lead against an early position raiser is tricky, even when you have position. Generally, you shouldn’t play with pocket pairs in this situation.
However, many microstakes players will play pocket pairs in this situation and many others.