In Part I of this post, I presented a situation where I have seen a cheap 4-way flop with pocket 3s, and then gone on to hit a set of 3s on the flop, with the action checked to me in the big blind, and I asked whether you all think a bet or a check is the best move here. After reviewing the comments, it appears that the readers are generally split as between checking here or betting out. Most of the commenters who advocated betting out seem to agree with my general theory of not betting too much, because, as I mentioned in Part I, the last thing I ever want to do is chase everyone else out after I pick up a huge hand on the flop. So the options seem to be either to check here and either let someone else do the betting on the flop (or just wait for the turn to start pushing with your set), or to bet out small, possibly indicating some weakness to an opponent trying to get a read on me.
In the end, I opted to bet out here. My thinking, as I have written about several times in my own blog, is that in my experience, the vast majority of online holdem players automatically check the flop if they pick up three of a kind. Just about everyone seems to do the check-the-flop-and-then-bet-then-turn-strongly thing when they flop a well-hidden set, and as a result, people also seem to be a bit more wary of other players who check the flop but then bet out on the turn, since I often find that people usually expect others to play the game generally the same way that they themselves would play it. As a result, I tend to bet out when I flop a set more often than most people, because it doesn't tend to be interpreted as indicating a set nearly as often as one would think.
So I bet out, betting just half the pot in the hopes that my bet would be interpreted as some kind of a probe bet or some form of weakness from me. I got basically what I wanted, as both middle position players called, while the small blind folded. So three players saw the turn card, with now $38 sitting in the pot. The turn card is the King♥. With the small blind now out of the hand, action begins with me on this betting round.
Now what? Do I lead out here, now that the pot has grown significantly from where it was after the flop? How much would you bet in relation to the $38 in the pot currently? Or, do you check it here and try to induce a bet from one of the other two players left in the pot? What's the best move here?
I'll be back tomorrow with the next part of this post, and I look forward to your comments in the interim.
1. Nice. Well, you led out, and you got a good result. Two callers, and the Kc. Probably an ideal result. The question here is: are these players aggressive, passive, or unknown?
Against aggressive players, I'm more likely to check and lure out a bet from a weaker hand or a pure bluff (or a semibluff from a hand like AhQh). Against a passive, especially prone to calling, I'm definitely betting here.
Overall, the K was one of the two cards I most wanted to see. (The two cards I most wanted to see were Ac and Kc, but any A or K is good). I'm inclined to fire $25-30 at this, probably $30. If either of the players seems like a loose caller, I'll go all the way to $40, hoping to get that in and another $60 on the river against their KQ or AK. Another way to stab it is to just fire $20, and hope they raise a K; but I don't like that. They should know to not build a pot with that hand here, and you're encouraging someone who picked up a draw to come along and really hammer you. While they'd be calling the flop pretty loosely, AhQh can undoubtedly call your flop bet profitably, and they can also almost certainly call $20 here profitably, purely on the strength of their draw if you bet $20 and the first MP player to act calls it with something like 66-JJ again.
So, in balance, I like firing $25-30 depending on my read of opponents. Absent any read, I'd go with $30.
Posted at 6:56PM on Dec 7th 2006 by MattW