this situation has been bugging me a tad we have no read on villain and yet there seems to me quite a few advocating that to float here as being a straight forward play here?
Everyone has there style i guess but just in case there are any new ish apat members who are poker newbies reading this thread then i"ll try to write down my thought process for this situation.. [forgive if it seems muddled but imo choosing when to float is a bit more complex than call and bet turn if villain checks]
the flop is 2 tone JT8 for arguments sake lets say jack hearts,ten spades,8 hearts , we all hear the term wet or dry flop and it doesnt just mean how co-ordinated the flop is but also how does the first 3 community cards dealt fit with our villains range..Also
a flop is wet if the number of potential scare cards is high that can come on 4th 5th street...
Back to the flop of - jack hearts,ten spades,8 hearts , we hold Ace club,King diamond and villain donk bets 400 into a pot of 750... in a lot of forums we all see replies like
call flop, re-evaluate turn that are usually part of the more interesting hands we discuss when hero has 2 high unpaired cards that miss the flop 70% of the time and yet we know our opponent is just as likely to of missed as well
So on our flop of jack hearts,ten spades,8 hearts what goes through my mind with only 1 caller?
1.The lower the stakes, the worse the players are and thus widens the range unknowns will call raises with,in general i find it a lot easier to assign ranges against better players.
2.Choosing when to float i tend to want to have a read on villains style of play,is he a LAG/Maniac,TAG,loose passive or weak tight player , this is the sort of read/feel i need to start choosing when to float.
3.I"ll also consider the size of the bet compared to the pot and villains stack size,say for instance that villain is loose passive,then a 400 bet into a pot of 750 by a passive player who doesn"t usually like putting in a lot of money as the aggressor would be a tricky spot would it not? What if villain is a LAG who will have no problem firing out 2 barrels out of position even though we flat him on the flop.. Having an idea of the villains style is essential and how they play there range of hands to be able to float successfully and not end up in pickle the majority of times that we try it.When we call a flop bet, we hope for a safe turn card, after which villains actions should help us to narrow their range,but can you see why i like to have a read on villains style , a check on the turn by any of the above characters i described depending on what card comes can be any number of meanings.If we
blindly float then at best we are hoping villain is weak tight or weak loose,that they do not have any semblance of hand reading skills and praying that our turn bet will knock them off there hand.
Back to the flop of - jack hearts,ten spades,8 hearts [ jh ts
]we hold ac kd lets start thinking about apart from bluffs what villain could be donk betting with - KQo+s KJo JQo TJo A9hh A9o 99 AJo AQhh 88 TT are just a few possibles so in terms of turn cards what do we want not to see on the turn? Any heart completes a flush - 11 cards , Any 9 makes the board run four to the straight and gives 99 a set + OESD (3 more cards) , Any ace completes yet another OESD for KQ (+2 plus ace heart) , Assuming the flop connected with our opponent, any non-club ace/king is trouble as it could easily give him two pair (+2 cards) , Any Queen or 7 completes an OESD (+6)
thats 24 cards out of 47 unseen that may improve villain on the turn,we are only hoping for 3 Queens,so 21 scare cards and not even taking into account any Jack Ten or Eight either that may come,we have no read on villain..What would be the best play now?
I hope this causes some discussion or at least gets you thinking on what type of textured flops and opponent styles/hand ranges they play and
how they play them and what are prime float opportunity"s and which are not..
