Would you call all in with king high flush with a pair on the board?

Question

Let’s say You are in the dealer with king jack suited(of clubs). Blind are 1-2 dollars. Fold to you, You raise to 12. Call from the small blind the the big blind re raises to 40 dollars. You call and the small blind folds. Flop 3 j 8 (3 and 8 of clubs) He raises 60 dollars you call. Turn is a three he raises 100 you call. The river is a four of clubs he checks you have the second nut flush so you bet two hundred dollars he raises you to all in. You have 900 dollars from behind, do you call all in?

Answer 1

My best simple answer would be "It depends". Folding here would likely be the most accurate option if you were working in a data vacuum. I have found that most of the time the player is not bluffing.

However, players bluff here often enough that one really needs to be able to know enough about the player, the mood of the game and the players tells for one to be able to take advantage of the occasional bluff.

The thought process one needs to go through here is several layers deep. From the OP's description it is obvious the player has or is representing pocket Jack's or eights. With all the action preflop the player is not likely to have a three in his hand. The player may also be playing something like a pocket pair or some other ranked hand like AK.

The decision is simple if your playing against the type of player that does not gamble much, rarely if ever bluffs etc. you lay it down. But if the player is something other then that, you have some things to consider before you lay this hand down.

Things that would make me tend to call...

(If yes it adds some weight to making a call.)

Does the player tend to get stubborn with his hands?

Does the player tend to overrate his hands? By this I mean what is the likelihood that the player believes, his A-3, smaller flush, large pocket pair etc. is actually the best hand.

Does the player like to bluff?

Has the player been reading me accurately? I would add some weight to a call if I thought he was a player that could pick up that I have something less then a full house and is capable of a sophisticated bluff here. But this is tricky if the player has a good ideal rather not I would call with that when he has the full house. (Layers!)

Do I have a read on the player?( if I do not have a good read on the player I will need to fold here more often. A good read will supersede almost everything else I may have observed about the player outside of this hand.)

The list can go on for awhile. Coming to a decision about rather to call or fold gets a little more simple as you pack experience into intuition over the years. This is one of those hands you would run through your head a lot or talk with someone about, and come to the conclusion you played it wrong. This is a hand that can always go either way for you. The more you know, the more experience you have with the game in general and the player in particular the better your accuracy with this decision is going to be.

Answer 2

I would fold because;

• i doubt villain will be turning AcAx, QcQx & KcKx into a bluff.
• I don't think people 3bet Ac5x, Ac4x and Ac2x preflop often enough nor will they know that these are great river XR bluffs very often.
• You are blocking AcJx and i doubt they would turn it into a bluff often.

I think here you run into Ac2c, Ac4c, Ac5c, AcQc & AcKc a lot and less frequently AcTc the average villain won't have nearly enough bluffs in his range to justify a call. Although this is a call at least sometimes if villain plays with well balanced ranges which the average player won't do.

When calling 900 to win 2600 you need 34.6% bluffs in his range to break even. I doubt the average nl 1/2 person has that. There are 5-6 combinations of value in their range so they need 2+ bluff combos to make it worthwhile. Therefore this will mostly depend on whether they might be 3betting the offsuit Ax preflop and are capable of understanding that the Ac is a perfect hand to bluff with.

Furthermore XR on river tends to be value heavy in general because the OOP is likely to choose a triple barrel bluff rather than a XR just because it's cheaper and people tend to choose the cheaper line with bluffs.

Furthermore the average fish won't try to fold out a flush here, seeing that flush gets there is an auto shutdown for the avg nit.