Three interesting hands

[adanthar]

I'm pretty sure I played two of these well and butchered the third.

The first two were back to back hands in the same SNG. The main villain had doubled through on the first hand when his trip aces got called by a flush draw, and has been relatively silent since...but he did raise AJo from the SB into a bunch of limpers. I hadn't played a hand except for QQ being picked off by Axs.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t30 (8 handed)

MP2 (t645)
Hero (t615)
Button (t595)
SB (t815)
BB (t1890)
UTG <font color="purple">(Villain)</font> (t1965)
UTG+1 (t745)
MP1 (t730)

Preflop: Hero is CO with A/images/graemlins/heart.gif, K/images/graemlins/club.gif.
UTG <font color="purple">(Villain)</font> calls t30, <font color="666666">3 folds</font>, <font color="CC3333">Hero raises to t100</font>, <font color="666666">3 folds</font>, UTG <font color="purple">(Villain)</font> calls t70.

Flop: (t245) A/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 9/images/graemlins/spade.gif, J/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="blue">(2 players)</font>
Villain checks, <font color="CC3333">Hero bets t125</font>, Villain calls t125.

Turn: (t495) 7/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="blue">(2 players)</font>
Villain checks, <font color="CC3333">Hero bets t390 (All-In)</font>

He took a while to call PF, and on this flop, I felt that anything he called with would be either Ax or a draw (not counting unlikely 2 pairs and sets.) I decided to either get away cheap or make him pay on the turn. (Results, since Hand 2 makes them obvious:) <font color="white">He thought for a while before calling with QT of spades. The river didn't help him and I doubled through.</font> If you assume my read is accurate, thoughts on giving him a relatively cheap street?

Hand 2:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t30 (8 handed)

MP1 (t645)
Hero (t1275)
CO (t595)
Button (t800)
SB (t1860)
BB <font color="purple">(Villain)</font> (t1350)
UTG (t745)
UTG+1 (t730)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with K/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, K/images/graemlins/spade.gif.
<font color="666666">3 folds</font>, <font color="CC3333">Hero raises to t100</font>, <font color="666666">2 folds</font>, SB calls t85, BB <font color="purple">(Villain)</font> calls t70,

<font color="red">Villain thought a while before calling this. The SB, who had played a solid game to this point, didn't. </font>

Flop: (t300) 9/images/graemlins/club.gif, 8/images/graemlins/heart.gif, J/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="blue">(3 players)</font>

<font color="red">Not a good flop for kings, though not that bad.</font>

<font color="CC3333">SB bets t200</font>, Villain calls t200,

<font color="red">I considered a flat call (and raising a good turn) but decided to raise and strongly consider folding to an all in. Thoughts?</font>

<font color="CC3333">Hero raises to t600</font>, SB folds, Villain calls t400.

Turn: (t1700) 7/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="blue">(2 players)</font>

<font color="red">Villain thinks down to about the 5 second mark and... </font>

<font color="CC3333">Villain bets t650 (All-In)</font>, Hero calls t575 (All-In).

<font color="red">Given his first hand action of betting all in with trips, if he had acted quicker I would have folded. As it was, I called not really expecting to win but feeling the odds of a semibluff were too high to fold. Thoughts? </font>

Hand 3:
This was from a few days ago. No particularly interesting reads on Villain here.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t50 (9 handed)

UTG+1 (t935)
MP1 (t900)
MP2 (t1195)
MP3 (t465)
CO (t705)
Button (t1200)
SB (t655)
Hero (t875)
UTG (t1070)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A/images/graemlins/club.gif, 7/images/graemlins/club.gif.
<font color="666666">1 fold</font>, UTG+1 calls t50, <font color="666666">4 folds</font>, Button calls t50, SB completes, Hero checks,

Flop: (t200) Q/images/graemlins/spade.gif, A/images/graemlins/spade.gif, A/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="blue">(4 players)</font>
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG+1 checks, Button checks.

Turn: (t200) T/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="blue">(4 players)</font>
<font color="CC3333">SB bets t50</font>, <font color="CC3333">Hero raises to t150</font>, UTG+1 folds, Button folds, SB calls t100.

River: (t500) 3/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="blue">(2 players)</font>
<font color="CC3333">SB bets t250</font>, Hero calls t250.

In retrospect, I think *all three* streets are wrong. What about you?

[Dominic]

The only thing I'd do differently in the first hand is bet the pot on the flop...your instincts are right, your bet was too small. I know you're worried about AJ or even A9 in this situation, but his call doesn't help the situation much, does it? You're still not sure if he's on a draw, a worse A or 2 pair...a bigger bet on the flop will make most players with a draw lay their hands down. Any call and you're likely against another A...I think most 2 pair in this situation would raise you.

2nd hand, I push on the flop...your raise is more than half your stack at this point, so you're pretty much pot-committed, right? You going to lay it down on the river? Doubtful. Push on the flop and you don't have to make such an ugly decision on the river. Either you've won or you haven't.

On the flop, what reasonable hands could either of them have that's beating you? 88s, 99s, JJs...MAYBE even 89suited...anything else is just a bad player getting lucky so I don't consider it unless i KNOW I'm up against bad players...even then, they're going to have to prove they flopped 2 pair and I'll lose my stack. Oh well.


The third one is trickier...the check pre-flop is fine...gotta love your flop...the only other A I'm worried about in this situation is A8 or A9...if the UTG is a good player and would limp with A10, AJ or AQ I'm going to want to bet the flop - he'll let me know if he likes his A. If he happened to flop a boat with AQ...okay, he smooth calls my flop bet and I'm going down. Anyone else with an A probably has a worse one than me so I'm not worried about them.

So my question to you is, with that many players still in the hand and a 2-flush on the board, why check the flop? Bet it and bet it strong. Bet the pot. Make those draws pay to see the turn. I find a lot of time that if I play my flopped trips strong, most players will read me as either bluffing or having the other card (the Q here) because the standard play when you flop trips is to check and then raise big on the turn. They're mistaking this for a flopped set, which is obviously much harder to see...one in the hand and 2 on the flop should always be played strongly....unless you've got the best kicker and the flop is a rainbow.

Having trashed your flop play, let's move on to the turn: /images/graemlins/grin.gif

Again, your re-raise here is too small. That size bet - with three people to act after you - certainly isn't going to drive out a decent flush draw, (hell it may even make one push all-in, sensing weakness from your raise) and it certainly isn't going to make another A fold, right? If you're scared someone has A10, well I guess you're beat. But I see the T as a plus for me, because in all likely hood this has helped me if my A is outkicked - another paint and any other A and I split the pot, right? The SB's mini-bet of T50 after everyone has checked the turn SCREAMS flush draw to me...or even a Q...he's pushing a scout out there, seeing if it's gonna get shot down. Well, shoot it down! Come over the top with 250 or more...heck, I'd even push...nothing wrong with going broke with a set of Aces...a bold re-raise here, now THAT screams "I have the best hand right now...anyone else wanna play?" Even if you are beat at the moment - which is unlikely, you can still fill up on the river. You have outs. Granted, only 3, but still...

The river...well, either he's made his flush or he hasn't. Him only betting half the pot definitely makes me think he made his hand but you have to pay him off, right? Unless you KNOW he made his hand. But still, that's a tough laydown.

Any of this make sense or am I talking out of my ass? /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[adanthar]

Here's what I thought about each hand at the time:

For Hand 1, a pot sized bet on the flop commits me to the hand. I don't really like being committed to *any* hand this early on, and in order for me to do so it has to be better than TPTK. Moreover, a loose-ish, straightforward player (and this guy is loose; I've seen him overvalue big cards) will probably call a push with a draw or an ace no matter how many chips he has to put in, so my push doesn't have any folding equity. However, considering how strongly he plays his near-nut hands, there's a good chance he'll checkraise my small bet with 2 pair, and if he does CR me, I think I can make this laydown given my read. A call, and I have an easy push on the turn unless the card is something like Q /images/graemlins/spade.gif (heh).

Hand 2: Villain doesn't scare me here. He flat called, so he's on a draw, either with a T or clubs (or maybe with something like AJ). In any case, I have him beat.

SB is the tough one; if I raise him and get reraised all in, when SB probably knows he'll get called by Villain, calling is going to be wrong, period, because he's not bluffing. Pushing will get rid of all his worse hands, but it won't get me anywhere except busted against his better ones. If he has a jack and *calls* my raise, then pairs his kicker on the turn...well, he's good enough not to count on me betting. I think he'll lead, trying to prevent Villain from getting a freebie, and once again I'll know where I'm at.

So, I like my raise. I'm leaving myself enough chips to lay down to an AI/call or a terrible turn card, but letting SB know a jack won't cut it.

End result on the flop: SB folds, Villain calls. Good, he's 100% on a draw. I'm also not discounting him being on tilt from the last hand.

The turn sucks and I'm ready to fold...but then, Villain starts thinking. He doesn't think with his strong hands, he just bets them. This smells of a slowroll *or* a semibluff, and the longer he thinks the less I feel like it's a slowroll. I only paused 3 seconds before calling, though I admit I was not really happy about it.

Results: <font color="white">He had A3 clubs, the river missed him and I wound up cruising to first with my chip lead.</font>

Hand 3:

I clearly misplayed every street of Hand 3.

The real problem with this hand is this: My trips are a lot less valuable than you'd think at first, because anyone holding an ace is going to tie or beat me by the end of the hand and the best I can hope for is a 3 outer. If either of the next two cards is over a 7, my kicker is worthless...but I like cards under a 7 even less; they'll pair weaker aces and will leave me dead against A9.

However, the A is unlikely to be there just now. A Q is harmless, but probably won't call. 77 won't call, either (it might have called on AA2, but not here.) A flush draw *will* probably call (as will the A)...but I don't know which is which.

Given those things, this is a very clearcut 'win a little, lose a truckload' hand, but I should very obviously have bet the flop- if only to find out how many opponents I have.

Since I didn't bet the flop, the turn sucks...because I should have simply called.

The SB's bet is probably not a flush draw; there's a good chance the draw would be checking again (as 97 /images/graemlins/spade.gif isn't about to bet on an AAQT board). He either has an A, Q or T. The latter two won't call a raise (and the people behind me won't call a raise, either.) Unless one of the two limpers has spades- and I have no reason to think that they do- my raise does nothing except drive out dead money, because an A now splits with me or beats me. Instead, I should be going for overcalls. (If a limper calls and a spade hits the river, I'm not losing much paying him off; the pot will be too small and nobody's going to overbet a low flush on this board.]

Finally, after my raise on the turn, there is no way on Earth I should be calling his value bet on this river, and I literally smacked myself before I even saw his hand. The EV of calling is, like, horrible (if he doesn't have a flush, I'm risking 250 chips to win 375. Anyone think my odds are that good?)

Results: <font color="white"> He had A3o.

(Interesting followup: On the next hand, with 400 chips left, I was in the SB and was dealt aces. Sixteen people limped in, I thought about it for about .5 seconds and went all in simulating tilt. This is one of my favorite plays in those situations and almost always pays off; in this case, I wound up getting reraised by 44. Just thought that was worth throwing in.) </font>

[adanthar]

Out for the weekend...but I'd love to hear what people think of my reasoning when I get back. Am I really off base on any of this?