Need more opinions on Overcard hand

Tight passive game, 1st 2 players fold, I open raise w/ AsKd, cutoff+1 calls, and SB calls.


3 take the flop

7 small bets


7h 9h 2c


SB bets, whats my play and why?


Ryan

This hand got me into a lot of trouble. My gut feeling was to fold. It looked like I was drawing to 4 clean outs. But somehow my aggressiveness always gets to me. So I raised, hoping to get the Cutoff+1 to fold.


However, Cutoff+1 cold calls and the SB called.


The Turn brought the Jh


Making the board 7h 9h 2c Jh.


SB checked, I bet, C+1 raises, SB fold, and I fold.


I thought I could bully these guys out, but when I got raised on the turn I decided to give it up. But, even though Manzanita made a good case for calling, I still think I should've folded on the flop.


Any other opinions?


Ryan

tight passive equals rock garden, so if you read them well you can fold with no regrets. You are probably behind at this point and the bettor either hit the flop or picked up a flush draw. Is your opponent likely to put you on AK and try to bet you off of it? I don't think a rock would try this. Off to see the results.

Assuming a tight, passive game with a typical tight-passive player now leading at you, it can be assumed that your opponent has at least a pair. You have 6 outs to improve to top pair, top kicker which is a 7-to-1 shot. Your current pot odds are 8-to-1. The problem is that you have a man behind you still to act who might raise or simply have a better hand. You cannot view the Ah or the Kh as clean outs since they could give someone a flush or a flush draw that gets there at the river. I would fold.

When I'm in a passive game, I raise, and someone in front of me bets, I run away. If this was an agressive game I'd think otherwise, but here you know he has either a big draw or a made hand, more likely a made hand since he's betting into a pre-flop raiser AND the rest of the field. Get out quick.


spanQy

I agree that folding is fine against a tight passive player particularly when this hand is viewed in isolation. But the problem is that not so tight passive players who are at the table when they see you fold this hand may well see you as being capable of doing this regularly and start taking advantage. A guy like you is expert enough to sense it and do things differently to avoid getting run over. But some newbies may fail to adjust. Viewed macroscopically, I think that the play here is to vary your play: Call, fold, raise whatever. None of the choices are clearly correct and none are clearly wrong. What is wrong is doing one thing (whatever that is) too much.

Good point. One thing you can do to keep your opponents off balance is to tend to raise with a similar rainbow flop and raise with this particular twotone type flop if you have either the ace of king of the "twotoned" suit.


Regards,


Rick

I agree. Playing the same way every time, especially always folding with overcards when bet into, is a recipe for disaster. Other bad playing patterns like never raising with overcards and always raising with overpairs are harmful as well. I vary my play against normal opponents. I usually call with overcards but sometimes I raise if I have some other outs like a backdoor straight draw or a backdoor flush draw (Rick's play). I might just smooth call with an overpair if my overpair is aces or kings or I have an overpair with some other backdoor drawing feature. It is okay to mix it up against one opponent. However, if there are multiple opponents involved, raising becomes more important and I think if you are going to vary your play, you should do so in the direction of raising.