overplaying a draw vs. a short stack

Here is a hand that I played in the 10-20 game at foxwoods. I felt that I badly misplayed this hand.


I start with AhJh/6h. I raise and get reraised by xx/J. It is heads up. He has about 40 in chips and the rest is cash on the table. On fourth street I get the 2h and he catches a 10. He bets I raise he reraises I call.


On fifth street I get another 2. He gets another 10. He bets I call. On sixth street I get another 6 and he catches a blank. I bet he raises I call.


On the river I catch the king of hearts. I check he bets I raise he reraises all in for another $5. I call and he shows down Jacks full.


All comments appreciated. Mine will follow.


Pat

OUCH, bad beat. On fourth, if you raised, then I believe you should have been prepared to cap it. You raised believing in your 4 hearts. Percentages doubt he's rolled up, (you have a jack) and maybe now he's got 2 pair, maybe, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt for 2 pair. You, however have 4 hearts, and one of his jacks, cap it! Good call on 5th, he could now be full. He check raised you on 6th. I believe you should have also checked. He sucked you in. I like the check on 7th, but not the raise. I'll call, hoping I'm wrong about a full house. Wow, I wasn't, shit, but I was prepared for it, no surprise.

The only surprise being Jacks full, insteadf of Ten's.

>


The problem with this is that if I catch it later I can still get a raise in but if I cap it i might not be able to.


Pat

Sorry, I didn't see that you said if I cap it. Then why did you raise to begin with?

well I think the results show that he was rolled up, not 2 paired at 4th street; but my read during the hand would've been the same, then when the 10 paired I'd probably have folded. Even if this is a guy who would go to war like that with AAJ, KKJ, QQJ, or something like KJJ suited(I would but I don't know whether this guy would or not); you're at best against two big pair with one overcard. maybe the flush + trips draw + aces up give you enough ev to call here but I don't think so. if you're already beat(which I think you're going to be a lot of the time) you have virtually no draw to catch up. bottom line is I think you're average opponent is going to be full a good percentage of the time, plus if he isn't around 10% of the time he'll fill up, and around 50% of the time(can't be exact since I don't know how many hearts/2s/As where folded) you won't be able to beat jacks up. reverse implied odds aren't there, muck it.

the original raise is to get a free card. once he raises then there is the good possibility that i can bet or checkraise depending upon what hits and might be able to get another raise in on a more expensive street. once he catches another ten then my plan is foiled since i no longer may have the better hand.


Pat

You're telling me that if you both hit blanks on fifth that you believe he would check after re-raising you on forth. I myself, find that a little hard to expect, hence a free card is an unlikely expectation. But, anyway thanks for opening up the hand to us. Dialogue can only improve our play. - Thanks

Sorry, when you raised on 4th, you didn't know he would reaise. My mistake. I just feel there is a little re-writing of history going on here.

I don't see anything obvious to criticize until your bet on 6th street. You're trying to represent sixes full of twos, but this would mean that on fourth, you raised a probable pair of jacks with a pair of sixes, and on fifth you called with sixes over twos vs probably jacks over tens. It's just not a convincing bet.


I think you should just check-call on 6th, and hope he has two pair and that you outdraw him. You really need to improve, and you should probably try to do so as cheaply as possible. You're still going to lose, but it won't cost you as much.


TRLS

Yes. In my very first response I said he got check-raised on 6th and should have also checked, but indeed he did have 2 pair showing, but should have checked up front anyway. Particularly, if he wanted a free card on 5th, this was his opportunity to get that. His opponent wasn't going anywhere, and a bet on 6th certainly wasn't going to drive him/her away. I guess where we differ is on level of aggressiveness on forth, I like a cap.

I think you way overplayed it. He could easily be full in 5, and is simply going nowhere. You could spend a few extra bets to knock him out, but there's no reason to think this will work often enough to be worthwhile, unless he makes big league folds against you.


You have represented a big pair in the hole or rolled sixes. He has played it so strong that you could consider a fold on 5 against some players.


If you do play on, you should just call unless you can beat jacks full.


What hands are consistent with his play on 3 and 4 - this is what you need to ask. It doesn't smell like a semi-bluff to me, since he is out of position and likely to stay that way, and he cannot interpret your 4th street raise as a semi-bluff, because your board is so weak, yet he still 3 bets out of position.


Better luck.


Dan Z.

You are of course correct, hence the title of my post. For god knows what reason i thought he was overplaying two pair because he was almost all in. With a flush draw and two pair i felt i could push him out, obviously i was wrong. He will NEVER fold if he is close to all in.


Frankly I think this was one of the worst hands i ever played. oh well.


Pat

You hit the nail on the head. I felt he had two pair and was pushing it because he was close to all in. bad play on my part. The lesson here is not to stick to one read mindlessly. Of course even with my read i STILL misplayed it I think.


Pat

Hi Pat,

I agree that most players will not fold if they are just about all in. You should be aware of those that do.


I have found that if a player who buys in for the minimum is more likely to fold before going all in at FW because if you go to the felt, you must make a full rebuy. They much prefer to make a short buy so they need to have some remaining chips. It is much less of an issue at 10-20 because the buyin is $100 but at 15-30, the buy in is $300.


In this instance of course he will never fold but he may have folded if he wasn't full on the river and you should probably bet the river if he checks to you.

question for you pat, you mentioned pushing his hand hard because he was close to all in. I've been concerned for a while that a problem with my play is that I neglect to take whether someone is going all in into consideration. more accurately, I don't know what to do about the fact that they're going all in. should I be playing tighter since implied odds aren't their, or should I be playing looser since their raising standards might not be as high and I will only have to call(say for example) 2 BB to get to the river. it's often clear to me that someone's "just going all in" but how to react, especially head's up on 3rd or 4th st. I'm not sure about. all ideas welcome, of course I have a few of my own /images/wink.gif