AJo at the school of stupid.

[Entity]

My biggest question is if waiting until the turn to raise was a mistake here. I think with my relative position, it may have been best to raise the flop and take control of the hand. My read on the others is that they'll call just about any number of bets with any piece of the board.

Party Poker 0.5/1 Hold'em (8 handed)

Preflop: Hero is Button with A/images/graemlins/spade.gif, J/images/graemlins/club.gif. CO posts a blind of $0.5. UTG posts a blind of $0.5.
UTG (poster) checks, UTG+1 calls, MP1 folds, MP2 calls, CO (poster) checks, <font color="CC3333">Hero raises</font>, SB folds, BB calls, UTG folds, UTG+1 calls, MP2 calls, CO calls.

Flop: (11.50 SB) A/images/graemlins/club.gif, Q/images/graemlins/heart.gif, 5/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="blue">(5 players)</font>
BB checks, UTG+1 checks, <font color="CC3333">MP2 bets</font>, CO folds, Hero calls, BB calls, UTG+1 calls.

Turn: (7.75 BB) 2/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="blue">(4 players)</font>
BB checks, UTG+1 checks, <font color="CC3333">MP2 bets</font>, <font color="CC3333">Hero raises</font>, BB calls, UTG+1 folds, <font color="CC3333">MP2 3-bets</font>, Hero calls, BB calls.

River: (16.75 BB) 8/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="blue">(3 players)</font>
BB checks, MP2 checks, <font color="CC3333">Hero bets</font>, BB calls, MP2 calls.

Final Pot: 19.75 BB

[btspider]

raise the flop. the pot is big enough that you want to start thinking about maximizing your chance to win it with your vulnerable holding. make 5x, Qx, and the high and low gutshots call incorrectly. you raised PF, you still have control of the hand.

i think the river bet is a close value bet. MP2 may have A2 and be worried about the flush. if you can fold to a BB check-raise after MP2 calls.. then I like the bet more. if you have to pay it off.. hmmm.. still thinking.

[cnfuzzd]

I think raising the flop is a must in this hand. You can make it incorrect for all those hands spider mentioned to call, and you can also start charging the flush draw. Not only that, but it looks like you are getting action from another ace.

The turn is odd. I probably would have capped this, since from the given read MP could have any ace here, and you are still charging the big blind with whatever he has.

The river is also odd, but probably also a value bet i would make, even though its likely to be somewhat thin. Given that the table is supposedly passive, and that BB might not raise his flush and will probably call no matter what, i think this is slightly +EV.

peace

john nickle

[Aaron W.]

[ QUOTE ]
My biggest question is if waiting until the turn to raise was a mistake here.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think it was a fairly big mistake:

1) You raised preflop, so the pot is big. You want to weed out the other players quickly now, because they're getting odds to start drawing to their random two pairs. If they're going to do it (and you say they will), at least make it wrong for them to do so.
2) You've got only one player between you and the bettor. It's not as if you're trapping the entire field for two bets and padding the pot. Ideally, you'd like to shut out both of the first two players, but it looks like it wouldn't have happened this time.
3) You've got position. This is information on the turn because you'll better gauge the strength of your opponents' hands after they respond to your raise. This is a somewhat weak argument unless you feel comfortable getting a read from their betting. Against a not-Agressive or not-someone-who-jams-all-draws-on-the-turn, I would suspect two pair (Ax) out of MP2 if he bet out *AFTER* I raised the flop, thus saving two big bets on the raise and 3-bet.