Did I play this wrong?

[WarDekar]

NL Hold'em $20 Buy-in + $2 Entry Fee Level:2 Blinds(15/30)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 3: yyy( $900 )
Seat 4: xxx( $1460 )
Seat 5: Hero ( $745 )
Seat 6: BB( $1545 )
Seat 7: UTG( $155 )
Seat 10: Villian( $3195 )
Trny:7763994 Level:2
Blinds(15/30)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to AsdfPoij [ Ac As ]
UTG folds.
Villian calls [30].
yyy calls [30].
xxx folds.
Hero raises [110].
BB calls [95].
Villian calls [95].
yyy folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7d, 9c, 7h ]
Hero bets [150].
BB folds.
Villian calls [150].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Th ]
Hero is all-In.
Villian calls [470].
** Dealing River ** [ 4s ]
Hero shows [ Ac, As ] two pairs, aces and sevens.
Villian shows [ Qc, 7c ] three of a kind, sevens.



Now, I realize it's level 2, so did I play way too aggressively here? I just didn't think anyone would have a 7 in this situation, perhaps I gave them too much credit.

[Daliman]

You didn't raise enough PF. Raises should be 3x BB + 2x limpers, therefore 210 raise minimum.

Your river bet is bad. You may have saved a little by him betting less than what you had left

[rachelwxm]

[ QUOTE ]
You didn't raise enough PF. Raises should be 3x BB + 2x limpers, therefore 210 raise minimum.


[/ QUOTE ]
Daliman, I am not experienced as you. Is there any thing magic about this folumar? I would raise 5bb at this point myself. But do you expect any limper to call extra 6bb?

[Daliman]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You didn't raise enough PF. Raises should be 3x BB + 2x limpers, therefore 210 raise minimum.


[/ QUOTE ]
Daliman, I am not experienced as you. Is there any thing magic about this folumar? I would raise 5bb at this point myself. But do you expect any limper to call extra 6bb?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a quick-and-dirty way to make a pot sized (well, close), raise. Pot size preflop always confused me, until I figured this easy shortcut. I believe to be exact, I would only have to add 1x the SB, but this suffices.

Lets say I only raise it to 150 here, a seemingly strong raise. If all others fold, I am giving the last limper 255-to 120 on his call, over 2-1, making it a fairly easy call with any hand that limped. Also, he would only be calling a little more than 10% of his stack on average here, which is somewhat of a benchmark maximum to call in NL/PL,(but HIGHLY subjective)

Raising to 210 makes him now call 180 for 285, barely over 1.5-1, which is decent, but not when you are likely facing a dominating hand or a hand in which you will have to hit harder than top pair to win with.

[The Yugoslavian]

Yeah, listen to Dali, he knows what he's talking about.

Basically, pot sized bets and raises try to kill pot odds so that your opponents will be making mistakes to call. This feeds right into the Fundamental Theorem of Poker (FTOP) which Sklansky popularized through his writings. You make money at poker through your opponents' mistakes, so giving them more chances to make mistakes is always a good idea. So, by making that raise you're not necessarily hoping to get everyone to fold, but just make calling a mistake -- so the players who do call are hemmoraging money to you.

That make more sense?

You could go allin hoping opponents will make a bigger mistake by calling but it isn't very likely. Jason Strasser seems to be in that camp as he plays his weak hands and strong hands that way a lot so that he can steal and/or get callers for his big hands. (usually he seems to do it much closer to the bubble though ... plenty of other players do this too I'm sure).