Easy fold?

Home game, $5 dealer ante, Crazy Pineapple (only time played that evening, usually never played). PL, everyone's got between $500-1000. I deal this crap. FYI, I always seem to lose big hands in Pineapple. The game perplexes me.

Am dealt 3-6-8, all clubs. Six players call $5. This is a loose, fun game FYI.

Flop: Q-10-2. Two clubs.

First question: Do I keep the 8-6, for the possible backdoor straight/higher flush or the 6-3 for the lower backdoor low? I chose the later, keeping the 6-3.

Checked to me. I check.

Turn: 9clubs. Checked to me, I bet $35, and am check raised to $85 ($50 raise) by a totally unpredictable player. He could have literally anything, but most likely a draw of some sort.

I figure I either fold or repop the size of the pot. In the back of my mind, is the club flush hand I lost about an hour before (see post below).

I decide I may be dead, and if he has a higher club, he may outdraw me. Also, there's not a ton of $$$ in the pot.

I fold.

BTW, had this been HE, I probably would have bet the flop.

Tim

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Is he really totally unpredictable? If you flat-call now, is he going to bet the river no matter what? Or, will he check some of his bluffs? If you reraise after thinking for a while like that, is he going to automatically raise again, even if he has nothing? Or will he back down if he's got a bluff or a marginal hand?

If he really could have anything, I probably don't fold a made flush. I might reraise, or I might just call and see if another club comes on the river before deciding whether to make that call as well.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[TAFKAn]

Am dealt 3-6-8, all clubs. Six players call $5. This is a loose, fun game FYI.

I wouldn't see the flop with this hand and I definitely wouldn't see the turn.

Your post implies that this game is Pot Limit Crazy Pineapple high-low (with an 8 qualifier?). In that case, this game strikes me as a sick kind of degenerate insanity I recommend you avoid in the future.

Even though a game may be loose and fun, any game with $1000 stacks is serious. If I lose $1000 in a loose and fun game I still lost $1000. Very few people can fade that without regretting the loss.

As to what to do on the turn, I don't think you can ever fold a flush against someone who is completely unpredictable. But very few players are actually completely unpredictable. I bet you could identify some patterns in his play if you stopped thinking of the game as "loose and fun".

[Ignatius]

> Am dealt 3-6-8, all clubs

Button or not - this piece of crap belongs into the muck and it's not close, and your post is an excellent illustration why.

> Flop: Q-10-2. Two clubs. First question: Do I keep the 8-6 or the 6-3

Keep the 63, but wait for two unpairing wheel-cards before you call it a low.

> Turn: 9clubs. Checked to me, I bet $35

Betting the pot is certainly OK and probably the best play EV-wise. Still, in a home game against loose and unpredictable but generally weak opposition, I would check and call a single bet on the river unless a club comes. It's simply not worth to get too involved in a small pot with a trouble hand when you know that a better situation is just around the corner.

> am check raised to $85

This is exactly the kind of decisions you want to avoid. I would fold here as I hate situations where I might be drawing dead. (Give yourself 2 str8-flush outs and you have a call).

cu

Ignatius