Who am I and where am I going

[Punker]

Playing 2-4 on Party:

I am on the button. There are at least two enormous fish in the game (3 if you count me), and two very aggressive players. Enormous fish #1 open limps UTG, and new player second limps next. Its then folded past the aggressive players to me on the button where I hold A /forums/images/icons/spade.gif J /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif and raise. The BB calls and both of the limpers call.

Flop 3 /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif 5 /forums/images/icons/heart.gif 3 /forums/images/icons/club.gif

BB (unknown to me at this point) bets out. EF1 calls, and newbie folds. I call.

Turn 2 /forums/images/icons/club.gif

Unknown bets, EF1 calls, I call.

River: 4 /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif

Checked to me and I bet. Unknown pauses forever (I can almost hear the brick being thrown through his monitor) and calls. EF1 then folds.

What was I doing? Was it good?

[bernie]

it was probably good.

id have raised the flop though

b

[Bob T.]

I suspect that your opponent has an overpair on the flop. On the flop, you are drawing to likely 6 outs, and you are getting 10 to 1 on your flop call. Maybe a raise would be better, if you think you could get a free card now.

On the turn, you pick up some more outs, with the wheel draw, I think you can call again with as many as ten outs.

How did he find the action buttons to call after the brick went through his monitor?

[Rockfish]

Let's see if I follow this.

Hero has two opponents, BB and EF1. On the flop BB bets out, EF1 calls and you advocate raising to get a free card. What if you get re-raised? Before you get to the rest of the hand what would a re-raise here mean? Do you call and why?

Which opponent are you putting on an overpair to the flop, or does it matter? Are you also assuming that the overpair is lower than JJ bacause otherwise the player would have raised pre-flop? What if it's the BB? Might not the BB just call with a big pair in this situation or would you assume that BB didn't have a big pair because he didn't raise pre-flop?

The above is the stuff I have to sift through before I can play with this flop and know where I stand. One thing I am pretty clear with is that the two early limpers probably didn't hit this flop. If they did I will never know where I stand in this game (insert smily face of your choice here).

If you can sift through all that stuff to get to a pair lower than JJ but are not afraid of them being co-ordinated with the flop, the I see why you check-raise.

If we still go with that read, then the 2 /forums/images/icons/club.gif on the turn is OK except that now you are possibly up against a backdoor flush draw coming in. So you overcall the bet from BB on the turn. I understand.

Now you still have 3As, 3Js and 4(4)s that make your hand on the river. Ten outs, right?

Have I got it right? I need to go through this process to learn what all this stuff means.

Rockfish

[elysium]

hi punker
stay out of these if you're not sure that you can out play the UTG. if you're sure he's a lousy player, then you can stay the course. on the river, unless the suddenly show strength, you shoul bet if they check; usually folding if they start betting. AJo is not what you want against EP's, even if they are seemingly fish. sometimes it can be hard to tell. they may be making good strategic bets. usually, refrain from coming in with weak type hands against EP's until you have a better handle on it.

[Punker]

Well obviously my hand was good. BB felt the need to show his KK and explain how bad a beat had just occurred.

I generally don't play hands this way, in that I don't like passively calling with overcards. On the turn, the real question is the value of my overcard draw, as I assume my straight draw to be good. As it turns out, the J was no good (and the ace was of debatable value in that EF1 could have had the 4, so I'm not sure how much overlay I should be looking for with my "ten" out draw here.

[Bob T.]

Hero has two opponents, BB and EF1. On the flop BB bets out, EF1 calls and you advocate raising to get a free card. What if you get re-raised? Before you get to the rest of the hand what would a re-raise here mean? Do you call and why?

Which opponent are you putting on an overpair to the flop, or does it matter? Are you also assuming that the overpair is lower than JJ bacause otherwise the player would have raised pre-flop? What if it's the BB? Might not the BB just call with a big pair in this situation or would you assume that BB didn't have a big pair because he didn't raise pre-flop?


Ok, here is what I am thinking, with the possibility that I got it all wrong. I think the bettor is the one that likely has the overpair to the flop, and that is why he bet out. I also think that it is unlikely that his overpair is Jacks or higher, because with a small field, he would have likely three bet preflop with those hands, maybe hoping to eliminate a limper.

So the bettor has a midsized pocket pair, the caller could be on another small pair, or might have some unmatched big cards, we hope that if they duplicate any of ours, that we will have them outkicked if we hit, because all the hands that dominate ours, are usually raising hands.

Now, one of the hands that we might have raised preflop is a big pocket pair, our opponent we think has a small pocket pair, and if we raise the flop, it might look like we are just playing our big pocket pair, and if they read us that way, we might get a free card on the turn if we choose to take it.

If you just call here, it looks alot like you have two big cards, and the flop missed you, which is the case so you may not want to play that way, so your opponent can make mistakes. You do have the odds to take one off here, and you would rather take two off, for the price of two small bets, than take one off for a small bet, and one off for a big bet.

If he reraises, it probably means that he recognizes your play for what it might be. Now you have to play poker, and get into what you think he has, and what you think he thinks you have, and how do you best take advantage of the situation. Against some opponents, you four bet, some others it means that they have at least trips, and you muck.

On the turn, you have the correct 10 outs. So you have to see the river. Then it plays itself.

Hope I cleared this up for you, I made a lot of assumptions, but I think they are ones that are usually good. Any more questions, please feel free to ask.

[Bob T.]

Like I said, I could be wrong, I think he played the KK in a less than optimal way, but then he drew you into a situation that wasn't as good, as you probably thought it was. Oh well, when you play less aggressively, you take chances that your opponents will draw out on you.

And it really wasn't that bad of a beat, you still might have had as many as seven outs on the turn. Time for the 'Quiet while I stack your chips', line I think.

[Punker]

If you put him on something along the lines of 88 (as I did, which helped influence me to call the turn), is raising the flop to get a free card a good play?

I saw it as a 1SB investment into an 8SB pot on a 6/47 draw; pretty slim. Raising for a free card here would be my usual play, but at that point, I have to either continue the bluff through (and usually get called down) or check the expected turn blank, and give up the pot (barring a river hit). The flop raise has always been my default play in this spot, and I'm reconsidering it and mixing it up between pounding overcards through and weakly calling and trying to hit something.

Further, given the presence of the enormous fish, I had notched it down a bit on the weak tight meter and was trying to basically get paid when I had hands, rather than trying semi bluffs/free card raises on overcards.

[Bob T.]

I would probably take the free card if I didn't improve, and fold the river to a bet. I made my read, that he had, as you say, 88, or something like that, and I will bet if I can beat that, and check otherwise.