Rate my play here with AJo, on each street (interesting hand)

[AlphaWice]

Getting Hand History Information...
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Hand #9544808-26 at Thu2amA-028 (No Limit tournament Hold'em)
Powered by UltimateBet
Started at 10/Nov/05 02:29:15

ignoble is at seat 0 with 1285.
Miles07 is at seat 1 with 1190.
Narile is at seat 2 with 1425.
Money Hound2 is at seat 3 with 4820.
elmaestro311 is at seat 4 with 1800.
BeachBiggles is at seat 5 with 1990.
eternius is at seat 6 with 3925.
kcchas28 is at seat 7 with 1445.
curtdogg is at seat 8 with 1105.
BabarPoker is at seat 9 with 4310.
The button is at seat 0.

Miles07 posts the small blind of 15.
Narile posts the big blind of 30.

ignoble: -- --
Miles07: -- --
Narile: -- --
Money Hound2: -- --
elmaestro311: -- --
BeachBiggles: -- --
eternius: -- --
kcchas28: -- --
curtdogg: -- --
BabarPoker: As Jh

Pre-flop:

Money Hound2 folds. elmaestro311 folds.
BeachBiggles calls. eternius calls. kcchas28 calls.
curtdogg calls. BabarPoker calls. ignoble folds.
Miles07 folds. Narile checks.

Flop (board: Js 7d Th):

Narile checks. BeachBiggles checks. eternius
checks. kcchas28 checks. curtdogg bets 100.
BabarPoker raises to 200. Narile folds.
BeachBiggles folds. eternius folds. kcchas28 folds.
curtdogg calls.

Turn (board: Js 7d Th 9h):

curtdogg bets 300. BabarPoker folds, showing As Jh.
curtdogg is returned 300 (uncalled).

I would get rid of it. If he hasnt beat you already he is drawing to beat you and will probably bet you out on the river after you check to him. I try not to make it a habit of calling a large turn bet unless I have position or a made hand.

Gotta realize that there were a lot of limpers in that hand..in a situation like that when I have top pair I usually bet a 3/4-pot sized amount on the flop, and if I get called Im pretty sure Im beat and can let go out of the hand without further involvement.

Also I dont like only doubling someone's flop bet. They usually call, and it doesnt really give you any information about their hand. I like making larger raises, usually pot sized or a bit smaller if I want a call. If I get called, again I can let go of the hand without further investment.

[JustPlayingSmart]

Don't make a minimum raise on the flop. If you are going to raise at all raise to 350 or 400. Probably best to fold on the turn now, since many of the hands he would have played on the flop now make 2 pair or a straight.

Sometimes I will fold the flop here. You're in a horrible position since you still have everyone left after you to act, so you don't know whether someone was planning a check/raise with a big hand. There is a good chance you are beat now, and if not, you're hand is pretty vulnerable.

(edited because I'm a gimp and confused this hand for one that had 50/100 blinds - thanks for pointing it out to me (below) Nath)


Preflop you shouldn't just limp. With 4 limpers in the pot and the size of your stack you can easily put in a raise up to about 150 (I would go a bit higher than 3x due to limpers but not so high that it looks fishy). Allowing them to see the flop with weak holdings this cheap is a sure way to lose, especially with a hand like AJo that isn't all that strong and somewhat vulnerable but could still be the best hand at the table for the time being. If you don't get any callers that's fine. Taking it down right here isn't the worst thing in the world.

The postflop minraise is horrible. At this point if you think your hand is best the message to send again is that if you want to play this pot you're commiting more chips to the pot, shortie! If he's drawing at a straight you want to charge him for it. A raise of 100 isn't a tough decision, in fact it's a very easy call. Raising to 400-500 puts him on a really tough decision. If he's drawing at a straight or flush he can't call here since he doesn't have proper odds to continue. If he does call he's making a mistake that ends up as money in your pocket. If he has something like top or second pair he may call anyway not putting you on a jack.

The idea here is to put pressure on your opponent. There was no pressure on him here - his decisions were too easy to make.

[nath]

[ QUOTE ]
Preflop you shouldn't just limp. With 4 limpers in the pot and the size of your stack you can easily put in a raise up to about 450 (I would go a bit higher than 3x due to limpers but not so high that it looks fishy).

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd say 15xBB is pretty damn fishy. Make it 150-200 preflop and the rest becomes easier. I also don't like the flop minraise; frankly, minraises are stupid and pointless, especially here. Are you trying to buy a cheap card for your draw? 'Cause that's probably what it looks like to him and therefore he might be playing at you with less-- which means he just pushed you off the best hand.
Your actions here made all the decisions more difficult for you, not less.

really bad. w/ your big stack i would call turn, check/fold river.

With AJo, its either raise or fold preflop. Limping in from late position is a weak play that will end up just getting you in trouble in later streets. Also, as was stated before min-raising is terrible unless u have the nuts that cant be beaten later and u want to milk it (even then i wouldnt min-raise). I standard raise will give u another chance to take this pot down. But basically your poor preflop play caused all of the problems you had in later streets.

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
With AJo, its either raise or fold preflop. Limping in from late position is a weak play that will end up just getting you in trouble in later streets. Also, as was stated before min-raising is terrible unless u have the nuts that cant be beaten later and u want to milk it (even then i wouldnt min-raise). I standard raise will give u another chance to take this pot down. But basically your poor preflop play caused all of the problems you had in later streets.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not only that, but AJo is a hand that plays horribly multi-way. This is a tough hand. With that many limpers and the blinds you're looking at a 275 pot when it gets to you with a ~1500 stack. This means any raise that's not a 'sweetener' is going to commit a large portion of your stack, and will put you in a tough position post-flop if you miss. I can't see you raising to less than 250 here and accomplishing your goal of thinning the field, and that's just too much of your stack with AJo.

I don't honestly mind the limp here, but I'd be very wary of any flop that doesn't hit me pretty hard. I think folding might be a better option taking everything into consideration (pot size vs your stack size and if you really want to consider going broke with AJo if you hit top pair). I might get some heat for this, but I don't even think moving all in is a horrible move given the 275 already in the pot, but I prefer a little less variance at this stage in the tournament.

Once you get a flop that's as good as the one you hit you really need to decide how far you're willing to go with TP/TK. If you're going to play this hand your flop raise needs to be to about 400. If he comes over the top there I think you can probably fold with confidence. If he just flat calls I think you're going to end up committing all your chips here one way or another as any turn bet you make will probably pot commit you.

You're right, definitely an interesting hand. I can think of many ways to play it that seem correct to me (none of them include min-raising the flop though). Without reads on the table I'm not sure how much I want to go to the felt here with AJo.

I don't know that I've really helped much other than spewing random thoughts on this thread, but I can see valid arguements for many actions here and I'm not really sure I can come up with any compelling reasons why one would be a lot better than another. This hand would be much easier if your stack was either much larger (so you can put in a healthy raise without committing yourself PF) or much smaller (so you can just go ahead and push).

Sorry for the random babble /images/graemlins/smile.gif

-Rizen

[schwza]

[ QUOTE ]
you're looking at a 275 pot when it gets to you with a ~1500 stack

[/ QUOTE ]

uh, it's a 165 pot pot with a 4.3k stack.

[schwza]

i prefer a raise here pre-flop. i'd make it 175. as others have said, AJ is a tough hand to play 6-way. also, you most likely have a better hand than any of the limpers, so you can get value if they decide to call the raise. and you're on the button, so you're not too worried about pumping the pot.

the min-raise sucks. there are 50 people left to act, and you're not psyched about letting a pair+gutshot get there cheap.

i think folding the turn is fine. i think showing it is really bad.

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
you're looking at a 275 pot when it gets to you with a ~1500 stack

[/ QUOTE ]

uh, it's a 165 pot pot with a 4.3k stack.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, I cannot read these hand histories. Editing post if it's not too late.

-Rizen