bad play?

[Chicago Kid]

Online NLHE tournament. 68 of the original 93 remain.

Blinds at this point are 25/50. I'm in mid-position with about 3600 in chips, second only to the player on my left, who has around 4000.

Dealt 3d-3c. First three players fold to me, and I limp, with the intention of seeing the flop on a no-set, no-bet basis. Player to my left (call him MP) raises my limp, but only doubles it. Two more fold to the button, who calls.

The flop comes 4-4-5 rainbow.

MP has been raising with some pretty weak hands, and buying pots, while the button player had been recently added to the table.

Completely changing my mind on how to play this hand, I bet 1500. Intention was to weed out overcards.

MP contemplates for a good minute, and calls. Button mucks. I put him on overcards.

Turn comes (4 4 5) 8, making two spades.

I bet 750, he, again, deliberates for quite some time, and calls, which surprised me a bit. I was expecting either a muck or a substantial raise.

River comes (4 4 5 8) 9c. I bet 500, he immediately calls, I show my all-powerful threes and rank 6000+, making me the overall leader.

I'm happy with the result, but I'm not so sure about the play of the hand. I've been focusing a lot lately on trying to "play other people's cards." Inside, I just KNEW he was on overcards, and tried to play it that way. The problem was my threes. I could have played them more aggressively, but they ARE only a pair of threes. But the possibility of a middle pair bugged me enough to hold back a little.

Constructive or scathing criticism welcomed here....

[Greg (FossilMan)]

I hate every bet you made.

I count somewhere around T400 in the pot, and you bet T1500 on the flop. And get called. Ai-yah, you should be scared shitless of this guy's hand. If he's reasonable at all, you have two outs and that's it.

Now if you're right, then the turn card is great, as it shouldn't have helped him. Yet you only bet T750 into a pot of about T3400. So, you WANT to give him correct odds to call with just two overcards, eh?

And the last bet of T500 into a pot of almost T5000 is just begging for a raise. There is no hand I could ever hold and still be in this pot with you that I wouldn't raise with here, unless you were already so close to all-in that I knew you couldn't even fold your bluff hands. You don't tell us the stack sizes, so it's hard to say for sure.

If there's plenty of chips left, what do you do when he raises T5000 on the river? And your bet is simply begging him to try and bluff you off the pot.

If you're going to bet this turn or river, bet the pot, or a reasonable fraction of the pot (half or more). If you're not willing to bet this much, then check and hope that he doesn't blow you off the pot.

Congratulations on finding an opponent who played his hand that badly. Unless you have a lot of bald bluffs in spots like this in your history with him, he played it terribly. If you try to buy the pot on flops like this often, then he might have been correct to call you down with a big Ax type hand.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[Chicago Kid]

Actually, no. This is a very rare play on my part. I tend to be tight and selectively aggressive to a fault.

Probably why it was so uncomfortable the whole way....

Thanks!

[fnurt]

Actually, there's not going to be a T5000 raise on the river, because the stacks were only 3600 for the player and 4000 for the opponent.

I agree with Greg that the flop bet was a huge overbet that will very rarely work out this well for you. It's easy to imagine an opponent with an overpair deciding you are representing trips and he is going to call you down, so even after a call you can't feel comfortable. But the far more likely scenario is that you will pick up the pot of T275 if he has overcards and lose your T1500 bet when he has a pair. Those are not the kind of odds you want!

Having made that bet, on the turn you absolutely need to go all-in. You've already committed nearly half your stack based on the assumption that you have the best hand and you're too pot-stuck to get timid now. Overcards have 12 outs on the river, so you should be very happy if you pick up the pot on the turn.

The fact that your opponent was the only player at the table who had you covered should have been an additional cautionary factor. This is a very treacherous situation to get into against any opponent who has enough chips to hurt you. I'm glad it worked out for you in this case though!