QJo 8-16 hand

[mike l.]

here's a hand i played tonight,.. but did i play it well? hmmm....

i openraise w/ QJo in a good 8-16 game two off the button 8 handed. cutoff and button cold call. they are rich guys who usually play much higher at limits that mean more to them. so they know some tricks theyve learned from very good players but probably still lose quite a bit. at least that's my take on them. button plays a little tighter so he may have something decent. both blinds call as well so im in the middle of them all with junk basically. i do have a tight winning image for whatever that's worth.

the flop is Q94 w/ two diamonds. i have no diamonds. blinds check, i bet, cutoff raises, button 3 bets, blinds fold, i call, cutoff calls.

turn is 8h. checked around.

river is 4s. i bet, cutoff raises, button folds, i call.

comments?

[risen]

I like it all the way through Mike, The raise and reraise on a garbage board was completely unconvincing, screaming out my diamond draw is better than yours. When the rag on the turn quiets the table, I'm only fearing AQo. The Cutoff is trying to represent this on the river, but he was also representing Diamonds on the flop, I'd feel confident I'm dragging this pot at the showdown.

[elysium]

hi mike
no issue here. how else could you have played it? you can't check the river, you've got to raise first in from that position pre-flop. you lost to trips or a better kicker, but you must call. played perfectly.

[mike l.]

"how else could you have played it?"

i couldve folded preflop, i couldve reraised the flop, i could called the flop and bet the turn when a non-flush card came, i couldve checked the river. these all seem like options worth discussing.

"you lost to trips or a better kicker, but you must call."

no i didnt and you dont need to try and predict what happened. you are consistently wrong with your guesses and it further tears down what little credibility you may still have as a thinking poster.

but thumbs up on the short post. those i can handle.

[worm33]

Hi Mike, with qj here it looks like maybe you just got un-lucky. Your in a steal posistion you make a strong raise you flop top pair. In your situation I also would have called the flop but when I picked up the gutshot on the turn with no diamond I think I would have bet. This play more than likely would have been wrong as it looks to me as the cutoff had j10 and missed the field check-raise on the turn. But thats the way I would have played it.

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[Ulysses]

You played it fine. Sometimes I bet the turn, sometimes I don't. That decision hinges on large part on whether or not I might face a turn 3-bet from two worse hands (say, diamond draw and QT). Since an open-ended draw got there and I still have outs against it, I'll probably check more than bet.

Easy bet and call on the river.

[brad]

hi mike
no issue here. how else could you have played it? you can check the river to induce bluff of course, raise first in from that position pre-flop looks marginal. you lost to quads or a better kicker, but you must call. played good.

[risen]

That was a beautiful thing Brad. Bonus points.

[devinthedude]

hmmmmm, I had to think about this one for a second. I think I would probably have played it the same way. The call on the flop depends entirely on your impression of how they play. With the action on the flop, not only could the /images/graemlins/diamond.gif draw be there, but JT could be played this way as well, not to mention AQ or KQ. I probably would have bet the turn or tried to CR trying to represent JT, because even if they did call, it wouldn't be horrible. You will scare the other two after being 3 bet, and I dont think you will be raised unless you are in fact up against a made str8.

On the river, I would probably check and try to induce a bluff, since busted diamond draws probably wont call you anyways. The other reason I would probably check is because the cutoff may have checked the turn planning to raise the button who had just 3 bet.

Maybe I'm seeing monsters under the bed, as I have been accused of twice in my short time here.

[gavrilo]

was the 4 on the flop the four of diamonds?

[mike l.]

"was the 4 on the flop the four of diamonds?"

good question, good attention to detail, i shoulve mentioned that no it was not.

anyways i called the river raise, not really too scared that i was beat and lo and behold i wasnt, cutoff had Kh9h for middle pair.

[gavrilo]

If the 4 was not the four of diamonds, I was gonna ask if possible cutoff had a4 of diamonds? and by possible I mean would he call a raise from you with this hand and obviously seems possible being he held K9h and the way he played the hand.

Looks like you would have a hard time narrowing this person's holdings down anyway, so nevermind.