Open Ended Draw Question

[juris]

Mid-tourney, maybe 70 or so left, blinds at 100-200 but (and this is important, I think) going up in 3 hands.

Table has been tight, myself included. One Agressor, 2 to my left. He's taken the blinds down 4 of the last 10 hands with agressive preflop raises. He is at about 7500 and chip leader at the table. Have only been at table with him for 3 orbits or so, plays a lot of hands and agressive.

I'm in the big blind with a medium-to-short stack of 1950. I get dealt 8-10c. Agressor bets out 600, all fold to me. Mistake no 1(?): I call. (Reasoning: I wanted to see the flop against a notorious blind stealer, was in the big blind for 1/3 the bet already, but didn't have a great hand to raise him out. Hoped for a flop to help).

Got help, kind of. Flop came Jc Qh Ks

Open ended, 1300 in the pot. I have 1350 left. I bet 500, but will hold off on my reasoning right now. Mistake no 2?

He raises me all in. 3150 in the pot to my 1350. I call, cursing myself for getting into this position but believing I've painted myself into this corner with appropriate odds. Mistake no 3?

All thoughts on this play appreciated, and the kid gloves can be left at home.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Yup, calling the raise was a big mistake. You can't invest that much of your stack just to see if you catch a flop.

The flop bet was a HUGE mistake. It's small enough to give him hope that you will fold to a raise, i.e., that you might be bluffing. This is clearly check-fold or bet all-in territory, with folding probably the better choice. The only decision worse than making a mediocre bet here would've been to check-call all-in. Raising all-in is only slightly worse than check-folding, and both are MUCH better than the other two choices.

Calling his raise was automatic. As you state, you've pot-stuck yourself. Hope he didn't have AT.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[cferejohn]

You think he is raising thin so you call with T8s. Problem is even is he is more or less bluff raising, it's pretty likely that you are still behind (since you are behind crap like J2o and Q6). If you really feel that he is making a move and you want to strike back, you have to re-raise all-in preflop. I'll usually wait for a better hand to do this, since I want to have a decent chance if I am called.

Since you are in the big blind, you could pull the stop-n-go. That is to say, call and then go all-in on any flop. You have enough chips to make the all-in somewhat scary.

Generally speaking, you want to make the other guy need to make a decision for a reasonably large number of chips (or at least as large as you can); meaning that you need to push all in with as many chips as you can or not play the hand.