A-10 in Small Blind

[Vee Quiva]

3-6 loose passive brick and mortar game at the indian casino. Very little raising preflop. Not much after either.

Hero is dealt A-10 offsuit in small blind. Three callers to me and I complete.

Flop is A and two low cards, rainbow and no straight possible.

I lead out, BB folds , middle calls, button calls. $21 in the pot.

Turn is Queen. I check, middle position bets, button folds, I raise. Middle reraises. I fold.

I think I made a mistake with the check raise. I probably should have just called it down since a lot of guys were playing any 2 cards. Any comments?

[Louie Landale]

When faced with an "Any two cards" player you should NOT be thinking "he could have hit that random river card, I'd better check"; you SHOULD be thinking "he's only got about a 1/8th chance of hitting that random river card, he's GOING to call with any pair, I'd better bet".

Anyway, ...

Sounds like a passive game. Passive games are a disaster for check-raising medium strength hands since they tend to not BET worse hands than yours. In this case the typical passive fish who called the flop with A2 will be delighted to get a free river card.

Betting and folding is a much better option than checking and calling; although you WILL tend to lose an extra bet on the river when they call the turn with AJ. But you will gain LOTS of extra bets against weak pairs and weak Aces; hands loose passive folk will call with but won't bet (that being the definition of "loose passive").

- Louie