What Was I Thinking??

[DerFleischmeister]

Here's the setup: A home game, .25/.50 fixed limit, with a kill. It was a seven-handed game this week. Normally, this is not too wild of a game, but it is a relatively tough one, especially for such low limits. A great game to learn in, (and I am still learning the game at this point) as you face relatively tough competition without breaking the bank if you get wasted.

There were two new players in the game this week, both of whom could only be described as maniacal. A third regular player, a LAP (non-maniacal) and very good player (he had recently went up Northeast and busted a top professional out of a NL tournament), was right in the fray with them. The host, a fairly tough TAP, was also taking part in a good bit of the fray this night. I was waiting patiently for my hands, getting absolutely no respect for what little fast play I did make, and was up about 50 BB in 3 hours. The good LAP and the TAP occupied the two seats immediately to my right, in order (LAP, TAP, me)

Anyway, on to the hand. It was a kill pot, and the LAP had killed it. I get dealt 6 /images/graemlins/spade.gif 6 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif in the CO. UTG folds, LAP raises (as he had done in almost every kill pot that night), TAP reraises, I actually cold-call 3 (not my normal move, but one I felt was applicable, given the table dynamics), button, blinds all fold, LAP and TAP just call.

Flop comes 2 /images/graemlins/heart.gif 3 /images/graemlins/heart.gif 5 /images/graemlins/heart.gif. LAP bets, TAP calls, I call.

Here's where it gets real ugly. Turn: 6 /images/graemlins/heart.gif.

LAP bets, TAP raises, I reraise (!), LAP caps, TAP calls, I FOLD. (somebody shoot me now!)

River: 5 /images/graemlins/club.gif

At this point, I'm just hoping to be shown a 4 /images/graemlins/heart.gif by one of them, so I could feel better about my idiotic play. Bet, raise, reraise, call, LAP shows the A /images/graemlins/heart.gif, TAP the K /images/graemlins/heart.gif, and I could get no such satisfaction from folding the winning hand in a 23 BB pot.

Obviously, the reraise-fold was quite idiotic, but would y'all have folded to the TAP raise, called it, or put 4 bets in on the turn? Again...maniacal table.

[daryn]

i would fold this one preflop for 3 bets.. i don't care how crazy the table is.

when the TAP raises the turn, you gotta figure he has a flush. in other words you need to fill up or quad up to win. you have 10 outs to a win here, 3 2's, 3 3's, 3 5's, and the 4th 6. there are 6 cards seen and 46 unseen, but actually you know TAP has a flush, so that's another non-out of yours that you know is gone from the deck, so you have 10 outs from 45 unseen cards, you're 3.5-1 against making your boat, which you assume will be good if it hits.

what kind of pot odds are you getting? well it's a .50-1 hand, because of the kill. there are .75 in blinds, and 3 saw the flop for 1.50 each, so 5.25 in there on the flop. ok so there's 8.25 in there when the action gets to you on the turn, and you have to call $2, around 4.1-1, so it looks like you gotta call. i think raising makes little sense.

do you expect LAP to make it 3 bets on the turn? if you did, then you have to adjust your pot odds. you would then basically have to call a $3 bet in a pot of 11.25, so you'd be getting 3.75-1 on your call.. and you'd still be correct to call. what if TAP caps it? then you're calling a $4 bet to win 13.75, so you're now getting around 3.44-1 and your call would be wrong, but only just slightly wrong, and you'd probably collect enough bets on the end to make up for it anyways...

so what's the point of all this? just call on the turn. why on earth did you fold after you re-raised? i mean.. you know it's wrong, but i'm just curious as to what you were thinking.

[DerFleischmeister]

The only thing I can think of is, a heat-of-the-battle thing. To be honest, all the action had me slightly tilting even before the hand started, and quite possibly the worst turned set in the history of Texas Hold'em just made it worse. I think it was a reflex action...I saw the four to a flush before I reraised, and the four to a SF only after the cap was in. Of course, I shouldn't have been reraising with a set and four to any flush on the board.

I was pretty sure both of them had at least a flush, but again, I guess all the last 3 hours' action just got to me. To tell you the truth, I put the TAP on the 4 /images/graemlins/heart.gif. The LAP could have had a 7 /images/graemlins/heart.gif 2 /images/graemlins/club.gif, with what he had been raising with all night.

EDIT: Thanks for the pot-odds calcs. After it was all done, I figuered I had the right odds to call, but it was good to actually see it.

[deacsoft]

You surely had the pot odds to make the call on the turn. You had 10 outs if some one already had the flush. You would only be drawing dead to 6 /images/graemlins/heart.gif- /images/graemlins/heart.gif4 (not likely with the preflop action) or A /images/graemlins/heart.gif-4 /images/graemlins/heart.gif (more likely but still not) on the flop so looks like the A /images/graemlins/heart.gif-4 /images/graemlins/heart.gif is the only had I would be worried about. What else could they be playing that included the 4 /images/graemlins/heart.gif. Hit trips on the turn and look at all the outs. Make that call every time.

Oh, yeah, don't call 3 bets preflop with pocket sixes.