Online £2-5 NL, flopped set.

[LarsVegas]

Online six-handed £2-5 NL (pounds, not dollars, not that it matters too much, but almost twice the stakes). It's a site that has only recently offered NL (William Hill). So I don't know any many of the players here.

I have just sat down with the maximum buy-in of £500. There is an under-the-gun raise from to £20 from a player that play the high limit games there and seems reasonably good. Next player cold-calls and I make the call as well with 4d4h. Button comes along for ride, as well as BB. BB is one of the biggest winners in online poker, but that is mainly limit. But this big a winner should be respected and noted in any poker game.

Four to the flop, £99 in the pot after rake. Flop: Qc-8s-4c. Checked to me, I bet £80. Button quickly calls. On this site and with the NL games being very new, I half expect all unknowns to me to be fishes. Now the big blind limit-checkraises it £160 total. It's folded back to me. £80 to call, I have £400 in my stack and both my opponents have me covered.

What's my play?

lars

[SomeName]

Making a pot sized raise would put you almost all in, so I would go all in. There is really no hand the guy in the big blind could have that makes sense here, although maybey he just doesnt know how to play NL. If he had qq or 88 this is a horrible min raise as there is a club draw, and a bad straight draw as well. I guess he might just have the j10 of clubs and be making a limit player raise. As for the button, it seems likely that he has the club draw which also needs to be shut out.

[bunky9590]

get it all in and quickly you are very likely ahead here and a club you dont want to see. So push.

[1800GAMBLER]

Smells like a flushdraw jam. Time to raise it up. He'll probably fold AA KK AQ if it wasn't a flush draw, oh well.

Oh yeah, how are the games there? I'm going to transfer over now just to get the bonus they offered me. I don't know if i'll stay though.

[CrisBrown]

Hi All,

There is a thread in the Multi-Table Tournament forum about account problems with William Hill. Apparently they have a reputation for glitches with crediting accounts properly, and their support is something less than responsive in that regard. If I knew how to link to a thread, I'd do so. But you should be able to find it easily enough.

Cris

[LarsVegas]

I did go all-in, and I got called by the button and the BB folded. The turn paired the eights and the river blanked, and my opponent mucked. I haven't bothered to figure out how, if at all possible, I get hand histories, so I don't know what he held. Clubs would be an educated guess, but I wouldn't rule out a bare queen either.

However, I am not at all certain that moving in was the correct play. I am not getting away from my hand here, barring a club on the turn if I only choose to call the flop raise. Yes, the BB might have a set of eights or even queens (it's not bad poker to just flat call with queens pre-flop in this spot). But I am not getting away from my hand. The thing is, how do I get the most money in the pot when *I* am the significant favourite and not just when I am a large underdog or close to even money (huge draw) against the BB?

In hindsight of course, BB's limit checkraise smells of a fair, made hand, but not a monster. The semi-bluff situation here for a big draw is just to good to give up on, well maybe not, but in that case, calling is obviously the better play. A limit check-raise with a big draw here seems unlikely. It is also dangerous to make this play with set, although I can see it being done.

I think I may should've just called here. After all there are only eight real scare cards, and if noone happens to have the flush, it's not likely that *they* will dare to make a play for the pot either. I could just as well have the clubs as they can. Yes, there is a possibility of losing to a gutshot/flush-draw combination making the straight instead, but I should be willing to take that risk and I even have a decent redraw. In other words, I should maybe just call here and put in all my remaining chips on any non-club turn, and of course the 8c as well.

Maybe I am just complicating things too much here and I should be pleased with the way I just kept it simple and straight-forward on the turn. However, I think it's a great NL skill not to be afraid of decisions and not just "pushing in" in all kinds of decent "can't argue too much with that anyway"-situations.

It's a bit like if you raise KK in a big-bet game and you get reraised by someone you haven't tagged as a maniac or a total fish yet. You will very rarely give up on the kings already at this point, but reraising it again will usually be foolish, as it's basically saying "ok, if you have the aces, take all my chips" (or alternatively, if I am still deep after the reraise, "take all these chips and you don't even have to go through a showdown and survive the board"). Those kings want action from weaker hands as well, and that is more likely to happen by simply calling the reraise and taking it from there.

[Guy McSucker]

I'm curious... who was the BB player?

Guy.

[LarsVegas]

Unless I am very mistaken it was "royalen". He plays the highest limits around, but no neccesarily under that nickname everywhere anymore.

lars