Well-played?

[Scotch78]

My opponent is pretty loose; he played half of his hands while I was at the table and took one-third of those to the showdown. PFR% is 17.65. The most notable hand I saw him play went like this: he raised from MP, Button re-raised, MP capped; 642 rainbow flopped, MP bet, Button called; 7 on turn, MP bet all-in (he was playing with a short stack the whole time), Button called; Q on river; MP showsdown QJo. Given my opponent, what should I have done differently on the following hand?


Pokerstars 2/4 Hold'em (6 max, 6 handed)

Preflop: Scotch78 is UTG with Q /images/graemlins/spade.gif, J /images/graemlins/heart.gif.
Scotch78 calls, MP calls, CO calls, Button calls, SB folds, BB checks.

Flop: (5.5 SB) J /images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 3 /images/graemlins/club.gif, 3 /images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="blue"> (5 players) </font>
BB checks, <font color="red"> Scotch78 bets</font>, MP calls, CO calls, Button folds, BB folds.

Turn: (4.25 BB) J /images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="blue"> (3 players) </font>
<font color="red"> Scotch78 bets</font>, MP calls, <font color="red"> CO raises</font>, <font color="red"> Scotch re-raises</font>, MP folds, <font color="red"> CO caps</font>, Scotch78 calls.

River: (13.25 BB) K /images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="blue"> (2 players) </font>
<font color="red"> Scotch78 bets</font>, <font color="red"> CO raises all-in</font>, Scotch78 calls.

Final Pot: 15.25 BB
<font color="brown"> Main Pot: 15.25 BB, between Scotch78 and CO. </font>

Results in white below:
<font color="white"> CO shows 3d 3h (four of a kind, threes).
Outcome: CO wins 15.25 BB. </font>

[fyodor]

Given your opponent?

Absolutely nothing.

[Nate tha' Great]

I don't like the limp in UTG. If the game is tight, you can raise with it; otherwise QJo just isn't a good enough hand to be worth giving a lot of thought to when out of position and can hit the muck.

Postflop ... after some number of raises and reraises, the probability that he has quad 3's exceeds the probability that he has something other than Jacks full of 3's. After his first raise, for example, you might assign the following probabilities to his hand

x = chance that he has JJJ33 = 85%
y = chance that he has 333JJ or something else that you beat = 12%
z = chance that he has 3333J = 3%

Each time that he reraises, z increases and y decreases; you should stop betting at the point that you estimate that z &gt; y. I don't think you reached that point at any step in this hand. You might have considered just calling if he raised again on the river and had more chips left, but considering that he's all-in, there's not much that you can do about it ... in other words, you played it fine.

[Scotch78]

My main concern was the pre-flop limp. All the books I've read list starting hands for full ring play, but I haven't found an adapted list for short-handed yet. Do you know where I could find one? Or how to adapt from Sklansky's 8 grouping? Thanx

Scott

[Nick B.]

[ QUOTE ]
My main concern was the pre-flop limp. All the books I've read list starting hands for full ring play, but I haven't found an adapted list for short-handed yet. Do you know where I could find one? Or how to adapt from Sklansky's 8 grouping? Thanx

Scott

[/ QUOTE ]

Scott,

You sound like you are fairly new to poker, are you? If you are, I might suggest playing full ring games for a while until you get fairly good at them. I think that will help you become a better poker player than focusing on the Short handed games right away.

David Ross used the guide at Posev.com since it ranked the hands by position off the button. You can also do searches for past posts about starting hands. I remember there being one a couple weeks ago.

[tempest7178]

I'd toss the QJ off preflop UTG but after that turn card you are trapped and are going to lose a lot of bets. I would play the same way post flop but on the river I would check-call after the turn cap.