20-40 hand

This one came up Saturday afternoon at Lucky Chances. Every betting round could be played differently, so please post what you would do on each one, especially the turn. In a do-over, I'd change my action on two rounds.


1. Four players limp to me with AQs in the cutoff. What do you do?


2. Seven players see the flop. Pot is 7.0 big bets. I have position. Flop comes J95 twotone, none my suit. Four checks to player #5 who bets. Player #5 normally does not bet draws here and does not have an overpair. Player #6 calls. Wht do you do?


3. Five players see the turn. Pot is 9.5 bets. Turn is a queen that brings a second flush draw. Check to player #5, who bets. Player #6 raises. She knows to raise any Q or better here. What do you do?


4. River TBA.

"1. Four players limp to me with AQs in the cutoff. What do you do?"


Sredni raises. Very rare exception is when one of the limpers needing appointment with proctologist/archeologist. There can be other arguments for just calling, but Sredni regards them as mistellings.


"2. Seven players see the flop. Pot is 7.0 big bets. I have position. Flop comes J95 twotone, none my suit. Four checks to player #5 who bets. Player #5 normally does not bet draws here and does not have an overpair. Player #6 calls. Wht do you do?"


Sredni hears no rumbling in his heart. Loving opponents limping have great combined probability of having such hands as AJ, QJ, A9s, Q9s and others, which cripple your drawing, with no minding of drawing dead. The voluminous opponentage puts out the lamp of bluffing.


"3. Five players see the turn. Pot is 9.5 bets. Turn is a queen that brings a second flush draw. Check to player #5, who bets. Player #6 raises. She knows to raise any Q or better here. What do you do? "


Sredni was fifth business, still is. Sredni gazes as a mere observer.


"4. River TBA"


Ace?


Sredni Vashtar


Sredni Vashtar went forth,

His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.

His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death.

Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.

Preflop: Raise


Flop: Raise


Turn: If I understand the given pot sizes right, it looks like you just called on the flop. Hard to say how a flop raise would have affected their willingness to bet into you on the turn. As the hand went down, I'd have no clue what to do on the turn. That's why I'd raise the flop!


Tommy

Matt,


Before the flop there is a valid argument for just calling with AQ offsuit but you must raise with AQ suited. You want to build a pot here for the times you flop a flush draw AND show some spunk with hands other than big pairs in late position. In addition, being suited often allows you to take one off on a mediocre flop when there is one of your suit. Note that the cutoff and perhaps the position to the right of the cutoff call for aggression with marginal raising hands. This hand is much better than marginal so raise 100% of the time.


Since you didn't raise before the flop and the pot is fairly small I would fold on the flop. There is too great a chance you can hit an overcard and still lose with this board.


Assuming you made the mistake of calling on the flop, on the turn you are now in deep trouble even though you paired. I would fold rather than call two bets cold.


Regards,


Rick


PS Without looking at Tommy's post I would bet my left arm he agrees, except he would be more eloquent.

Tommy,


Please take my left arm with my regrets.


Regards,


Rick

Since you didn't raise before the flop and the pot is fairly small I would fold on the flop.


Rick Nebiolo has ferret eyes like Sredni. The flop was raised.


This does change things. Sredni has same misdoing. This makes the play closer, but Sredni's research still shows this as a mistake. The conventional wisdom is lost in a sea of appeals to false authorities.


There have been charts and simulations and discussions of this. Sredni has no desire for repeating.


Sredni Vashtar

" The flop was raised."


make that preflop.


Sredni.

"1. Four players limp to me with AQs in the cutoff. What do you do?"


Unless Mason limped in UTG, you have the limpers beat and your hand plays well multiway, so I would raise.


"2. Seven players see the flop. Pot is 7.0 big bets. I have position. Flop comes J95 twotone, none my suit. Four checks to player #5 who bets. Player #5 normally does not bet draws here and does not have an overpair. Player #6 calls. Wht do you do?"


I would fold. Too many draws you have no part of. You can easily hit and still lose.


"3. Five players see the turn. Pot is 9.5 bets. Turn is a queen that brings a second flush draw. Check to player #5, who bets. Player #6 raises. She knows to raise any Q or better here. What do you do?"


This is why I folded on the turn. I would reraise or fold now, depending on how I read player #6. If I can't get a read, I fold. If I reraise, I'm going to check behind on the river, or fold if bet into.

I would raise pre-flop. Your hand can go very far, and plays well in a big pot. You also want the button, and it doesn't hurt to get rid of the blinds.


On the flop, I think it's an easy fold. You could easily be against a set, a JQ or a JA from the bettor. The Q could complete a straight for someone else. 2 of your cards complete a flush, and you can't redraw against one. Someone else may have a less pair with an ace. I do not think you can call here.


On the turn, I again think you should fold, but if you don't fold, reraise to get rid of the flush draws. With 5 players seeing the turn, it is too easy for this to have made a JQ or Q9 2 pair, or for the Q to make someone a straight. This is why the flop call was bad. There are too many ways you are beat by the 2 players who have put chips in, but if you know that this is not a near certainty, reraise and check down the river unless you hit an ace.


BTW, your pre-flop and flop play were not well-coordinated. If you were going to call in this situation, you should have raised preflop to make seeing the turn a no-brainer (though with a flop this bad, it would still be close). If you were not raising to see if your hand survived the flop, well, it didn't, so get rid of it and be happy you saved that SB pre-flop. It is usually best to have a plan for the the upcoming rounds to enable you to make the best choices on the current round.


hope it worked out. Good luck.


Dan Z.

1)raise.


2)fold.


3)i would not have been in this situtaton because i would have mucked the flop. if i was in it somehow, i would probably folod. exception would be if i put the better and raiser and overly agrressive players that don't have to have a big hand. even then might fold.

1) Raise to try to buy the button, eliminate the blinds, take control of the hand with probably the best cards that play well in a multi-player pot.


2) Fold. Though you have position and are getting good pot odds, the "voluminous opponentage" against you with a limper-friendly flop should cause you to eschew further involvement. If you do choose to play, you must raise. Calling is surely wrong IMHO.


3) Fold. You could be up against. . who knows what.

Sredni,


I flew the flag of peace on the flop, merely calling. The combination of risk of dead outs plus knowing no rational hand was going to fold made me do it. After the fact I reconsidered, and have then decided the math wasn't there for the play to increase cahnce of taking down the pot. As it turns out, had I raised the flop I would've lost, but that's not germaine to the flop question.

Tommy,


I've given this some thought and decided I like the flop call, mostly because I don't think I could've gotten even a bare suited ten to lay down at that point with that field. As it turns out, calling was a lucky choice.

Rick,


As Sredni pointed pointed out, I raised the flop. A winning player commented he wouldn't have raised preflop with that hand, which goes dead against my preflop game.

That's exactly how I played the hand, reraising the turn to blow out player #5's jack and any flush draws, then checking behind on the river, which I think was a mistake given the jack paired and I knew player #6 didn't have a jack.

My bad - I didn't make it clear that I raised preflop.

Andy,


The flop play was interesting. There are arguments for all three, but I like the idea of just getting rid of the hand. See below for more.... It just seemed too much of a price with sooo much money in the pot.

Here's more:


I raised preflop. That play seemed iron clad to me, but a winning player commented he would've called there, causing me to ask you all.


Flop: I just called. With the cheap cost, gutshot straight draw and possibility for clean overpairs, I did not want to fold. However, there was a lot of risk taken regarding dead outs, so I can't disagree with giving it up. This field was unlikely to fold anything relevant for 1 big bet, so it didn't seem I could get enough of a percentage gain to justify fighting and havving to call a check raise. (Note: there were three tighter opponents in the game, but only one was in the hand.)


Turn: I slowly stacked some chips while deciding whether to fold or raise. I had a good read on player #5 - he wasn't going to reraise - but I didn't know where player #6 stood. Coulda been one pair, two pair or a straight. Not a set. To win I needed to blow out player #5's five outs with the jack and get rid of the flush draws, if any. Player #6 also kind of cringed as I counted out three bets (without yet betting). So I raised.


All folded to player #5, who gave me The Pause, The Look and The Eye Roll and mucked. Player #6 called.


River a jack. Since player #6 checked, I had the winner. At that point, though, I was dead set on checking the river. She had Q9 for two pair. I hit a five outer on the river to win thanks to the reraise blowing out player #5.


It was a lot of risk to take for a pot, even one that size. Suppose you for whatever reason had called the flop. Would you make that reraise given what I've described?

Matt,


I saw the 7.0 ___ bets and read it in my deformed mind as small bets. In mutli-way pots I do a conversion from small to big bets just before the turn. This helps in cases where I want to peel one off on the flop for an inside straight or a similar long shot.


Regards,


Rick

Matt in your last post you said you called on the flop because it was cheap and you had gutshot draw with clean overcards. you had nothing of the sort. flop was j,9,5! no gutshot very little possibilities for clean overs. you also don't know if it will get raised behind you where it can cost multiple bets for a draw that might just get you in more trouble by someone making 2 pair or straight if you hit the A or Q. and you said you made it 3 bets to try to knock the flush draws out. not likely your gonna be able to knock out flush draws into a pot this size. hard to get people to throw them away in small pots, let alone huge pots. you put alot of money into a pot that you might have had 3 outs on the flop and picked up 2 more on the turn. only because of the reraise otherwise you probably still would have had 3. may not even that. maybe 5 hole has AJ and you would have drawing even slimmer. bottom line is that by calling the flop you put yourself into a big mess that you have no idea where your hand is at. and of coarse you came out smelling like a rose. thank your lucky stars, take the pot and try to avoid messes like this in the future.

I'm a bit suprised you would raise the flop and not fold. Heck, poor Rick even bet his left arm on it. Ofcourse, if you continue playing raising would be the better option IMO, but why would you want to continue here?

Good chance there's a flushdraw out with this number of players, and your A or Q may very well not be good (you also havent got a backdoor flushdraw BTW). Dont you just hate to be in that position ?


Regards

Here's how. I read the initial post too fast. Sorry guys. I replied thinking Matt had flopped top pair. I just reread Matt's post and now I see why this thread had me so confused.


No way I'd raise the flop. Maybe I would with one player behind. But not from last seat.


Tommy

If we go from a purely results oriented analysis, we see that you you were getting effective pot odds of 4.5:1 on your 9.2:1 draw. It seems to me that you were taking the worst of it, even in the favorable situation in which you had five clean outs at which to draw at that pot with.


I think you got lucky on this one. In general, you are going to be worse that a 9.2:1 dog in this situation. I think the most suspect part of your analysis (besides claiming to have a gutshot on the flop ?!?) is where you seem to believe that you can push out a flush draw on the turn by 3-betting the pot. Most players make the mistake of calling too much, so they are certainly going to call with a flush draw when they have pot odds (5.5:1 after your raise).


Raise preflop/fold the flop.


- Andrew

note to self: learn how to count outs.


Matt had 6 outs versus Q9 (any jack and any ace), so he had 6 cards out of 44 remaining (versus Q9) and thus was a 7.3:1 dog, not a 9.2:1 dog as I mentioned.


Still, much worse than the 4.5:1 he was getting on his action.


Oh, and I didn't even mention the reversed implied odds if Q9 bet the river when a Q or a 9 came.


- Andrew

Sorry about "gutshot" - busy day here.


What I meant was any offsuit T or K gave me a gutshot draw, and on the flop it was 8.5:1 with two overcards. As with counting such odds preflop, however, the real drawback is the dangerous territory you put yourself in.


As for blowing out flush draws, yes, they did have odds to call with a nut draw, but it's tough to call three big bets if you haven't carefully counted the pot and/or you don't have the nut flush draw. But for all the talk, it comes down to the two players behind me just not looking interested in the hand and my knowing where player #5 was.


I spent all my time on the turn trying to guess whether player #6 had one pair, two pair or a straight. After a bit I decided there was enough chance that I had player #6 beat to warrant playing on, knowing it was a risky play to put 3 bets against 10.5 with that degree of uncertainty with the other players.


Turns out the guess was wrong, but I think that turn play in that situation, taking into account the assessment of all four opponents on the turn, succeeds often enough to make it profitable. It's just unusual to play fast and loose with that many bets, but so is a pot of that size.


As to the flop, whew, our experts are all over the map on that one. Folding there surely reduces SD though.

Hi Pokerguy,


My poor writing - please see the above response to Andrew. By gutshot I meant draw to a gutshot and by "clean" I meant non-flush. The rest is as you say.


Matt

If you put the raiser on at least top pair, you have a clear fold. This is one of those classic situations where you are either a marginal favorite, or a big dog. On average you will be a big dog. For the record, I'm not folding once I hit the turn, but then again, I'd never make it to the turn. Your reverse implied odds are horrid.


On the turn not only are you facing possible flush draws (it was 6-ways on the flop) but you are also facing possible straight draws. Any of the drawing hands might also have a pair. Your play makes sense heads-up, and one might argue that making the raise (with position) when you are in a 3-way pot is sensible, but pushing your marginal hand into a field of 5 like that is suicide.


Yes, you ended up heads up with a free river. I think you are (ironically) being very results oriented in thinking your 3-bet was a +ev move.


- Andrew

You were right the first time. He has 5 outs because the flop bettor has a jack. As for the aces, well, when that many people limp in, guess how live they are...


Dan Z.

"Sredni was fifth business"


wow! I can't remember anyone using that expression since reading the book by Robertson Davies. you probably even speak latin too.


you very wise.

How did you do on Saturday? If the woman you played against had long brown hair and a leather cowboy hat, I've played against her before -- she's pretty good. Her pocket Q's beat my pocket A's once in a tournament, so I remember her pretty well.