poorly played 10/20 hand?

1. I post BB and a normally sane individual puts a straddle in.

all folded to middle position, solid but can be tricky player, who raises. I look down at QQ I three bet and the straddle caps it.


2. Flop comes A-K-Q of different suits, I like this. I betit out straddle calls and MP player raises. I do not like this because he does have some respect for me and my play. I call and the other player folds.


3. Turn brings a 5 suit not important, I check with the intention of raising and he bets but I just call, fearing a set over set I think.


4. River brings the next 5 giving me a full so I bet into him, he raises I just call, he turns over 10-J for the nut straight and I take the pot down.


5. How badly did I play this hand? How many bets did i miss and would anyone have played it like this at all??????


Thanks in advance for all the help!!!!!


Swiss Cheese

I think you shouldn't put him on a set right away. You have to think your hand is good in that spot most of the time. He's actually only put one raise in this hand so far preflop. He didn't get the chance to raise again preflop because straddle capped it. So we don't know if he has a big hand or not. I probably 3 bet the flop. I don't want the straddler to draw to a gutshot for cheap. Although if he straddles he probably won't throw this hand away anyway. And lead out the turn whether I got raised again or not. Now I get raised, I would start to worry maybe I'm beat. But not for Sure. He could have AK,KQ,AQ. If the player respects my play, as I think you said, I would just call. River I might bet out just incase he's one of those player then likes to raise on the turn and check the river. If I get raised again, I probably just call.

1. I post BB and a normally sane individual puts a straddle in.

all folded to middle position, solid but can be tricky player, who raises. I look down at QQ I three bet and the straddle caps it.


Looks good.

There may be times to play QQ softly, but not with a straddler in, and a possible isolation raise. IMO.


2. Flop comes A-K-Q of different suits, I like this. I betit out straddle calls and MP player raises. I do not like this because he does have some respect for me and my play. I call and the other player folds.


Dont put too much faith in flop moves, although with some players its telling. Often its an investment buying information, momentum, and position along with other things.


He's twice as likely to have AK or AQ as a set, assuming he plays all those equally. You can't rule out other hands, as you said he is tricky and its an isolation raise. So KQ, JT, and some other hands are possible too(although its pretty hard to put someone on that JT). So I think raising here is one strong consideration, and you would even welcome if the straddle hangs on with something stupid as sometimes straddlers do. The other consideration would be to call, then pounce on the turn. Just going into call mode is too soft for my tastes. But that doesnt mean its wrong necessarily.


3. Turn brings a 5 suit not important, I check with the intention of raising and he bets but I just call, fearing a set over set I think.


Worrying about set over set is rarely a good idea until the evidence is clearer. If you have a strong read, I opt to go with that. But the cold math says you are a 2-1 favorite. Takes a whole lot of strong reading to overcome that. Notice that although your read was "right" in the sense that you were losing, so sometimes you should go with that over the bayes(1). I believe more in reads myself, but that confidence builds with success. If you are willing to die by your read, then live by it too. Thats what I do. But don't tug on superman's cape.


4. River brings the next 5 giving me a full so I bet into him, he raises I just call, he turns over 10-J for the nut straight and I take the pot down.


What concerns me about this is the inconsistency. You didn't raise the turn because of set over set, now you bet the river when nothing has changed. Yes, you are now beating a straight, but the straight wasn't much of a thought was it? If it was thats different. I try to have a plan, and execute it. The plan doesn't have to appear consistent to an observer. But to you and you.


5. How badly did I play this hand? How many bets did i miss and would anyone have played it like this at all??????


Given that he raised the river, you might not actually have lost that much if anything by not raising the turn. So lets say its one big bet, but you aren't always going to win that. And when you are beat you will get reraised and have to call. So its a "mistake", but not as big as it may appear. These things happen, especially out of position.


I would take two things from this hand: try to have a plan and execute it. And pay attention to your read when the apparent math(1) pointed elsewhere.


Regards.


(1)Of course the math gets it right if you plug in the right starting hands and eliminate properly. Maths like that.

For what ever reason you had a feeling that the bad guy had a better hand than you. I think that's fine as long as you're not always playing scared with bottom set.


You ask about how many bets you lost, considering that he flopped the nuts and you sucked out on him I think you maybe lost 1 bet on the river. But even that is results oriented since much of the time you will be looking at AA, KK and not J-10.

I don't normally play this high, so I don't know if I should be commenting on this, but reading your post, your thought process through the hand just seemed wrong.

It seems on the flop when you bet out that you would want to re-raise when someone raises your bet. Instead you just called. This is ok assuming you were going to try for the check-raise on the turn, but given the board I would prefer to re-raise the flop. You didn't so let's move on.

On the turn you say when the 5 drops that you check with the intention of raising. Yet when he bets, you just call saying you feared a bigger set. Why check with the intention of raising if you don't raise? It seems you either want to go through with the check raise or bet out again. Either way he would re-raise you given what he had, but at least then you would know that he either has the straight or he has a bigger set.

On the river you bet into him with your full house after you just finished saying you feared a bigger set on the turn.

I know it's tough to put people on exact hands and you seem to have felt you were behind, but I don't think it's right to keep changing what you think they have based on your current holding.

Well, I think you played this hand a little too timidly. I don't know if you left that much money on the table this time, but if you always play like this you will be leaking money.


The raise pre-flop is good. Notice that since there is so much dead money in the pot, the original raiser may be raising with worse hands than he normally would raise with. A lot of players do this, even though it's wrong. Since you have almost no chance of stealing the blinds when there is a straddle, you should actually have a stronger hand than usual to raise with. The fact that the straddler capped actually doesn't tell you much about his hand either probably, since anyone who would straddle would probably also throw in a cap with a lot of hands that don't deserve it.


When you're raised on the flop, why do you slow down? There are too many hands that you are ahead of that would raise in this situation. AK (9 ways) and AQ (9 ways) are clear possibilities, and KQ (9 ways), AJ (12 ways), AT (12 ways) are also possible holdings. These are all more likely than hands you are behind, which are only AA (3 ways) KK (3 ways) and JT (16 ways, but less likely for a solid player to be raising with first in)


Unless you're setting up a check-raise on the turn, just calling the flop is weak poker.


Moving on to the turn ...


WHAT HAPPENED!!!


You went from "I check with the intention of raising" to "I just call" in the span of a couple of seconds. Was there something in the way he bet to make you think he had a monster?!?


Unless you have a real good read on an opponent, just calling the flop raise and check calling the turn is really weak/passive and is probably a leak in your game. It sounds like you've got the "Monster under the bed syndrome."


I don't think you missed a bet on the river. Not much you can do when raised. If you're against AA or KK you'll probably get reraised, and a straight might fold, so I doubt that reraising is profitable. I wouldn't reraise the river unless I had a really good read on the opponent.


If you end up losing with QQ when you flop a set, you better be losing a ton of money or you're probably playing it wrong.

Under those conditions flopping a BIG set would lead most players to conclude they had the best hand at that point. Since no flush possibility existed, the straddlee was never a threat and the raiser should've had a better holding than 10J, I would have raised, raised and raised some more.