The most readable hands ever?

This isn't that interesting a hand, except for how easy it is to put everyone on their exact hands.


10-20 hold'em, 10 handed. I am dealt A5h in late position. Two loose players limp (LP1 and LP2) to me, I limp, and the moderately loose passive player on my left raises from the cutoff. The blinds fold, and 4 of us see the flop with 9.5 small bets in the pot.


The flop comes Kh 6h 4h, making me the nut flush. We all check to the cutoff who bets. Everyone calls to me, and I raise. Everyone calls to LP2 on my right who reraises. I make it 4 bets, and only LP1 folds, leaving 3 of us see the turn with about 11.5 big bets in the pot.


The turn is a blank. I bet and both call. The pot has 14.5 big bets.


The turn is a K, pairing the board. We check to the cutoff, who bets. LP2 calls, and I fold.

The cutoff showed KK for quads. LP2 showed Q8h for the second nut flush.

I don't think making it 4 bets on the flop is correct. Your hand would be more camouflaged if you pretended to eat crow. You then could resume your power play on the turn!

If you are that sure you're against another flush and a set of kings wouldn't you be better off to wait until fourth street to make sure that the board doesn't pair (and the bet doubles) to put in a lot of action? Notice that if a blank comes you should get each of these players for at least two big bets, and you may get more if the other flush raises again.

For what it's worth, I would have capped it on the flop too and bet the turn. Presuming you are viewed as a player who doesn't typically spray chips by making a deep check-raise on the flop with the nut draw, this earns the most IMO. Put yourself in the shoes of the guy with top set. He faces TWO opponents who excitedly put in three bets on the flop, and one of them is you. Will he bet the turn if checked to? Of course it depends on the player, but a sharp player wouldn't. By not capping the flop and betting the turn, you risk losing 2 SB on the flop and 2 BB on the turn, for a total of 3 BB. IF the slowplay works perfectly and they BOTH put in 2BB on the turn, you make 4BB. So you make 1BB by slowplaying if the best scenario pans out, but that's a big if.


Unless I missed something somewhere, it looks like a no brainer to me.


Ni han, and very Ni laydown.


Tommy

I didn't even realize until now that I had not written correctly what happened on the turn. What I wrote was incorrect, it wasn't checked to me on the turn, rather LP2 bet into me again , I raised, cutoff called cold and LP2 just called. This was a fairly significant thing to leave out since it makes the river laydown and the quad kings a lot more obvious.


I did consider just calling the third bet at the time, but I thought LP2 would lead the turn anyway if his flush was big enough (he is a very bad loose player), which seemed likely to me when it took a check raise of the field to bring him out of hiding on the flop.

Actually, I mistold what happened on the turn, so the play of the hand and my opponents holdings were actually even more obvious: on the turn LP2 bet into me, I raised, cutoff called cold, and LP2 just called. So, the river laydown wasn't that difficult to make, and the cutoff's quad kings were more obvious than I led you to believe with my original post.

I didn't realize until I read Mason's reply that I had not described the action on the turn correctly in my oiginal post. On the turn LP2 led into me, I raised, cutoff cold called, and LP2 called.


This should make it a lot more obvious why I thought it was so easy to put LP2 on the Q high flush and the cutoff on quad kings. /images/wink.gif

I did consider just calling the third bet on the flop and raising on the turn. I thought there were 3 good reasons to cap it instead: 1) I figured anyone with a pair or a medium heart who doesn't improve on the turn will drop anyway, so this is my last chance to collect extra money from them, 2) I was 95% certain LP2 had a flush and that he would bet it again on the turn if it was big enough (Q or maybe J high), and 3) the play you advise is what the players would often expect me to do if I had a nut flush, so I decided to be less obvious this time and let them maybe think I was just being overaggressive with a nut flush draw (for the record, I would sometimes cap the flop here if I held only the Ah, especially if there were more players in).


A lesser reason I decided to cap was that I thought the cutoff could be in there with QhQx, and would be likely to drop on the turn, but might call another bet on the flop. This last reason was probably bad thinking on my part, since I doubt a moderately passive player such as the cutoff would bet the flop very often with an overcard to her pair (flush draw or not) after it checked to her.


I don't think capping the flop is either wrong or right per se, but merely an alternate course to smoothcalling and raising the turn, which I also will do with the nut flush (I just didn't this time).