Slowplaying saved me!

[EnderW27]

In the BB with 77. Middle position raised the minimum and folded around to me. I call. Heads up.
Flop: AA7. As Emril would say, BAM!
Check. He checks.
Turn: 10.
I check. He bets 50. I call. I should raise here I'm sure. Either he has an ace and isn't going anywhere or I'm not getting anything else from him. But...I call.
River: Ace. Daaaaaamn. The one card in the entire deck that demolishes my hand.

I check. He bets 50. I call. He's got AK for 4 of a kind.
Ha!

We BOTH mangled this hand completely. The difference is that I'm still in the tournament and he's gained the absolute minimum from me possible.
Saved by the slowplay.

[Stoneii]

[ QUOTE ]
The one card in the entire deck that demolishes my hand.


[/ QUOTE ]

being picky but there were 7 cards to demolish your hand on the river, 3K's, 3T's and the Ace... /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

But you're right, I'd have tried to get him all-in by the turn and would be telling folk about another bad beat I took /images/graemlins/wink.gif

G'Luck

stoneii

[Jason Strasser]

Who played the hand worse?

This was ugly.

[EnderW27]

OK, you're right about the tens. The King doesn't destroy my hand as I still have sevens full of Aces. It just destroys me because I guarantee we'll both be going all in and I'd be obliterated, not realizing I'm running into a higher full house.

[EnderW27]

I already know where I played it wrong. That turn call was horrendous. But, even so, I think my opponent played it worse by "forcing" me to put in the absolute minimum possible. Minimum raise with AK, check on flop, minimum bet on turn and river...with QUADS!
I went on to take second in the tournament when I could have been out on that hand.

[Jason Strasser]

Your way of thinking is different than mine. Yes, even though your opponent beat you and made the best hand, you are going to win this hand more than he will on the flop. Since you are the favorite, you want as much chips as possible going in. This is not the hand to slowplay, ESPECIALLY if your opponent has an ace! Any running board pair or pair card (king in this case), or quad card, is bad. The quad card is not as bad, because you can see it coming. But but you are vulnerable in this spot.

Anyhow, back to my original thinking: you were ahead, and managed to get 50 into the pot where your opponent would've called off all his chips with you as the extremely large favorite. I can't say that you played this hand well at all.

[woodguy]

Doyle Brunson gives a good rule of thumb for flopped boats in Super System.
If you are holding a pair of the overset,(i.e. you have JJ flop comes J77) you can slowplay, otherwise get your money in the pot now!
regards,
woodguy

[EnderW27]

There's absolutely no doubt I played it badly. I admit it. My slowplay ill-advised at best. My turn call I knew to be a mistake even as I was doing it, yet I still did. I can even say the crying call of the river when I was sure I was beat was bad. Overall, not a stellar play just about anywhere.

What I'm saying is my opponent had absolutely no reason to believe I had 77, or even A7 (or A10) the only hands that could beat him. If I were in his position, I'd have been certain I was in the lead here. Yet, with AK, he checked once and bet or raised the minimum on 3 of the four streets.

It was badly played and bad luck that I lost it. The key here is that neither of us were going anywhere on that hand. No matter what I did (short of raising all-in preflop and hoping he folds), he was going to win that hand. Yet he gave me a flesh wound when he could have booted me to the curb. When you couple that with my opponent's (reasonable) belief he was ahead in the hand, I think my opponent played it worse than I did.