My "bad" play

[Happy Appy]

So, I was playing poker the other night with some friends and the following happened. I was on the button with 56. The players I played against were generally willing to give up anything besides a draw or top pair or better on the flop. The guy to my right raised preflop which was fine with me because I knew I could almost certainly steal the pot once the flop came out. I called about 60 cents. Everyone folded to the player to his right who raised it to 2 dollars. I looked at him and decided his hand was borderline for that raise. The guy to my right called and so did I (I thought that I would be able to steal the pot almost certainly when the flop came with low cards because I was sure no one had a high pair). The flop came T43 and to my suprzie the reraiser preflop bets 10 dollars. The pot is about 8 right now. The guy to my right quickly folds. I try to decide what I should do I have 13 dollars and the other guy has me covered. I really think (like 85%) that this guy is just taking a stab at the pot. I also think that my hand can pick up a pair or the strait and be good, so I figure to be even money if my read is correct. And worst case, he has top pair, I still have a 1/3 chance of picking up the strait. He definately doesn't have a set. I figure that my choices are to fold EV=0 or move in knowing he would call me. I calculated the EV assuming my read was 85% accurate is positive when he calls my all in. But at the time I just estimated the EV. I moved in, he called. Was this play correct? I certainly think it was, but I don't mind being told otherwise, but please give me reasons. Thanks all [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Brian462]

I think you are trying to hard to justify a call.

You state that these guys are weak and willing to give up pots post flop when they miss, and so you call assuming you will win any pot where no one makes a hand(considering there's 2 others in the pot I think this is -EV by itself). Then once the flop comes you assume the guy has no hand but instead of giving up, he is now making a move without even a pair. This completely contridicts your earlier read. But now you have a new read, that he has no pair and that calling is now marginally correct. That is a very hard read to make and be 85% sure about. Especially because it directly contradicts the reasons you called preflop in the first place.

At the very least, your preflop call is terrible. IMO, the flop call is not so great either. It is only slightly -EV though so if your read is correct any significant portion of the time then you won't lose very much by calling.