Re: Getting into Battles Too Early On? Interesting Hand & Analysis
 

BBs play here is screaming he has the straight to me. I dont like calling his all-in.

Re: Getting into Battles Too Early On? Interesting Hand & Analysis
 

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If the bet comes from an early position and two or three players fold, you can consider a check-raise (since you will usually have the best made hand here). If a late-position player bets big and you still have players to act behind you, you should probably just give it up.

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This confuses me slightly. When I check a flop with the intention of potentially CRing, I am much more inclined to CR an LP bet than a EP bet, my reason being that the EP bettor bet into a field of active players who have not defined their hand yet. Whereas an LP bettor bet after it got checked around to him and everyone indicated weakness. The LP bettor is much more likely to be on a steal, plus you are making the rest of the field call a bet and a raise cold in order to continue with this hand. In fact, this line (checking the flop with the intention of CRing only the CO) might have won the hand as BB was pretty solid and might have layed down the draw.

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There isn't much in the pot yet, especially if it's checked around to LP, so he doesn't have much incentive to make a pure bluff at a board that is pretty likely to hit unraised blinds. A largish bet from LP, I think, would indicate a reasonable hand that wants to build a pot and protect against draws. If his bet is less than half the pot, then I'd be inclined to believe he's just taking one stab to see if everyone is willing to lay down easily, and if you put him to the test with a check-raise, he'll back off. I do think you want to check-raise and not check-call, though, because of the likelihood that someone else in the hand has a better draw than yours.