Cool, a playalong!
 

So I don't do these very often, but this hand seemed like an interesting one for a playalong. IMO every street is at least debatable. Bear in mind that I'm not really happy with how I played parts of this hand. So if we find a better choice than the one I made, we're still sticking with my action for the next street and we're practicing our damage control. I'm also interested in finding the best way to play the hand.

Our cast:
UTG+1 played by our a valiant, handsome, charming hero. Unfortunately he's been getting crappy cards so if I have a table image it would be tight, but I doubt that anyone's paying that much attention at this level.

UTG is played by a sneaky, LAGTAGey player who is isn't very sophisticated but probably a winner at 1/2 based on his cajones alone. his stats after 60 hands are 33/18/3.5 although I suspect his AF will be converging in the 4 region. He's been pushing me around for most of the 60 hand session, and appears to be getting friskier as the table is tightening up. His play is fairly unpredictable but generally quite aggressive.

Party Poker 1/2 Hold'em (9 max, 9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].
<font color="#CC3333">UTG raises</font>, Hero...

Re: Cool, a playalong!
 

fold every time. this is how i see it, from that position:


good enough: AQ
the isolation line: -------------------------
not good enough: KQ

Re: Cool, a playalong!
 

We're only fractionally ahead of his hand range (52.4 to 47.6), and even that assumes he's raising 18% UTG, which he almost certainly is not (he's probably loosening up towards the button), and with him being tricky and LAGtastic, we stand to win the minimum and lose the maximum as we try to pick off a bluff that could well be a real hand or fold to a real hand that turns out to be a bluff. This doesn't seem like a very strong hand to isolate with. I'll take the road less traveled and say find a better spot. Fold.

Re: Cool, a playalong!
 

As an aside, this opponent doesn't seem to be very worried about his position when pfring, if that makes a difference.

This playalong was actually originally going to just be the pf action but I later decided to do the whole hand. The original post was the hand/read, then: If you fold here, what would you want Villain's PFR to be before you 3-bet it? Would you ever call?

Re: Cool, a playalong!
 

So the question is whether to reraise to isolate, or fold and respect the threat of domination right? Normally the threat of domination combined with the implied strength of an UTG raise would make it a fold, but this doesn't appear to be a normal player. Based on reads this looks like a raise.

Re: Cool, a playalong!
 

[ QUOTE ]
As an aside, this opponent doesn't seem to be very worried about his position when pfring, if that makes a difference.

This playalong was actually originally going to just be the pf action but I later decided to do the whole hand. The original post was the hand/read, then: If you fold here, what would you want Villain's PFR to be before you 3-bet it? Would you ever call?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's the problem with PT reads based on limited hands. Everyone has a few orbits where they raise ~20% of the time once in awhile, so it could be one of those. If he is really an 18% PFR I'm definitely 3-betting AJo and KQo/KQs is close IMO. If the table were fairly loose I might just cold-call with KQs.

Re: Cool, a playalong!
 

I would fold here, but for "playalong" reasons let's just say that I chose to reraise. I would never coldcall.

Brad

El floppo
 

Ok, this is where I felt I made my first mistake in the hand. I had been folding to this guy all session, tilt was creeping in and I decided that I finally had enough hand to fight back. So now we move into the 'damage control from pushing too thin of an edge' part of the hand.

Party Poker 1/2 Hold'em (9 max, 9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].
<font color="#CC3333">UTG raises</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero 3-bets</font>, <font color="#666666">6 folds</font>, BB calls, UTG calls.

Flop: (9.50 SB) 4[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], T[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
BB checks, <font color="#CC3333">UTG bets</font>, Hero...


The cast for scene two (postflop):
BB is played by a typical 1/2 player. He's a little loose pf and passive at about 32/5/0.5AF for whole session. His WTSD is only 5% at this point, and he doesn't seem to have a favorite street to always dump it on.

UTG's donkbet could mean alot of things, and I have seen him fold many pfrs using a similar play.

Re: El floppo
 

Peel, folding unimproved on the turn. There's too many hands involving an ace that people like to play for us to have even close to the best hand right now.

Re: El floppo
 

You can only win by making a straight so just call.