This hand came up rather late in my session and I've been mulling over how else to play it. To begin, I had only been at the table for around 50 hands, but already the table had been incredibly loose and two players (UTG and UTG+1 for this hand) had spent the last 15 or so hands reraising everything, basically going crazy and rerasing each other with air. The table was really loosening up; other players were trying to get in on the action, but generally ended up getting pushed out of the pot. Both players had shown down decent hands so it wasn't as if they were complete maniacs, but by the same token, they had been making some odd moves, including open pushing into a PFR when a flush completed only to flip over a busted gutshot (after already having flipped over other busted bluffs). The other players in this hand were all the victims of the mad reraising and while they had only been at the table for a little while (20-30 hands), had shown decent hands (before all the craziness began), so they didn't seem to be complete fish either.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (8 handed)
converter
saw flop|
<font color="#C00000">saw showdown</font>
<font color="#C00000">Button ($13.40)</font>
<font color="#C00000">Hero ($25.75)</font>
<font color="#C00000">BB ($5.15)</font>
<font color="#C00000">UTG ($51.85)</font>
UTG+1 ($28.90)
MP1 ($14.90)
<font color="#C00000">MP2 ($9.70)</font>
CO ($24.50)
Preflop: Hero is SB with K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img].
<font color="#CC3333">UTG raises to $0.75</font>, <font color="#666666">
2 folds</font>, MP2 calls $0.75, <font color="#666666">
1 fold</font>, Button calls $0.75, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to $4</font>, BB calls $3.75, UTG calls $3.25, MP2 calls $3.25, Button calls $3.25.
Flop: ($20) 7[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(5 players)</font>
Final Pot: $20
Hero: ??????
My first thought was that I probably raised too little PF (mostly because I had just created a huge pot OOP). Second, it seemed my choices at this point were either, (a) push and hope to pull along draws that fought with each other for cards and take it down by pure luck, (b) make a weak lead, but considering the remaining stack sizes, seemed only to loose equity against the one other large stack, the UTG player, or (c) check and hope to check it down, but considering the stack sizes and the draws, I expected that to be basically impossible. Or is there hidden option D, check/fold? D seems way too weak tight for me but playing a huge pot OOP w/only 1 pair scares me.
So, my final thoughts are, first, which, if any line makes sense. Second, since this is probably what caused my problem in the first place, what should I have raised to PF? Thus far, the mad reraises had mostly succeded in pushing some people out and so I didn't expect all the callers (esp. not the BB), but should I have considered $6 or $7 and just try to take down the pot immediately (and how likely is that to have worked with all the short stacks involved)?
If you have read this far, thanks a million for your responses.