Folding the nut flush on a paired board

The Bear · #1 10-11-2003, 11:49 AM

Hey guys,

A friend of mine played this one last night. He's fairly sure that he played it wrong and so am I, but since I play NL about as well as I play Old Maid, I'm interested in what the experts have to say.

1/2 NL on Stars. Stack sizes - Hero: $341, Opponent: $311

Preflop: EP limps for $2. Hero raises to $8 w/ A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]T [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. LP limit reraises to $14, EP folds, hero calls.

Flop:
9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]K [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]T [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

Hero checks, LP bets $8. Hero calls.

Turn:
[9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]K [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]T [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]] 3 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

Hero checks, LP bets $12, hero limit raises to $24, LP calls.

River:
[9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]K [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]T [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]3 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]] 3 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

Hero bets out $45, LP raises all-in to $265, hero thinks for a while and folds.

Comments on all streets appreciated.

Paul2432 · #2 10-11-2003, 01:52 PM

I'm not an expert, but I'll answer anyway.

Preflop the raise is OK as long as you only do it sometimes to mix things up. ATs is not a strong enough hand to raise for value in mp.

I might play a little stronger on the flop, but I think your play is OK. Unless he has the straight, which I think is unlikely, your opponent has to be somewhat cautious.

On the turn, a check-raise is a good play if you are fairly sure your opponent will bet, but I would raise much more. The pot is large enough where I would want to win it right here, or make my opponent pay for drawing. I would raise to maybe 80 or so (or maybe even all-in).

On the river, I think you made the right play. Although there is a small chance he has AK and is bluffing. I think this is very unlikely and he probably holds KK.

Paul

ZeeJustin · #3 10-11-2003, 02:16 PM

Watching players at these tables is important to see what quality hand they need to go all-in with. Some people do it regularly as a pure bluff, and others only do it with the stone cold nuts. Against a stars player that I had never seen before, I would assume he'd make this play with any 3 and any ace and any flush or straight, so I would call.

The Ram · #4 10-11-2003, 02:56 PM

OK, so since I'm the friend in this hand (just signed up for forum today) I'll talk about this one a bit.
I'm not a habitual raiser of ATs, but the game was fairly slow at the moment and I had a decent enough chance of taking the blinds, plus with the way things were going, hitting an ace could quite likely have left me with the best hand.

In any event, after a reraise on the flop, I think it's likely that the guy had a fairly decent hand. That he called my checkraise on the turn made me even more sure of it. In retrospect (and in knowing his hand, or at least what he told me it was), I probably shouldn't have put him on a set, because for such a small raise on the turn he would almost certainly have fired back to test me, and additionally he would have bet more on the flop/turn against such dangerous boards.

I'm thinking that in retrospect, my play was only significantly flawed on the turn. Assuming my read was correct and he had a set, I should have raised quite a bit more on the turn to make him pay to pair the board on the river. My rationale was to try to sell the flush for as much as possible, in the case that he was big but not big enough to call for a huge reraise, since I did in fact have the nuts at this point w/ only one card to come.

Thoughts anyone?

(By the way, he had AA so I had him destroyed)

Guy McSucker · #5 10-11-2003, 04:20 PM

I don't like the preflop raise. ATs isn't much of a hand. One can always argue for a raise if it will let you take control and outplay people later, but the later action shows that this is not the case, so why pump the pot up on a shaky holding? Of course you must call the pointless mini reraise.

On the flop our hero has middle pair, top kicker and the nut flush draw. This is a very big flop and one worth betting. If you get raised a decent amount, you can choose happily between moving all-in or calling. Either is good with at least 8 outs and perhaps as many as 14.

So here's the turn and you have the nuts. Great. If you think he has a set, make him pay to hit it for goodness' sake. If you don't think that, then sell it for as much as you can and don't fold on the river.

Guy, grumpy because he hasn't had a hand this good in months. BET FOR GOD'S SAKE!

The Ram · #6 10-13-2003, 02:05 PM

Having played a lot of NL on nothing more than feel and general card sense, getting real analysis like this is really helpful, so thanks. A few questions for the masses then (again this was my hand, even though The Bear was the on to post).
Guy Sucker, I'm going to be quoting you here:

"I don't like the preflop raise. ATs isn't much of a hand."

Not arguing this point, but I'm curious. I obviously understand that I could get called while holding ATs, hit an ace and get called down by a better one. So, how good to I need to be to be raising a suited ace? AKs is a no-brainer, and I'd assume the same w/ AQs. AJs???

"On the flop our hero has middle pair, top kicker and the nut flush draw. This is a very big flop and one worth betting. If you get raised a decent amount, you can choose happily between moving all-in or calling. Either is good with at least 8 outs and perhaps as many as 14."

This is a play I've never before considered, as I don't yet feel quite confident enough to be throwing my stack around in a Brunson-eque manner. If we were talking top pair and there were no such easily visible straight possibilities present, I would certainly be playing back, but betting out here and then shoving in makes me uncomfortable. Is this too conservative/weak-tight of me?

"So here's the turn and you have the nuts. Great. If you think he has a set, make him pay to hit it for goodness' sake. If you don't think that, then sell it for as much as you can and don't fold on the river."

In retrospect, I agree with all of this. However, all I felt fairly certain of is that he had a very big hand that I had just caught up on. In actuality, he had AA, so I wasn't far off. However, in the heat of battle I got a bit confused and then thrown way off when I turned the big daddy nuts. I thought about a more significant raise on the turn, but then considered that he might also have hands like red ak, or perhaps black qq--that is, he might call a small raise where a big one would make him fold.
Is there some trick to this? I've watched the FossilMan play live, and I've deemed that a reason for his big success is his consistent willingness to run people over with his stack. So, am I again just to much of a wuss?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated. I'm playing a pretty fair split of limit and NL/PL, but limit is just a technical game and easy enough to pick up (at least to the point of minor profitability), but any help on the NL/PL side would be quite helpful and useful.

Thanks.