$1/2 Cash Game: Third Nut Flush UTG

[NYCNative]

I am playing as part of a group of six people. Blinds are $1/2 and most people bought in for about $40-50 with one rebuy thus far. My stack is at around $40.

I am in the SB and I am dealt Q[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. Before it gets to me there is one caller and a minraiser and someone who called him. I believe that the BB will call the minraise and the limper will as well so I decide to call for the price. My hunch is correct so it's five to the flop with $20 in the pot.

I forget the exact sequence but a flop of all rags is checked around, a rag turn that is a third club is also checked around and then a 4th rag club hits.

A straight flush is not possible. I have the third best hand.

Do I lead this board with a bet? If so, what kind of bet do I make? Or do I check-call a reasonable bet (and get out of the way if I get a massive raise or two people start to fight over it)?

[aces_dad]

From my limit background we lead this river every time to prevent the river from getting checked through. If raised and reraised you can lay it down, just raised closing the action could call vs a lag. However now that I'm playing NL ...

The problem with leading the pot here is that you could still get pushed off the pot with a large reraise. I'd likely check and use the effective position to see how much of a bet we'd be willing to call, namely anything pot or less depending upon number of callers. I wouldn't overcall anything more than pot size bet here and wouldn't call a bet and raise.

[rikz]

I think this had should have been folded preflop. The $3 to call a min-raise is 7.5% of your stack which is right in the middle of the 5-10 rule range except that you don't have a pocket pair that can flop a set; instead, you have unsuited, broadway connectors that are easily dominated by AQ, KQ, AJ or KJ going into a pot that is going to be so big that any reasonable bet on the flop will pot commit everybody that got a piece of it.

As the hand played out, you should make a small bet on the river (~$5) because someone with a T of spades, or any lower spade, will probably call suspecting a steal, but someone with the nuts will push.

On the other hand, if somebody does come over the top of your bet, especially the preflop raiser (who probably has a couple of big cards, one of which might be a club) you should consider folding.

Really, this hand is a perfect example of why playing QJo out of position in a raised pot (that was for 7.5% of your stack just to call) is a really bad idea.

[NYCNative]

I checked and it was checked around to the button. I expected him to check and I would take it or lose to the King however the button made a huge overbet push of $50 or so.

I pegged this as 80% steal, 20% he has the Ace (or King) and wants to look like a steal. The player is not particularly tricky but this isn't a particularly subtle trick either since nobody showed aggression to this point. Regardless, it was a great bet that nobody could really call. (And nobody did.)

It might have been +EV to call assuming he was bluffing 80% of the time however at that point I was getting lousy odds and I only had $4 pot equity.

In retrospect, I feel I should have made a teaser bet at it - say $8, slightly less than half the pot, representing a value bet with the nuts. In theory, the hand plays itself from here out - lesser holdings than the Queen can't raise but might call; the King might call to look me up but really can't raise and might fold (especially if there are people behind him); I fold to any raise here because theoretically only the Ace can make that play.

This is all great in hindsight but I wonder if that's results-oriented thinking after the overbet.

[NYCNative]

I was reasonably sure that I'd be getting nearly 6 to 1 with my call (turns out that I was right) and the way the table is playing; any Ace or PP that dominates me makes a bigger raise. I'm almost certainly not a 6 to 1 dog against four other people and there are only two hands that I am a huge dog against that I feel someone might hold. Seems like calling is +EV unless I'm the kind of person who is gonna go broke in a minraised pot with top pair, medium kicker (and I'm not).