Can You Call This down.

[Roland]

I would fold 5th, for several reasons:

Obviously, you could be drawing close to dead if seat 2 has the flush. Unless you know for sure that he would 3-bet on 4th in that position with a 4-flush, it seems pretty likely that he, in fact, has it.
Even if he doesn’t have it, he could easily have a pair + a 4-flush, kings up, slow played aces or trips. (Once he just smooth-calls the raise, you can probably rule out trips and maybe kings up; but you didn’t know that when you made the first call).
I would be worrying about what seat 1 was calling with on 4th. You said he was aggressive, so I assume he would raise on 3rd with jacks; you also said he is somewhat tight, so he probably isn’t calling 4th with just a mid pair or an unimproved 3-flush, especially sine he has to fear a 3-bet from seat 2. Thus, I’d say his most likely holdings are 3-flush + deuces (not the greatest call ever, but possible), slow played aces (giving him trips on 5th), rolled jacks or the unlikely pocket deuces (also giving him trips). To sum it up, he should have either a 4-flush + pair with an over card or trips.

Like I said, once seat 2 just calls the raise, you can probably rule out trips or kings up, plus you don’t fear a raise behind you, so you should call the raise.
Raising 6th looks like a bad idea to me. You are almost definitely behind and it’s unlikely anybody is going to fold.
River is an easy fold I think, since the pot is protected with seat 5 still in there. Besides, the only other option would be to raise and that would clearly suck.

First, I see you realize that this is a very complex situation, partly casued by me because of my slow play on 3rd. Had I raised right away on 3rd, i believe several would fold and the hand is totally different, but as explained I chose to take a different root. However, once I saw that the party was getting crowded, I decided to open it up raising on 4th.

Your analysis of seat 1 and his holding looks plausable as to what he might hold. And it is what i put him on while I was playing it. The trickiness of the hand is now what do seat 2 and seat 5 have. As both will play a crucial part in my latter street decisions.

As for seat 2, He's betting on 5th after my showing strength on 4th, making his 3 spades look like a flush, but as I am sure you noticed, many spades are out. Had spades been live, I might have just given up the hand there.

Now what in the world in the wildcard in this hand, seat 5, doing. As said, he is a loose player. He will look start with some semblance of a hand, but once he is in, he will likely play it to the end. His catching a pair of nines creates worry for me.


As you may or may not know, this is actually the first hand that i posted. And there are several reasons for that. This hand is froma couple of months ago that i saved. I held onto it because I thought that there was some brilliant play by one of the players in this hand. One of the reasons that I don't post hands is that not too many hands that I play do I found interesting or novel, but this one is a gem, as you will see later.