Should i have taken a different line of play?

[Senor Choppy]

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although if you know them this well you should know wether or not they wait until the turn to raise when they have AA.

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Given their flop play, they didnt have AA or KK. They would've bet out on it. However, i figured they had 'big' cards. I would've been suprised if i bet the flop, i got c/r'd. They played very str8 forward in that manner.

b

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This makes the flop play terrible. You have the best hand, what are you waiting for? Giving people shots to pick up backdoors when the flop is capped is HORRIBLE. I'm not a big S&M disciple, but what they say about trying to win big pots immediately and not getting fancy applies to this situation 100%.

[China Willy]

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You dont have to win the pot to make money, longterm, during the hand.

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The pot is already big enough that others have odds to chase so its not as if he's building a pot that gives them the right odds to suck out.

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They all lose money on the turn for each additional bet they put in. Especially the gutshot going for his 3 outer. He made a mistake in calling the initial bet on the turn according to FTOP. That being a hindsight view, of course. His preflop cap i thought he may be a bit stronger.
The flush has odds to call, but isn't liking putting 2 big bets in here.

b

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Look, I understand your *rationale* for raising the turn, but what we're talking about here is your flop decision to check and then raise the turn. You're talking about a pot that has 9 BB in it already. To say that you want 2BB x 3 vs. 1.5BB x 3 (assuming the same cast of characters comes along for the ride in the same way they did when you checked/raised the turn vs. check-bet-call on both the flop and turn) is not the way I'd be thinking about this one...

And FTR, UTG+1 is making an equally bad, if not worse FTOP mistake on the flop. With AJ he's dead to the running straight or running Jacks.

I get that you could never have won the hand against UTG guy. He flopped a pair and a running flush draw. He's gonna win the hand whether you bet the flop or not. That's not really what we're talking about here.

-CW

[ACPlayer]

If they check to you - you bet.

Simple rule to live by. Mostly does not matter what you have, other than good starters of course. Here you have plenty.

[bernie]

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but what they say about trying to win big pots immediately and not getting fancy applies to this situation 100%.


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100%? I think it would be a minor miracle if i won this pot with a single flop bet. Just because you have the best hand on the flop doesnt mean you always bet it. I would most likely get all 3 callers with a flop bet here.

b

[steveyz]

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You dont have to win the pot to make money, longterm, during the hand.

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The pot is already big enough that others have odds to chase so its not as if he's building a pot that gives them the right odds to suck out.

[/ QUOTE ]

They all lose money on the turn for each additional bet they put in. Especially the gutshot going for his 3 outer. He made a mistake in calling the initial bet on the turn according to FTOP. That being a hindsight view, of course. His preflop cap i thought he may be a bit stronger.
The flush has odds to call, but isn't liking putting 2 big bets in here.

b

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Look, I understand your *rationale* for raising the turn, but what we're talking about here is your flop decision to check and then raise the turn. You're talking about a pot that has 9 BB in it already. To say that you want 2BB x 3 vs. 1.5BB x 3 (assuming the same cast of characters comes along for the ride in the same way they did when you checked/raised the turn vs. check-bet-call on both the flop and turn) is not the way I'd be thinking about this one...



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Why not? If you knew that you couldn't knock anyone out with a single flop bet, why not try to get as much money in the pot as possible? Just because the pot is large already isn't a good enough reason.
Additionally, waiting till the turn to raise opens the possibility that the person directly to his right will bet, allowing him to face opponents with 2 bets which might just save the pot for him.

[steveyz]

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although if you know them this well you should know wether or not they wait until the turn to raise when they have AA.

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Given their flop play, they didnt have AA or KK. They would've bet out on it. However, i figured they had 'big' cards. I would've been suprised if i bet the flop, i got c/r'd. They played very str8 forward in that manner.

b

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This makes the flop play terrible. You have the best hand, what are you waiting for? Giving people shots to pick up backdoors when the flop is capped is HORRIBLE. I'm not a big S&M disciple, but what they say about trying to win big pots immediately and not getting fancy applies to this situation 100%.

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What do you think are his chances of winning the pot immediately with a single flop bet? If you wait until the turn, you have a chance to face people with 2 bets that would be correct to call a single bet on the flop & turn, e.g. hands like a gut-shot or middle/bottom pairs.

[China Willy]

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[ QUOTE ]
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You dont have to win the pot to make money, longterm, during the hand.

[ QUOTE ]
The pot is already big enough that others have odds to chase so its not as if he's building a pot that gives them the right odds to suck out.

[/ QUOTE ]

They all lose money on the turn for each additional bet they put in. Especially the gutshot going for his 3 outer. He made a mistake in calling the initial bet on the turn according to FTOP. That being a hindsight view, of course. His preflop cap i thought he may be a bit stronger.
The flush has odds to call, but isn't liking putting 2 big bets in here.

b

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Look, I understand your *rationale* for raising the turn, but what we're talking about here is your flop decision to check and then raise the turn. You're talking about a pot that has 9 BB in it already. To say that you want 2BB x 3 vs. 1.5BB x 3 (assuming the same cast of characters comes along for the ride in the same way they did when you checked/raised the turn vs. check-bet-call on both the flop and turn) is not the way I'd be thinking about this one...



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Why not? If you knew that you couldn't knock anyone out with a single flop bet, why not try to get as much money in the pot as possible? Just because the pot is large already isn't a good enough reason.
Additionally, waiting till the turn to raise opens the possibility that the person directly to his right will bet, allowing him to face opponents with 2 bets which might just save the pot for him.

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Except we've already established that the bet is very likely to come from UTG. Which is not proven, but strengthened, by the fact that it did. Hero has what he believes to be the best hand, there are no draws on board, and he is checked to.

The poster claims others are making a FTOP mistake by calling the second BB after the raise on the turn. I say bet and perhaps you lose someone, but either way you get money into the pot and the guy who calls with AJ is making a BIGGER FTOP mistake on the flop.

Moreover, we have the benefit of knowing what the hands were. UTG+1 might have been screwing around/capping with a hand like JTs, which has a running straight and a running flush draw (and thus ~10% equity in the pot.) If he folded this incorrectly on the flop (which he would be, given that he'd be getting 20-1 on the call of Hero's bet), that'd be great.

Also, you know his hand is AJ, but what if it was AK and the turn didn't come the way it did? (Say, a duece.) In a pot that is 10+ BB, it'd be great if a flop bet and a turn bet folded AK on the turn when that represents 3 of the, say, 9 hypothetical outs against you. He may well do this if he doesn't hit a broadway card on the turn and you've bet the flop *and* the turn.

(This is not an immaterial consideration. In this hand, lets say the guy who made the running straight had AK that he whiffed on the flop after capping so he checked. He has three outs. Even if UTG loony doesn't make his running flush, Hero would have lost the hand to a 3-outer on the end. Eliminating a substantial percentage of the collective outs against you in a 4-way (many BB) pot has a lot of value.)

Also, UTG might have a worse Q and checkraise. He calls PF and checks to the capper, but now that the capper checked and you bet, he thinks his hand is good. Facing two cold, the others might fold. I bet the AJ would have. If you fold both, that might eliminate 6 collective outs against you and allow you to play for 12 BB heads up against someone you have dead to 3 outs. *AND* if that happened but it failed to fold everyone, you could then call to close the action and follow up on your plan to pop the turn if everyone called. If the goal is to get the most money in, you'd be 3BB ahead of your other plan.

I toss out a few possible scenerios to illustrate the following -- when the justification for the line of play is simply "get the most money in the pot because you have the best hand" and its the straightforward comparison of 1.5BB x 3 vs. 2BB x 3, I think you make the error of assuming you know too much.

Here's what I know:

I know the pot is big. I know there is a really good chance I have the best hand. I know there are likely a chunk of collective outs against me. I know that there are running draws that could quickly make my opponents' calls on the turn correct if they get a free card. I bet and get money in the pot and hope someone folds incorrectly or some of the collective outs against me disappear.

-CW

[Senor Choppy]

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but what they say about trying to win big pots immediately and not getting fancy applies to this situation 100%.


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100%? I think it would be a minor miracle if i won this pot with a single flop bet. Just because you have the best hand on the flop doesnt mean you always bet it. I would most likely get all 3 callers with a flop bet here.

b

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Yes, 100%. You have the best hand, so your bet is +EV to begin with. Are you costing yourself more +EV bets later? I don't think so, it's hard to say. And if you're not sure, it's better making a bet when you have the best of it instead of waiting for some hypothetical +EV situation that may or may not exist later.

Can you win this pot outright on the flop? Probably not. But what you can do is get AJ to fold here, or a guy with Axs (assuming he didn't pair his kicker like the opponent in this hand).

Again, even if you don't, if people are willing to call with only runners as possible wins, great, make them each pay 1 sb to do so. If not, then you win a big pot right now and don't let people catch miracle cards for free.

There's nothing wrong with checking a flop and making people pay on later streets in theory, but given the specifics of this hand, this is just about the worst opportunity imaginable to do so.

[Senor Choppy]

You're not thinking about the specifics of the hand. The hero isn't worried about a draw heavy board and no opportunity to charge people with semi-legitimate draws. Instead, there IS no legitimate draw out yet. His opponents probably don't have odds to draw to anything, so 1 small bet is enough of a price to make them make a mistake. The only way they can see the turn without making a mistake is by seeing it for free, which is exactly what the hero allowed them to do.

Imagine the consequences of the flop check if the guy with A7s had A6s instead.

[andyfox]

With the pot capped pre-flop, it's virtually guaranteed, given the nature of the game and the description of the opponents, that they're all going to take one off here on the flop. There's a good chance they're even going to call a bet and a raise. It's hard not to have a backdoor draw of some kind with that flop.

While I was originally a non-believer, the HPFAP loose games advice to forget about trying to get them out on the flop because it doesn't work makes sense to me. With the bet doubled on the turn, somebody's probably going to take a stab at the pot and now you can get the others out more easily. Yes, you risk somebody picking up a draw that they might conceivably have folded on the flop (although I think they all call here, since the pot was so big). But you also lose some players for two bets on the turn that would have called one bet had they "checked to the [flop] bettor." With the pot capped pre-flop, this seems to me a good place for the wait-til-the-turn option.