Botched hand....was I just doomed?

[sirpupnyc]

PokerRoom's 50+4 daily, 1st level, 10-20.

I pick up KK in the CO. 3 people have limped ahead of me. I raise to 80. Blinds fold, 3 limpers call. Pot's 350

Flop 3-6-K, all spades. Checked to me. I bet 225, 2 limpers fold and the last raises to 550.

I have the guy covered...started the hand with 1460 to his 1200.

Do I put him on a flush and fold? Do I decide if I'm gonna play it it's gonna be for all my chips and raise all-in now?

In any event, I went for what I'm fairly sure is the worst choice, calling. Turn 4d, he bets all-in, I call. He shows QTs, river 8s doesn't help me, and there I am, crippled.

I could have bet more than 4xBB pre-flop, probably the safest move that early, and just picked up the 90 in the pot. But that makes me look like one of those kids who learned from TV and doesn't know any way to play the game except to be overly aggressive with good hands.

I could have limped hoping for a raise behind me (though with only 3 left to act) so I could re-raise, but with no raise then I'm seeing the flop 8-handed and if, say, an A-high rainbow comes out I can be pretty sure I'm screwed. Though at least I could get away from it cheaply and I'd still be playing. With KK and good position, though, I don't think being able to get out cheaply is really the goal...or should it be, this early on?

I could have checked the flop, but I'm not sure what that gets me other than another chance to act last with little to no information and possibly someone with just the As gets to draw another spade free. (Though if a 4th spade had come on the turn I could at least have been sure I was sunk and again gotten away cheaply.)

So if I'm not going to limp, I'm not going to give up top set and I don't want the bare A seeing the turn free, my mistake was not re-raising all-in to the flop re-raise, right? (Allowing for the moment that I made other mistakes I wasn't going to avoid.) If he has A-xs I'm still screwed, but if he doesn't he has to give serious thought to the fact that I do (though I'm not sure I should give him that much credit), and I've given myself a better chance than calling, if I'm sure I'm not giving up.

Trapping with a non-nut flush obviously isn't the best move, unless he could be sure I wouldn't raise with a suited A. With the K on the board and the QT in his hand, he can figure me for AJ at best (and even in a 50+4 there are certainly plenty of people who'd consider even smaller suited Aces raising hands with even worse position).

So we're both idiots who couldn't get away from hands with a real possibility of being 2nd-best. Was this just one of those hands where I was doomed to lose most of my chips? Or did I go even more wrong than I realise?

[RiverDood]

Bet more preflop

The all-spade board was freaky ugly, and unless we do some results-oriented after-the-fact strategizing, there's nothing deeply wrong with the way you played it from there onward.

But you don't want three limpers to stick around cheap -- with a chance to bust you out if they get their dream flop. The 80 preflop bet is too timid to get the job done.

The usual rule if you're raising prefop is to bet 3BB plus one for each limper. So you should have taken it at least to 120. And I'd be comfortable making it 160 or 200.

Ideally you play on with one caller, and you're only seriously worried about an A on the flop.

With the blinds yet to act, you don't want to let nasty little hands like 89s, 77, A8s, etc. stick around. If you've got to play on with two or three opponents, then you've got to be nervous about straight possibilities, flush possibilities, etc. Even worse are the snarky little underpairs, who won't pay you any more if they miss the flop, but who could stack you if they get a set.

Push those guys out! Or at the very least, make them pay an ugly amount to stay in. What you really want is to be heads up against AQ, AJ or a strong underpair like JJ or TT. You're an enormous favorite against them -- yet they may bet aggressively on hands where they're still behind.

Yes, it's bad luck that you ran into a made flush. But by not putting pressure on the limpers, and letting them stick around, you greatly increased the odds of running into bad luck on the flop.

[Hal 2000]

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I could have bet more than 4xBB pre-flop, probably the safest move that early, and just picked up the 90 in the pot. But that makes me look like one of those kids who learned from TV and doesn't know any way to play the game except to be overly aggressive with good hands.



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Why not give off that vibe to them early on?

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
I could have bet more than 4xBB pre-flop, probably the safest move that early, and just picked up the 90 in the pot. But that makes me look like one of those kids who learned from TV and doesn't know any way to play the game except to be overly aggressive with good hands.


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Ye gods man, isn't playing poker well enough to beat the vig hard enough without letting people's perceptions of you push you into -EV decisions? You seriously need to not worry about what other people think of you and how you play (unless you are trying to establish some kind of image, but it sounds more like you are just worried about looking ignorant). Do what you think is right and +EV. In any case, I don't think the raise here was ludicrously small, but you just have to accept that sometimes it will bite you in the ass. I'm happy with just one preflop caller, I'm going to make a raise that I think has a good chance to get me that, say to 120-150. The problem with 80 is that if one player calls, the others are almost certainly going to call as well, and then you're taking KK into a minefield. Also, the 80 looks a bit suspicious.

I think you should push the flop when it comes back to you here. If he is beating you, you will fill up about 1 time in 3, and if he is semi-bluffing he has fewer outs than he thinks. If you call and a 4th spade hits, you pretty much must fold to an all-in. I'd rather get my chips in now when I know at worse I'm not that far behind.

[sirpupnyc]

Thanks for the advice, guys. Hopefully I'll manage to put it to good use.

[BettyBoopAA]

The preflop raise is way to small, it had the same affect as not raising at all. You need to narrow the field with this hand and you gave everyone in the hand the right price to call.
90 in the pot, you raise 80 make 170 in the pot
lst limper calls 60 win 170 (almost 3-1 odds)
2nd limper calls 60 win 230 (4-1)
3rd limper calls 60 win 290 (5-1), your lucky the blinds didnt call as well.
Because of the the 3 limpers, you have to make them pay to call, I would raise it 200 to narrow the field and to cut down the their odds.