5-5 hand

[turnipmonster]

5-5 blinds, I knuckle in the BB with 59o behind 3 limpers, a quarter in the pot. flop is 5 7 9, two hearts.

check, I (1k) bet a quarter one limper calls and the button (1.2k) raises to 75 straight. I don't know him, but he seems solid. I make it 200 straight, limper folds and he raises the pot. I fold.

how did I do?

--turnipmonster

[TomCollins]

Lesson I have learned, NEVER F** with 2 pair. It is NOT that strong of a hand, especially non-top 2 pair hands.

I put him on a set or overpair, or some kind of gutshot + flush draw.

I don't like the checkraise, I prefer to bet out here and take the pot now if possible.

With this much action, you actually gained a lot of information, and I like the fold. I'm willing to bet he has 77.

[turnipmonster]

I didn't checkraise.

[sherbert]

I'd go with your fold anytime. In fact I'd have been tempted to fold to his first raise. That might be weak tight but I'd be happy with it, especially against a probably solid but otherwise unknown opponent. He could well have the straight, if not the set and want to knock out a flush draw. I think calling his initial raise would be weak, rather than reraising but less costly - however you need to hit your FH on the turn to have any certainty in the hand, so you're not getting the odds. If he was on a flush draw plus gutshot say, I think he's overplayed the hand, but you need more info on the button to place him on a hand, which in this case you can't.

[nicky g]

I like the fold. Most people aren't going to fold after having made the third pot bet, so I don;t think he's bluffing or semibluffing you here unless you have a very weak image.

[turnipmonster]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd go with your fold anytime. In fact I'd have been tempted to fold to his first raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

so this is the part where I'm curious what y'all think. here's my thinking: I can't really call the 50 hoping to fill. primary reasons being I don't think he'll pay me off if I do and it's only 4 outs anyways. so that right there may be a good argument for folding.

at the time I thought there was a reasonable chance he had a heart draw and wanted a cheap card (since he did not raise the pot on the flop). I thought chances were pretty good I still had the best hand, and if I reraise and he calls he knows most of the time he's going to be looking at a pot bet on the turn if it blanks. since this is pot limit, the stacks (and my raise) are very wrong sized for him to raise me again with a flush draw.

I very very rarely raise for information, and this was not really a pure raise for information, but I was folding to a reraise without much thought. I thought the hearts on board gave me some protection from the nuts trapping me by smoothcalling. there are a lot of cards that can come that he won't like if he does have the nut straight. so I figured he would play fast. also, I was a blind, and saw a free flop. I bet/reraised the flop. he has to have a very strong hand to reraise me.

that's my thoughts. off base? right? wrong? the part I am really curious about is the reraise on the flop.

--turnipmonster

[tewall]

If you call the flop, and check the turn, will he automatically bet the turn if he's on a draw? Or might he take a free card? Does he fear you might check/raise him in this scenario? If he'll take the free card, you could check again on the river, and call his bet.

This way of playing is weak, but you have a hand that doesn't want a lot of action, but is happy to show down as long as the pot isn't too big, so I think this line is worth considering. That flop has a lot of drawing possibilities, so there's a decent chance you're ahead, but you don't want to pay too much to find out.

If he had called your flop bet, would you have kept firing on the turn? If so, that's a lot of money to commit to hand that's not that good.

I think I like the line of play you took better if you were on an out and out bluff. You're leveraging the fact that you might keep firing at him to make him lay down a hand that can't take the heat. But if fires back at you, then you're forced to lay down a hand which has some value. You don't mind doing that with a bluff, but here you actually have someing, so you'd like to show it down if you could.

I think the key question is how likely he is to bet the turn with a draw. If it's very likely, I like your line. (either take a shot, or just fold) If he's likely to take the free card, I like calling.

[sherbert]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'd go with your fold anytime. In fact I'd have been tempted to fold to his first raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

so this is the part where I'm curious what y'all think. here's my thinking: I can't really call the 50 hoping to fill.

that's my thoughts. off base? right? wrong? the part I am really curious about is the reraise on the flop.

--turnipmonster

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, that was the part I was curious about too [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I think your reraise could be a good move. But suppose he flat calls it. You're still not out of the bushes here. One of the probs you face is that two of your outs may not be clean - and you don't necessarily know which two. The fives are dead to any set; the nines to his top two. And all the hearts bar FH outs leave you checking the turn - could he bluff the pot here? With your holding you'd have to fold to a pot sized bet.

One point I'm coming around to in live play is not to overrate opponents. This is quite a decent sized game but even so, I more often than not have found that an unknown player - even if he handles chips well etc - is very often not that good despite possible appearances to the contrary. Mason M. makes the same point in one of his essays. Slightly at a tangent to this thread - here's a really interesting example of this in action - bad players will do all sorts of strange things which you can't figure them for. That may not help much in this case, but it may when faced with a similar situation at another date. I've started to see this quite a lot now - a player makes a move and it transpires that he's just not playing correctly. All thanks to the poker boom.

HTH

[turnipmonster]

excellent points! I felt that he would play his hand fast if he did have a good hand. so, if I am wrong and he did flat call I would be in some trouble. I fully agree that two pair is not really a great hand here, but if I read him for a draw (which I would have most times he flat called) then I would fire again on the turn, probably laying him 3 to 1 or so.

you have a very good point about him likely checking the turn. only problem is that almost half the deck makes it very hard for me to call a river bet. so it very likely ends with me check folding unless I can get a read.

--turnipmonster

[tewall]

I don't think so about the river. Without a read, I would call without thinking.

A pot bet at the river gives you 2 to 1 odds to call, meaning you should call if your opponent will bet a missed hand once for every twice he has a made hand. If your opponent takes a free card on the turn, that means he's drawing. He's only going to hit that draw around 1 in 4 or 5 times (maybe somewhat more if he has multiple draws). For the time being, let's say it's 1 in 4.

So the 3 out of 4 times he misses, what will he do? In order for your calling him to be wrong, he would have to not bet when he misses 5 out of 6 times. (this way, he's betting twice with the goods, and once without them, the correct ratio to make it immaterial whether you call or not). Very few players have that much patience. They will bet more than 1 out of 6 times when they miss, so you can safely call.

You don't even care what the river card brings. Just how likely he would be to bluff vs. making his draw. I think the clear majority of players will bluff enough to make calling the right play, but if you were unsure you could resort to game theory, which would suggest calling half the time to a pot bet at the end.