Folded three winners last night in fair size pots

[skp]

Poker is a funny game. I just went through a streak where I won 21 out of 25 10-20 sessions over about 7 weeks. My 4 losses combined were only for $410. On most nights, I felt that I brought my "A" game to the table and was seeing things very clearly and reading hands and people very well.

Obviously, I also hit a few flops...

...But things have a funny way of evening out. 3 straight losing sessions (albeit fairly small) and several poorly played hands later, I am now starting to wonder whether I know what the hell I am doing.

Anyway, here are three hands that I mucked last night in a 10-20 kill game. All were winners. All are leading me to question my judgment but perhaps, I am being results-oriented...you decide.

Hand No. 1

55 in the sb. 3 limpers. Late position raise. I call. bb (an excellent player) 3 bets. All call

Flop: 442 rainbow

I check (?)

bb bets. Everyone calls.

turn: 4

I check. bb bets. Loose aggressive player in MP raises. All fold to me. I fold. bb just calls...my heart sinks at this point...

river: 9

bb checkcalls. Loose aggressive takes it down with J2 offsuit. Presumably, he limped in preflop because he had won the previous pot and had a leg up to get the kill button. Believe it or not, there are guys in my casino who play any two cards once they have a leg up on the kill. They think it's good to get the kill button.

Anyway, do you think I played it way too timid (i.e. on the flop), way too loose preflop, way too "pot odds blind" on the turn etc etc

Hand No. 2

Ak in the sb. 3 betted preflop with 5 or 6 way action. The excellent player UTG is in the hand with a raise and a loose goose somewhere down stream had 3 bet.

Flop: J95

There is a bet and a raise. I fold. bb calls.

Turn: K

bb bets and gets called by both players

River is a blank. He gets paid off in both spots and takes it down with KsQs.

Hand No. 3

TT UTG. I limp. A player two to my left raises. Bunch of coldcallers. Both blinds call. 7 or 8 way action.

Flop: QQ3

PFR bets. Button and both blinds call. I am now closing the betting and call (?)

Turn: 8h putting two hearts on the board

sb bets. bb calls. I fold. PFR calls.

River: low heart

Everyone checks.

sb wins with A3.

WTF?

[astroglide]

fwiw, i do believe i would have been at the end on all 3

[Ulysses]

Hand 1: Pre-flop, I get stuck just like you. On the flop, you're probably either ahead or behind. I like to bet, so that's probably what I'd do. But you didn't. So, now, it's back on you. If you think you're ahead, raise. If you think you're behind, fold. If you're not sure, but want to keep playing, raise.

So the turn doesn't change anything. If you think you're ahead, bet. If you think you're behind, fold to one bet - two is an easy fold.

Hand 2: Maybe I 4-bet pre-flop, maybe I don't. Depends a lot on what that will do to the field. Anyway, now you're in a big field with two overcards and you decide to check. I probably bet, but checking is fine. Of course, the reason you check is so you can get away from this missed flop as cheaply as possible. Two back to you. Easy fold.

Hand 3: I'd raise before the flop here. Clear out some crap Queens and Kings. I'd bet out on this flop and let some joker protect my hand. If you liked the hand enough to call on the flop, why didn't you like it enough to call on the turn?

[Ginogino]

skp:
All three situations you describe involve hands close enough to marginal that you or I would play them differently on different days. When you're playing your best, poker seems like a conversation. You know what each player is saying when he/she bets (though you know that what they are saying might be a lie), and you are getting worthwhile cards often enough that you are an active participant in the conversation.

And then there's the other situation. You're running bad, and your opponents' bets all seem to come from left field. You've no idea what they have or where your hand fits in, or what they're saying about what they have. Go take a nice long walk.

For what it's worth, note how in each of the three hands you played as passively as possible. That's my reaction as well, and we're both wrong to do it. If on a given day you can't understand your opponents' betting and, as a result, you wuss along (limp... limp... fold) you are playing badly and you should stop. Right away. It's a good reason to have a second game you can play (if you aren't living near a casino, and feel the obligation to play once you've driven hundreds of miles to get there).

Gino

[David Ottosen]

Hand 1: Thumbs down. See my post on small stakes about calling a bet on the flop and folding the turn. I would have checkraised the flop and gone from there and kept betting until I encountered resistance. Call preflop is ok, flop fold or raise is ok, turn fold man BLECH.

Hand 2: Not bad. If this was the HIB game, there's no reason to go to war with ace high when you can wait for a pair and send them to the reamatron.

Hand 3: I raise preflop. Flop I checkraise or fold. TURN FOLD BLECH!!!!!!

This game sounds like the game I remember at the HIB. I'd probably start giving more action on the flop and try to get headsup where it's either me second best or him, or get out on the flop.

But, the real issue is that you are making some "long long run" EV plays (mainly calling for 2 outers on the flop), so I think giving more flop action will give you more chances to get turn freebies, which will turn those 22-1 shots down to more reasonable 11-1 spikers. But, in the long run, your way should work (assuming you can withstand the frustration associated with the 22 times you miss that set on the turn). It's just a bit on the weak tight side (which is a fair way to play in the HIB game, to be fair).

[M.B.E.]

Re the 442 hand where the guy played J2o because he had the leg-up button. I think I remember this hand from Saturday, or one similar to it. It is funny that some people play looser when they have the leg-up button. I think it's because they want to play the next hand at a higher limit, not because they necessarily want to post the kill themselves. They feel they're letting the table down if they fold pre-flop and remove all chances that the next hand will be played at 20-40.

As to your play:

Preflop I agree with calling a raise in the SB with 55. Of course you then call the 3-bet as well.

Flop: a difficult situation because you probably don't have the best hand but there's a chance you do. I like your play of check-calling. Presumably if the flop had been bet and raised before it got back to you you would have folded? (Or maybe depending on who the raiser was.) The problem with betting out is that BB might well have AA or KK. So if you bet the flop and he raises and everyone folds, what do you do then? Check-call all the way to the river? I don't think so. But when you check-call you see the turn cheaply (compared to the pot odds and implied odds for hitting a 5).

Turn: In my opinion the case for betting out here is stronger than on the flop. Also checkraising would be a reasonable possibility if the BB bets and gets two callers or fewer. But given that you checked and it comes back to you at two bets, I agree with your choice of folding. It's very likely you're beaten, and you're either drawing dead or to two outs. (If you don't fold on the turn, it seems three-betting is better than calling two cold. But maybe I'm biased by having seen the ultimate results.)

[AceHigh]

Hands #1 & #3, I think you were too timid. You should have been more aggressive and bet your hand at some point. It would have been much easier figure out where you were in the hands. Especially hand # 1.

Hand #2 - that's a tough one. Unless you know the players and that they often get out of line, I think it was a good fold. Also, you have to factor in how likely the original bettor is to reraise. You have to be worried about that happening so that pushes it more towards a fold.

"I am now starting to wonder whether I know what the hell I am doing."

That's one of the problems with poker. You don't necessarily get rewarded for good play and punished for bad play in the short run. So it pretty easy to draw bad conclusions on a small sample size.

[M.B.E.]

<font color="purple">For what it's worth, note how in each of the three hands you played as passively as possible. That's my reaction as well, and we're both wrong to do it. If on a given day you can't understand your opponents' betting and, as a result, you wuss along (limp... limp... fold) you are playing badly and you should stop. </font color>

I disagree. In certain situations passive play is best. That will often be the case when you're against a bunch of loose players in multiway pots, and you have a decent but not great hand.

[M.B.E.]

Hand No. 2 (AK):

Well played.

Preflop: With AKs I think a four-bet would have been in order, but not AKo. (Although if both raises had come from late-position players, then I'd be more inclined to four-bet from the SB with AKo.)

Flop: I see no reason to bet out against this group of players. Anyone with one pair or a gutshot will call -- and they'll be correct to do so. Even if you bet out and UTG raises, people will call with lots of different hands (but now they won't be correct). Anyway, UTG probably has you beat. When you check and it gets bet and raised you cannot call. At most you have six outs, but more likely you have 3; you may even be drawing dead except for runner-runner. The BB of course had a gutshot to the nuts as well as two overcards; I think his call on the flop was correct.

Hand No. 3 (TT):

Limping pre-flop is fine in a loose game (according to HEPFAP).

I think check-raising the flop and betting out on the turn would have been your best play, but it's easy to say that when I know the results!

Did you ever find out what PFR had?

You didn't mention whether you held the T[img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img]. Folding the turn is better play if you had that card, because otherwise you might hit your full house on the river while someone else hits a flush.

Given that you check-called the flop, I think it's pretty close between calling and folding on the turn. Now it's kind of late to check-raise. Your play of folding the turn was probably correct, and if not then it couldn't cost you that much in longterm expectation.

[J_V]

Being there at the end in the AK hand is very bad poker.