LO8 .5/1 Pokerstars hand

[SteveY]

thanks for the comments everyone.

I guess the preflop raise is iffy, but since some pople seem to be borderline, i guess having "something extra" would make it an easy pf raise? like if i had a suited ace or a replacing the T with a 5? Also at the time i didnt think about cleaning up my heart draw, so i will keep that in mind.

Flop i didnt expect to win by betting b/c the button was loose and could peel with lots of stuff on this board (any low draw, straight draw (even gutters), flush draw, any pair). Seems like a bad board if im trying to get people to fold, especially vs the kind of player that button is. and everyone seems to say check-calling is bad so i guess i really messed up here. what would you guys do with A2 or A23 in the same situation? does having the nut draw swing it to a call even if i have no high prospects?

And river i dont know what i was doing. I remember thinking at the time something like "i have a decent high and the third nut low, the button's really loose so its unlikely he has me beat both ways" I guess that's what made me bet. But really if button does have some sort of high hand only: he wont payoff with an 8 or 7, he probably doesnt have a Q or K since he checked the turn. So he could probably pay off with a worse ace, but there aren't that many worse aces in the first place. If I were to scoop vs him, he'd have to pay off with a worse low and no high. But all this is without considering the third player in the pot, and him being in there probably hurts my chances. I think check-call is better, but i dont like the idea of overcalling if button bets and the other player calls.

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I guess the preflop raise is iffy, but since some pople seem to be borderline, i guess having "something extra" would make it an easy pf raise? like if i had a suited ace or a replacing the T with a 5?

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Like I said before, I didn't see anything horribly wrong with the PFR raise in the first place. I think it is very dependent on your reads and the table image you have projected. That being said, being suited to the ace or an extra wheel card would definitely push me to raise a higher percentage of the time. With a hand like this, arguments can be made either way.

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Flop i didnt expect to win by betting b/c the button was loose and could peel with lots of stuff on this board (any low draw, straight draw (even gutters), flush draw, any pair). Seems like a bad board if im trying to get people to fold, especially vs the kind of player that button is. and everyone seems to say check-calling is bad so i guess i really messed up here. what would you guys do with A2 or A23 in the same situation? does having the nut draw swing it to a call even if i have no high prospects?

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You're looking at a draw-heavy board with a hand that isn't drawing to anything too pretty. Betting is better than check/calling along here, but that doesn't mean that it's necessarily +EV; it might just lose you less money in the long run. However, besides fold equity with a bet, it could (but maybe not likely in this situation)yield some information as to whether there are some powerful hands out there--nut low draw + nut high draw and so forth, but they usually want lots of people drawing along.

Holding something like A23, I'm inclined to play it passively to encourage second-best low draws to continue and just see how the board develops given you have very little high prospects after the flop. Of course, we would be looking for deuces, and more preferably aces, to give us a solid chance of getting half or possibly scooping.