Strange hand busts me before the bubble PP $15000 Gaur.

First let me preface this post saying that I hate playing KJ - It make for tough decisions in big pots when you often figure to be dominated.

That said, I was playing a little too tight and (obviously) didn't want to over commit my $20000 stack with raise PF with KhJh in a pot against the big stacks. AT this point the tourney chip leader had about $100k and we were behind the average stack of 33k by quite a bit.

NL Texas Hold'em Trny:17918084 Level:13 Blinds (750/1500) -
Friday, December 02, 18:05:38 EDT 2005
Table $15K Guaranteed R&A(529281) Table #10 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: coachri ( $25468 )
Seat 2: salmannino ( $49216 )
Seat 4: Markschillin ( $55171 )
Seat 6: Pachenga222 ( $16471 )
Seat 7: ARISA ( $42246 )
Seat 8: ATorgersen ( $34331 )
Seat 9: CalGrown ( $19032 )
Seat 10: Eulysses ( $20165 )
Seat 3: hawaiianvb ( $41967 )
Seat 5: nitehawk21 ( $60272 )
Trny:17918084 Level:13
Blinds (750/1500)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Eulysses [ Kh Jh ]
nitehawk21 folds.
Pachenga222 folds.
ARISA calls [1500].
ATorgersen folds.
CalGrown folds.
Eulysses calls [1500].
coachri folds.
salmannino did not respond in time.
salmannino folds.
hawaiianvb calls [750].
Markschillin checks.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4d, Th, 4c ]
hawaiianvb checks.
Markschillin checks.
ARISA checks.
Eulysses checks.

This was a terrible flop, I thought to myself that the 4's figured to have the blinds very well... The free turn (on the fairly obvious slow play) got me in deep trouble.

** Dealing Turn ** [ Qh ]
hawaiianvb checks.
Markschillin bets [3000].
ARISA folds.
Eulysses calls [3000].
hawaiianvb calls [3000].

The Qh gives me the open end royal draw... I interpret the bet to the slow played 4's or a random weak pair of tens. Is this a poor call ? think I'm leaving equity on the table unless I beleive one of the players already holds the boat. My read on mark was that of a solid player, while hawaiianvb was swinging around making poor calls with very marginal hands.

** Dealing River ** [ Qs ]

The river comes a total blank. But it is potentially a scare card for the underfull, if they will beleive I call the turn when I hit my queen.

The problem with this hand is that it got checked to me (I was last to act and there was $15000 sitting in ($4500 of my chips) it where as I would fold to only having 16K)

I correctly interpreted the checks as genuine weakness/fear of the over boat and not a trap check. My turn call is pretty legitimate with a hand like KQ/AQ even QJ if I beleived the bettor to have a weak ten or pocket pair on the turn.

Bluffing the river on a scare card isn't genrally my style either, but I did put Mark to a very tough decision. (I did beleive in my mind that my bluff could very likely be attempting to put a solid player off of a strong hand that he played poorly.)

So I made the only bet that I beleive couldn't be called. Maybe a min bet would be more effective (and much less risky) bluff on the river board pair.

He used his entire time before finally deciding to call for a third of his stack.

I think this was ultimate my downfall - I gave Mark the chance to go huge ($81000 if he called and won or average $30K if he lost)


hawaiianvb checks.
Markschillin checks.
Eulysses is all-In [15665]
hawaiianvb folds.
Markschillin calls [15665].
Markschillin shows [ 5h, 4h ] a full house, Fours full of queens.


Eulysses shows [ Kh, Jh ] two pairs, queens and fours.
Markschillin wins 46330 chips from the main pot with a full house, Fours full of queens.
Player Eulysses finished in 136 place
Eulysses has left the table.



ANy thoughts? Did I make a good play or does my river bet smell like a bluff? I feel that I did correctly interpret his river check as weakness - maybe that read just made me greedy in a big pot.

[sledghammer]

i would have raised preflop with a tight image.

on the river i would certainly have bet less than my whole stack, half pot or so. going all in does not look like you have a queen, period. im surprised he took all that time to call.

There was absolutely no way you were bluffing out the underfull in this hand. One thing about bluffing, it's often very difficult to make someone fold a hand that seemed invincible @ one point in the hand, like 5-4 on a T-4-4 rainbow flop. If you actually had KQ, he would've paid you off on the river every time.

I think you could've bet the flop, you have position, and it was checked to you, a T44 flop misses a lot of hands. Still, your flop check is ok.

Your turn call is fine.

Check the river. I think even a pair of tens might call a river all-in from you. Why would you bet 15k into a 15k pot if you had Queens full?

[Masquerade]

Min-raise the turn. If re-raised drop it. If called he has a 4, but then your bluff on river wouldnt have been called.

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
Min-raise the turn. If re-raised drop it. If called he has a 4, but then your bluff on river wouldnt have been called.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you crazy? He has an open ended straight flush draw. He doesn't need to find out if he is ahead. He knows he is behind but has outs. He has to flat call on the turn or make a large raise or push as a semibluff.

[betgo]

I don't think the bluff on the river was that bad. They checked and you bet. You didn't know someone was trapping with a boat. Obviously, you were not going to get a boat to fold, but you had no reason to believe anyone had a boat.

I think you were just too fast with your bet on the river, the all in looks alot more like a bluff than bet of 8000-10000, It most likely wouldn't have done any difference but atleast you wouldn't have bubbled.

I definatly don't think that enough people will even be able to fold a ten in a 15k tourney on partypoker to make this an even remotely viable push. Checking behind is definatly the best option, because even if you go for the smaller bet to represent a Q, most people will just call out of frustration. You really need to have a good read that this is a solid player that is able to make such a laydown to make any sort of bet here.