1-5 Stud hand

[morgan]

Hi, my friend and I were involved in the following hand (1-5 stud):

I'm dealt split kings with a low kicker (and my kicker is duplicated elsewhere). There is no ace in sight. The bring-in is the player to my right. I limp, intending to limp-raise if possible. A couple more limpers, then the last player - my friend - raises to $5 with a queen. The bring-in calls -- a note about this player: he is an action player, and his call means only that he has decided to play this round with less than stellar cards; he never slow-plays and he will re-raise with just about anything a normal player would play with. I re-raise to $10 and everyone folds except the queen.

On 4th we both catch non-scary cards, I lead with $5, and he re-raises me to $10. Now, I don't remember exactly what card he caught on 4th, but it was low enough that I knew he wouldn't have raised to 5 on 3rd with a wired pair of it. I have played with this guy (a good friend of mine) many times and he has always slow-played rolled-up on third, so it is fairly safe to rule out 3 queens. So I figure him for queens-up, meaning I know his entire hand.

I check-call through 6th. On the river I make kings-up and we both check.

I will post the results later (as seems to be the custom) though my questions really don't really depend on the results.

Here are 2 questions (though comments/critiques welcome for any play in this hand):
1) Should he have re-raised me on 4th after making queens-up? This completely exposes his hand, and he should know me well enough to know that I will bet each round until I have reason not to (except possibly the river).
2) I feel I missed a clear value bet on the river. Although this player is capable of folding queens-up on the river. What do you think?

Thanks,

Morgan

[Andy B]

I assume there is no ante in this game. If it's a 50 cent ante game, I would be much more inclined to raise up front. In a no ante game, limp/re-raising is probably best.

Maybe your friend gives his hand away, maybe he doesn't. Can he have wired Aces? You'd have to play with someone a lot to say for sure that he always slow-plays rolled-up trips. You only get them every 15 hours or so. Even if he gives his hand away, you're both going to the river in all likelihood, and he's getting his money in with the best hand.

Bet the river. If your friend will sometimes fold Queens-up, bet when you don't improve too. Folding two pair on the end in a big pot is a big mistake unless you're very sure of your opponent. Encourage this kind of mistake.

[DanZ]

Andy's analysis of the river is good.

However, your friend is making a terrible error raising you before 6th with queens up. THis is discussed in stud fap and Super/System. This is an awful play, as:

if you are bluffing, you will fold, where you might have trapped yourself otherwise.

if you make an open pair, he should fold. So why does he want more $ in now?


If he pairs his 4th st. card, you will now fold, where otherwise you would have continued.

He has a much bigger edge with his raise on 6th, and he only gets to make one raise. By waiting this long, he may scare kings up from 3 betting as it looks like a slowplay of a big hand to many players.

Hope this is helpful.

[morgan]

Hi Andy.

"I assume there is no ante in this game. If it's a 50 cent ante game, I would be much more inclined to raise up front. In a no ante game, limp/re-raising is probably best."

There was an ante. I normally never limp in this situation, but I was still busy stacking chips from the previous round. Not a good reason I know, but I also think it is ok to occasionally vary my play anyway.

"Maybe your friend gives his hand away, maybe he doesn't. Can he have wired Aces?"

For some reason I didn't even think of this, since I would have assumed he would have re-reraised me on third. But he very well could have had aces.

"You'd have to play with someone a lot to say for sure that he always slow-plays rolled-up trips."

True. I'm basing my observation on about 4 or 5 occurances. I'm probably in general comming up with too narrow reads on hands.

Thanks for the input,

Morgan

[morgan]

Hi Dan,

I looked up your reference to scsfap and the reasoning makes sense. This was pretty much what we figured might be wrong about the re-raise early. Thanks for the input,

Morgan

[morgan]

My king's-up beat his queen's-up, just as predicted.

Morgan

[Andy B]

This isn't quite the same as the 7CS4AP example, which is talking about playing your small(er) split pair against what you know to be a bigger hidden pair. Your advantage here is that you always know when your opponent makes two pair, and he can't know when you hit your kicker. Since both players likely have split pairs, the Queens don't have that advantage. Queens-up did get more money in with the best hand, and I don't think that his raise was awful. I'd probably just call myself, but I think raising is perfectly reasonable.

[DanZ]

the situations are functionally the same, as long as you know that you are against a larger pair with only 2 dry, small pairs, and a non-scary board.

There are many more of his cards that will make you regret a premature raise than there are cards for you to catch to make you happy about it. There are exactly 2 of the latter.

raising 4th is very bad.