25/50 - Why you don't slowplay trips..

[TreyOfLight]

From the OP's closing comment, I got the impression that you won and your opponent held the case 4 with a better kicker. Not that that matters.

The call on the river is debatable; the decisions before it, less so.

Preflop: Minraising does nothing but assure you'll be playing a raised pot while holding trash. A call is just fine. This is your single most expensive mistake of the hand, because it doubles the price of every mistake that follows.

Flop: Bet. The board is draw-friendly and you have no idea where villain is at. There's no hand you beat that he'll fold now but call with later.

Turn: This bet is too big. The one hand that you want to fold, a one-club flush draw, is getting zero implied odds and will fold to much less (maybe K4 will fold here? It's a tossup). The overbet lets hands like 78 off the hook too easily and bloats the pot for hands that beat you.

You don't give a read on villain, but he's played passively so far. When he raises your pot-sized bet on a paired, three-flush board, that's a good time to consider folding yourself.

River: See above. Bad decisions early lead to tough decisions later.

[theben]

why did you minraise preflop? thats a waste of time. either bring it in for at leats 3x, limp, or fold.

on the flop, you need to bet and charge him to draw. if you bet on the flop, it may also look like you are stealing against rags and he might raise/call you with much worse hands.

you chose the worst time to bet. if you were against a draw, it was just made. questionable call of the reraise.

on the river, you should have reraised for value. if the full gets beaten, then it gets beaten and you go broke.

[exeph]

After reading a somewhat tongue in cheek post by Matt Flynn re: the min-raise, I decided to try it out a bit for fun. Min-raising frequently can have some interesting effects on the rest of the table (people tend to get tilty quickly), which is nice. Another nice aspect of the min-raise when in position shorthanded is that even if your opponent treats it as a limp (they don't) it means you will be playing larger pots on average when you have the positional advantage.