I got punked!

Mathemagician · #1 05-25-2005, 09:11 PM

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $1 BB (10 handed) converter

BB ($92)
UTG :#A500AF(Villain)/ ($172.35)
UTG+1 ($87.95)
UTG+2 ($106.65)
MP1 ($243.12)
MP2 ($62.04)
MP3 ($101.4)
Hero ($99.5)
Button ($130.75)
SB ($108.7)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
UTG :#A500AF(Villain)/ raises to $4, 5 folds, Hero calls $4, 3 folds.

Flop: ($9.50) 5[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (2 players)
Villain bets $6, Hero calls $6.

Turn: ($21.50) J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (2 players)
Villain bets $10, Hero calls $10.

River: ($41.50) 2[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] (2 players)
Villain bets $80, Hero calls $79.50 (All-In).

Final Pot: $201

Results in white below: 
Villain has 9s Ts (straight, queen high).
Hero has 5d 5h (three of a kind, fives).
Outcome: Villain wins $201. 

OK, my initial reaction was that this guy did one hell of a job representing the very common "busted flush draw river push" (my guess was with AK, AQ, or AJ suited and leaning strongly towards AQ), but the more I think about it the more I think I should have been suspicious of that half-pot-sized turn bet and the more I think I should have raised him on the flop. Am I second-guessing myself too much or did I really mess this up? Your comments and criticism are welcome.

Thanks!
M

-Skeme- · #2 05-25-2005, 09:17 PM

You absolutely need to raise somewhere. Flop is a good spot. Turn, too. You can't let your opponent dictate the tempo on a board a lot of draws. Your hand is vulnerable. Charge him to complete his straight, don't let him set his own odds.

swolfe · #3 05-25-2005, 09:17 PM

raise the friggin flop, dude!

Macquarie · #4 05-25-2005, 10:21 PM

I'd probably raise the flop, but I'm not so worried about your flat call. So he hit his out in this case, but most of the time he won't hit the turn and you'll often win an extra turn bet from AQ or an overpair.

You have to raise the turn though - the board is getting very coordinated, so you've got to raise to at least 30 to charge him to continue.

His river bet I think lets you safely fold. He didn't hit the 2, so he obviously was slowplaying something. You haven't invested much so far, and you don't have the pot odds to call hoping to see QJ. I'd expect a set or jacks or queens more often than the straight.

Publos Nemesis · #5 05-25-2005, 11:05 PM

you got served for just calling.

DoubleDown · #6 05-25-2005, 11:53 PM

[ QUOTE ]
His river bet I think lets you safely fold.

[/ QUOTE ]

Folding here is terrible

Macquarie · #7 05-25-2005, 11:55 PM

What do you put him on that you are beating? I'd appreciate you explaining so I might learn something - I'm not learning anything from your post as it stands.

Mathemagician · #8 05-26-2005, 01:07 AM

I agree that in hindsight raising the flop looks like a good idea. FWIW, I am not shy about raising as my aggression factor is above 3 and my flop aggression is well over 4.

However, as I said, at the time it seemed like he was betting his flush draw, possibly with a pair. Given his 4BB UTG preflop raise and 3/4 pot flop bet, AA, KK, any AK, AQc, and any other AQ are all very reasonable holdings at that point, as are QQ and JJ (but I pay off set over set at 100NL anyway). I think they're still reasonable holdings after the weaker turn bet. If he had AQc, I had his queen and ace outs counterfeited (as well as some of his flush outs) and so would not be getting the odds he thought he was. That's why I felt it was OK to just call his flop bet instead of raising. I'm quite certain that a raise here gets him to fold, but if he's going to give himself bad odds to draw I'm going to let him draw. So, not raising the flop is questionable but I don't think it's terrible.

I definitely would not have expected him to raise UTG with T9s (which is, incidentally, why it worked so well). I had even considered the possibility during the hand, but discounted it. If I made a big mistake I think this was it, but I still think T9s is a very unlikely holding here.

He hit is longshot draw on the turn, so raising any significant amount there gets me in just as much trouble as I'm pretty much committed and he's already made his hand. What could I possibly be representing with a raise that would scare him off of a made straight? Zero, that's what. If you raise here and then fold to a push reraise or push on the river, you'll be folding a lot of sets to players with flush draws or overpairs.

Frankly, I was trying to represent myself as a calling station (judging from the responses I succeeded) with a flush draw or TPGK type hand and induce the oversized river bluff that so often comes from a guy who bets his draws or the push from a guy who thinks his pocket aces or kings or two pair are safe because the flush didn't come. That works so often it's ridiculous, and as long as you give poor odds to draw and don't pay off big when the obvious draws hit I'm certain it's +EV. His bets make just as much (if not more) sense coming from someone with a busted nut flush draw (esp AQ/AJ) as they do with his straight.

I think where I went wrong was being so far off on my read. He clearly knew this and played it very, very well. That's why I say I got punked... because he played me like a fiddle! The more I think about this hand the more I like his play, and the more I learn from it. Am I way off base?

Thoughts?

M

P.S. I didn't want to say too much with the original post as I didn't want to "poison" the responses.

Mathemagician · #9 05-26-2005, 01:17 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Charge him to complete his straight, don't let him set his own odds.

[/ QUOTE ]

Knowing what he had and putting myself in his position, I honestly think his flop bet was nothing more than a continuation bet hoping to grab the pot right there, but he caught a really lucky turn. (i.e. Dang, I missed. OK, 3/4 pot and hopefully he'll fold.) There's no way he was trying to set his own odds to draw to an inside straight with a 3/4 pot bet, and there's no way he had odds to draw to his straight. That's not even proper odds on a flush draw, which don't carry big implied odds with me.

If I were doing the betting I'd probably have made it somewhere between 3/4 pot and pot anyway, so he gave himself the same odds he'd get from me either way.

M

Mathemagician · #10 05-26-2005, 01:43 AM

[ QUOTE ]
His river bet I think lets you safely fold. He didn't hit the 2, so he obviously was slowplaying something. You haven't invested much so far, and you don't have the pot odds to call hoping to see QJ. I'd expect a set or jacks or queens more often than the straight.

[/ QUOTE ]

I expect an overset to value bet more often than push on the river. This type of huge overbet river push seems to be more often a busted flush bluff or semi-bluff (with AQ) or an overpair. I did not expect to see QJ at all, and I expected to see QQ or JJ much less than half of the time (QQ and JJ get dealt just as often as AA and KK, but AA/KK raise UTG and make this river push more often than QQ/JJ). But then again, I didn't expect to see the straight either so what do I know. As you can tell, I'm still going back and forth about my play on this hand.

It seems so silly in hindsight, but in real time would any of you honestly put him on T9 more than a tiny percent of the time with the UTG PFR? I'm still not sure if I can get away from this. I know it's a high variance play, but unless someone can show me that it's -EV I think I have to keep making it. I've been shown AA/KK/busted draw so many times under these circumstances that I'm fairly certain it's +EV.

M