blonde poker forum

Just got back from my Thursday live game and usually I can't sleep from thinking about hands that I could have played different, but tonight, I didn't last as long (went out 18thish I think) so I'm home a bit earlier and am up thinking about those hands!

Anyway, there's only one hand from tonight that I'm thinking about and I think that I've been working out my outs incorrectly.

Blinds are 100/200.  1 caller to me and I call with  Kd Qh, SB calls, BB checks - pot now 800.

Flop comes  Td 9d 4h.  SB bets 400, BB calls, caller folds, me to go.

Now the pot is 1600 and it's costing me 400 to stay in, so that's 4/1.  I thought my only out was the Jack to make the straight so I need approx 9/1 to call, which I'm clearly not getting but.....

I have Kings and Queens too - don't I?

So are my actual (approx) outs here the 4 Jacks, 3 Kings and 3 Queens.  Allowing for diamonds, (I'm sure you count a half out it it may cause a flush that you're not on), I have 3.5+2.5+3 out = 9 outs (10 if excluding flushes) rather than the 3.5/4 I've allowed for with the Jack as my only out.

So I should have called for 400?  Even if a diamond comes, I'm still in with a shout of the flush myself as I held the King.

As you can guess, I folded and annoyingly the  Jc came on the turn which would have won me the hand, but the Jc turning up is probably the only reason that I've realised that I've been working things out wrongly, so it's a good thing :)   Thankfully, it's not a situation that crops up that often but it's right isn't it, I should have called the 400.

Raise :D

I'd have thought it depends on how deep you are, and also what you make of the sb leading out. If you were deep enough to raise here without committing yourself, then that could give you a free card on the turn to hit something on the river (if they don't just fold of course). But I think I'd only do that if I thought the sb might lead out for half the pot with something marginal that he could let go. Otherwise it's all in danger of looking a bit scary (and potentially expensive) - there's a chance someone could already have two pair and a decent possibility that your K's and Q's aren't clean outs as they'll improve someone else to 2 pair or a straight. If you've got loads of chips I guess you could chuck in 400 here and see what turns up... But I suspect you're actually overrating your outs in your post-mortem. Would have probably been easier to play postflop if you'd raised preflop, in hindsight. Since you just called to see a cheap flop and then didn't really hit it, I think I'd probably bin em here and move on.

Then again I haven't cashed in a tournament this year, so I'd advise you to seek a second opinion...

2 Overs and a gutshot draw. Does a more favourable situation ever come up?

How could you forget the backdoor flush? lol

Seriously, you say that K and Q are also outs, but are they?

If you hit your K on the turn, someone may hold J Q

If you hit your Q on the turn, someone may hold K J

See the problem now?

I also do not like the call with K Q. You are letting the SB and BB in. This is a raise or fold for me pre flop

Thanks for the thoughts, will do it better next time with a bit of a raise preflop.  The BB was probably CL at the time, he'd had some decent cards and got paid off (all in 1st hand with his AA against KK, had two AA's in first 5 hands etc) and would have called regardless I think, but getting rid of the small blind and the first caller would have been more comfortable.