blonde poker forum

interesting hand here the other day at a live comp in my local club

thoughts much appreciated

18 man rebuy comp..we are down to 5,pays on 3..but usually there is a saver paid out to the bubble finish,so effectively we are on the bubble.....

we are on the button with 7h 7d and are the chipleader with 60k in chips...180k in circulation..Blinds are 600/1200..


action is to us utg and utg +1 fold...I flat call hoping to get a cheap flop and take it from there..sb folds

BB min raises,I call anyway...


flop  Aspades 7s 3s

now the BB bets 5500 into the pot..now this player is my only current threat he has 55k,and he ran his stack up by being very aggressive from an intial FT stack of around 20k.he was making moves a few times and really was the table captain,I was being more passive at the time,trying to pick my moments..


I decide to raise back to get a clear picture..I raise to 12000..

he calls fast

turn  Jh...action is check check

river  8d..he moves all in


so do u call ur remaining stack around 44k or fold ( 110 k pot)...average at the time was 30k..

I'm not too worried about the flush here - why would he stick in that size bet on the flop? And if he's got AA and was worried about you flushing, why wouldn't he bet you off on the turn?

What's your table image? Have you made any river laydowns to large bets?

I think I call here, although I would have raised the flop much more heavily - I don't think your raise was enough - and I would have bet the turn.

Beat me to it...I agree with everything above.

You hit your card...make him pay!

He could possibly have AxJ Js or Ax 8ss? Your raise on the flop just isn't big enough giving any flushdraw combo massive odds to call and hit, especially with the size of the stacks. The problem starts when you flat call pre to be honest, 4 handed 77 is never a limp with sizeable blinds. So raise pre, bigger reraise on the flop if the same occurs so at least you have more of a defind range for him. As it is i'm probably stacking on the river here but I'm not sure because there is no way in a million years I would be in that situation. Why aren't you following through your reraise n the turn? Passive poker = bad poker imo.

By playing so passively you've given him the impression (perhaps correctly) that you don't want to tangle with him due to the game situation with respect to relative chipstacks. You are almost certainly infront here, the hands that are infront of you here surely don't check the turn. It looks to me alot like a missed spade draw and he assumes (again perhaps correctly) that you'll fold a hige range of hands against him here. I call here it is basically an opportunity to take the tourney right here.

The first thing that strikes me about the way you play this hand is this comment...


I am not sure I understand your motivation here. We are short-handed...you have the benefit of position...you have the benefit of the chip lead...and most importantly you probably have the best hand right now. So why would you just call hoping to see a cheap flop? At this stage in the tournament your medium pair is likely to be ahead but may very well fall behind after the flop. So by flat-calling you are actually giving your oop opponents the chance to see a cheap flop! If your opponents want to try and out-draw you it is THEY who should be denied the cheap flop their inferior hands require.

The other thing is that by not raising you deny yourself quality information. The bb could be min raising with atc as an automatic response to your flat-call. If you raise 3x bb and THEN he min raises you, the chip leader, everything is much clearer for you. Just calling and then just calling this pre-flop raise is really putting you on the back foot in this hand when everything was in your favour a moment ago. There is no need to get yourself into this pickle.

His pot-sized bet on the flop suggests he has an ace of some kind and wants to finish things here and now. I think it is advisable for you to feel completely in charge of the hand now with your set. Re-raising is the way to go of course. You could push and represent a draw...he wont believe you have a made flush but wont think about the set and so may make the call. The more standard re-raise is fine though.

His quick call tells us he doesn't want to give up his ace...maybe with the K or Q of spades and his check on the turn is consistent with this. Why check the turn and give him a free card?....4 spades on board means you're folding the river! Of course checking the turn also sets yourself up for this dilemma...but it should be an easy call based on his aggressive history, the action so far and your strong hand.

I'll only say 1 thing and that is that you should NEVER check the turn here. That's just a sure fire way to lose money.

PS it's a call about 99% of the time on the river. the other one % is when you're having a heart attack or choke or something like that and can't reach your chips and can't speak so you can't get someone else to stick them in for you.

This happens to me way more than 1% of the time online

yeah but you ain't exactly a picture of health are you mate? ;)

lol silkcutaments

lmao

thanks for the response guys ,and i gotta say im very surprised you are all calling here

but hindsight is an inexact science...lol

I know i played it bad from start to finish, preflop especially....I put this hand down to extreme tiredness ..i was up since 5am, done a 12 hour shift,then inexplicably decided to go play poker,time of the hand is now 2am....lol

my idea was to catch the 3rd seven which i did, if there were  2 overcards,I was basically done with the hand...i hadn't gave much thought to a suited flop....

so i took forever to call,even asking him ' You really flop a flush',i didnt get a tell...


he had  Ts Qs and im toast

basically his crap hand turned into a trap hand and he played it perfectly

my image was actually tight and when i bet i usually had the winner if a showdown was reached, so he knew that i was gonna commit more to the hand at some stage

reason for checking on the turn was to catch a free card,maybe house up, but to make sure no spade fell on the river ( I wish it did now)

I thought he played it with more than a little skill and told him so...

I on the other hand am a donkey and wont be playing poker again doped on caffeine and struggling from lack of sleep

cheers again..lesson number 435 concludes

I think he played it absolutely dreadfully! Results-oriented, given that you had 77, it worked fine. But you limped in - unless you'd been playing very trickily, he couldn't have put you on a pocket or an ace, and most hands he's chasing away there when he should be wanting to be building the pot gently or checking to you and hoping you lead. I also really don't like his river bet - that's going to chase most hands away unless he thought you'd be strong enough to put him on a busted draw and call him. Obviously he hopes you have a hand after you raise his flop bet, but even so... I don't think his shove is +EV.

This is one the strangest hands I've seen in a while!

Yep I agree. The guy is banging out 5.5k on the flop with the 2nd nuts in a 5-handed game. Only the Ace of spades (maybe) or a set are sticking around for this...the other 99% of hands are getting out of the way...and he makes nothing.

thx again for the comments

and for the fact that u seem to be making the call also

no poker this weekend

having a wee break

maybe do me some good

lead flop check turn with a strong hand oop is a pretty nice play that gets paid off a lot. I think it is often a superior way to play big hands and definitely less transparent than a standard check raise in many cases.

In this case, any ace with a reasonable spade/ ks will *probably* call/ raise the flop. I think his pot size bet is maybe a leetle too big and he might have been better off betting 1/2 to 2/3 pot to ensure an ace calls or raises but his play ensures that whilst he may lose a little value against hands which have totally whiffed the flop and may put some bluff chips in, he will usually play a big pot when his opponent has caught some of it by encouraging them to bet the turn to deny him odds "drawing" to a "flush."

Credit for the pass bhoywonder but his play stacks the other players in this thread and me also as i would have trouble putting him on the flush. It's a bit of a cooler obviously with the set v flush.

He's played it unorthodox-ly  but effectively imo.

I agree...I love his bet on the flop. I think it's the right play to make here justabout every single time as noone puts you on the flush. All this nonsense about "scaring worse hands off" is all well and good but the only reason he would get paid here 9 out of ten times is because most people don't bet their flush when it hits. (I bet it about 75% of the time for exactly the same reason)

I don't mind leading out here but I think the bet is too much. The only way you're going to get a call with this bet is if you meet a decent ace, a set, or someone else with a flopped flush. Given the action pre flop there is absolutely no reason to put opponent on either of the first two hands. When you do run into a biggie, then you'll probably get paid off playing it like this (as the board advice indicates!), but if you run into a biggie you're possibly getting paid off however you play it. If you don't run into a hand the majority of the time you're taking the pot there and then.

yuk, but i think opponent has played his hand really well. I think you have played it fine but betting on the turn gives you better info. Stick it in the tournament exit = cooler category.