blonde poker forum

Hey all,

Recently played the £300 3.5k DC comp on the GUKPT and had a big hand which I personally think I played really bad and need some help with it please.

I have recently been moved tables and been at current table for 6 hands.  I had around 26k, villain direct on my right has 34k and average chips is 13.8k with blinds at 200/400/25.

Villain raises from MP to 1100 and I look down at  Aspades   Js and flat call as I dont want to open myself up to re raise from only player who has me covered.  Button calls and BB makes up.

Flop =  Ahrt  Qc   7h

Villain leads for 2200 - whats your play?

I flatted here, wanting to control the pot size more than anything but pretty certain im good in this spot.  Other two in pot fold.

Turn comes  4c and villain leads for 3500 - whats your play????????

i call flop and i prolly fold turn unless spidey senses say otherwise.

If you are certain you're good on the flop as you say then calling the guy's turn bet is prob your best line. Is raising going to get a better hand to fold? I doubt it. Does A-10 or worse call if you raise? Probably not. Whats going in your favour is there's a very obvious draw on board so any non-heart card on the river invites the guy to have another dink at the pot with atc. So by just calling the turn all those hands that would have folded if you raised can now bet into you thinking you missed. If the flush does come and you were in fact beat by A-K or say A-4 it may well slow your oppo down and gives you a chance to represent yourself. The turn bet size is a worry though and he either has A-4 or hearts imo. Not sure you can call pre and flop with this bastard of a hand and fold the 4 turn for half the pot when you were sure you were good a moment ago.

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id assume unknown live villain wouldnt know good double barrel spots. i give beneft of doubt till i see something naughty.

I think he fires again with any A, and we're ahead of a lot of them, flat it again...

It looks to me like he's on a draw. Maybe  Kh Qh or  Qh Jh. Possibly a straighting combo  Kh Th or  Jh Th

He's not putting you on a draw as he's giving you a good price to call for it. I think he's the one controlling the pot by making you unsure of how strong your hand is.

Looks like quite a tough spot to be in. I think I call here and call the river if it's a none heart.

If a heart comes down and he checks I'm checking right behind. Definitely not repping anything here. It would take a big bet to get him to pass a stronger ace and I wonder if he's playing to give you a chance to rep and hang yourself.

Tbh if you're gonna fold the turn, you should fold the flop. What better card could have come for you bar a Jack?

Think this is a call and see what happens on the river, hoping to fade a heart.

Tough spot. His bet looks like he has some sort of drawtastic hand or is massive and looking to induce a raise.

I flat the turn and see what he does on a non-heart river.

Question is Neil, what would ViVi do?

This is the thing bud, im not on Vivi's level of thinking and he would have fired all in pre ;)

Thanks for the input guys.

I was unsure of what he was betting until he bet the 3.5k on the turn.  I saw this a very weak bet and I personally had him on a draw with maybe the gut shot straight too.

I flatted the turn praying for a bnlank on river or even a pair up.  River came  Kh and villain bets 4k pretty quickly into the pot.

Your play?

I probably call pre, call flop, call turn and shove river

this, turn hand into bluff.

Do you not think the 3.5k turn bet stinks of some sort of draw?

I would be more inclined to shove the river if a low heart comes out as he may well be putting me on the nut flush draw all the way.  Once the  Kh comes down I think its a bad representable card for me.

Going by original thoughts this should now be a pass.

4k seems a bit low in to this pot now though so I'm wondering what he's up to.

If you're calling 3.5k on the turn and he now has a monster surely he's betting more. He could have at least 12k out of you if he thought you were drawing which he'd be justified in thinking.

He may have been on a draw but I don't necessarily think it was a very good one any more.

I can't see any merit in calling here but a nice raise wouldn't be the worst move ever.  I don't think the shove is the way forward though. We're looking to get him to pass and I think a raise to 12k gets nothing more than a call unless he's got the stone cold nuts. Depends on the player I suppose but only you know that. Is he capable of bluff 3 betting you here with air or a weak flush when you've made a raise that looks like it wants a call?

At least this way if it goes wrong you're still on around 18bbs with some scope to come back. Shove the lot in and you're only getting called by a big flush, raise it to 12k and surely you're only getting rrai by the nut flush. Even the J flush can only call. I also think that given his stack a 10 or J flush can call an all in just as easily as it can call 12k but neither can shove. Seems to get the same outcome with a possible recovery if it goes wrong.

This was pretty much what went through my mind.  I was going to raise to make it look like the value raise on the river however before I did I went back to the beggining of the hand.  If the  Kh didnt come on the river then I could easily represent the nut flush; sadly this is now out the question.  Next best would be the  Qh flush but Had I had this I would expect a player similar to myself to raise on the flop to try to create a big pot.  The other flushes that are left I doubt would raise too many times on the river after he has fired the 3rd bullet. 

I therefore came to the conclusion raising isnt the best option if my opponent is any good and I shoudl either flat here or fold.

Posted by: EvilPie

Yes, really like that. If you link this in with his respectable enough turn bet you could suggest it's a river blocker bet with A-4 or similar. I think if you call you will lose. If you fold you lose as well. So the only way to win this pot is to raise the river bet and tell villain you were indeed chasing hearts all the while. If your oppo calls you lose a lot. But then again, we prob want to explore winning as a first choice so tripling the bet seems like a winner imo.

Agree with this, the only problem is doesn't a made flush just shove the river? Especially with the pot size. This bet could look a bit fishy, and might get called by the hands were are trying to make fold...

You have to be sure that he is capable of folding 2-pair in this spot (which he should be!)

Shoving is uber-risky though.

Maybe true. But we start the hand with 26k and by the time the river comes we have about 19ish so is the odd 6/7k ever making a difference into a 50k pot? Thing is, if you triple to like 12/14k you leave yourself with a ridic amount behind. This wtf bet looks like a 24-carat genuine flush now. Who wants to bluff the river, get called, and have to sit there embarassed like with a couple of k? All-in can readily be linked to air, but showing a little bit of creativity to look 100% genuine may just be the deciding factor here.

I see what your saying man, I think they both can be linked to weakness though. Many times I've seen ppl bluff raise in this manner for most of their chips, but keep some back so they aren't out the tournament if they get called/moved in on..

so is the general concensus that the play was correct up until the river??  I see there are a few other options but generally most have said to flat flop, and flat turn.

Anyway I called the river and he flips  3h 5h to which I looked twice and then threw up a little in my mouth ;)

Was talking to him about the hand as the table was about to be broke and he happily admits he would ahve shoved on me if I raised the turn or river and that the only place I could have made him fold was by over raising the flop.

Good job you didn't raise then in this case!

Calling flop and turn is certainly fine, but river call is very much a crying call once the heart hits. You're beating a 3 barelled bluff only here.

Unlucky that the river heart hit and you didn't win a big pot...

Yeah I knew really that I wasnt winning on the river but the crying call came through .... yuk

Him shoving river vs a raise from you would be horrible.

I always find it hard to believe a guy who tells me what he would have done when he's seen my hand.

Blatch, in your op you say you felt you played the hand very badly. General concensus is you played it well. Do you now think you actually played the hand well....or do you think Blonde is shit?

Hmmmmm how do I answer that?????

Im coming round to the idea that I didnt play it as badly as I first thought.  I walked away from it thinking I played it like a calling station and didnt give my self a chance to either get better info or to even win the pot.  However having seen these replies and from some people that I personally feel are very good players (better than their indivudal results suggest) I dont feel too bad about it.

I know what aspects I did well in the hand and what aspects I could have done slightly better but overall its maybe not as bad as first thought :)

Always interesting to get other ideas and input though - live and learn.

Me and Neil spoke about this hand and we both agreed that he played the hand fine and it was a real tough spot altho I said I would also shove the river as Dubai posted earlier!

Any nits out there fold this hand pre flop fwiw?

Blatch has already discounted it but i would of re-raised pre-flop to 3500...as he has only been at the table for a few hands his re-raise should get some respect... also with AJ i want to come in raising with it pre or fold it, i rarely call a raise with AJ without a read on whom i'm calling,...

I still don't get why a guy who says he's very happy to get his whole stack in at any point bets a miserly 4k on the river. Who can explain that? I said at the time it looked like a blocker bet. If it is a blocker bet then he can't possibly say he would have been happy to call a jam...cos that's not why you put a blocker bet out there. The only way his after the fact statement is genuine is if he put in the small bet to encourage the jam. Maybe, the op can confirm whether he was the type of player to do this and whether op was seen as someone who could jam bluff the river. If this is the case then considering op didn't jam the river 3-5 guy was plain wrong anyway. If we do agree the river bet is a blocker then the jam could well have won the hand regardless of what the other guy said.

he bet small because he put villain on exactly what he had and wanted a call. Its an impossible task getting people to fold a flush draw, you are gonna burn through the fortunes of a thousand arabs trying to get people to fold made flushes.

Plz listen when a wiseman speaks.
Post more m8.

Do you think 25% of the pot is a good sized vb here?

I might pass this pre?

Totally depends on how the villain has previously played hands tho whilst im at the table. I think all options are available pre - raise, call or fold pre.

Call is fine tho.

We could do with some information on the villain here. If he's a tight player, then I see no reason to relinquish the hand preflop. If he's been playing a lot of hands, then I'd rather reraise preflop and apply the pressure, rather than flat-call without really knowing how strong our hand is compared to his and letting a couple of other players sneak in behind and force us to potentially play a hand out of position. As it is, I think we have to continue with this hand on the turn due to the draws on board. Because it's four handed, I'd be surprised if he continue bet with air, so I think we should just flat-call then reassess on the river. Hopefully we can get a good read on the end and either duck a made hand or pick off a bluff from a missed draw.

Give that the river is the Kh, I fold because it has filled up draws - two pair hands like A-K and K-Q are also feasible. I can't see what hands we're beating here, especially considering he's only bet around 3/5ths of the pot.

Snoops, the river bet is 4k into 16,225. This is less than 1/4 of the pot. Also, did you know that 4 out of 3 people struggle with fractions :)

Either way, it's a small bet, and the point still stands that it's very unlikely to be a bluff, and too frequently a hand that will call a reraise too.

I dropped Maths at PHD level.

as if you do! we can deffo play ajs profitably ip here v most reasonable players.

juuuuuuune. super nit ftw until deeper imo.

[  ] My opinion wouldnt be different if i had AJ of green or blue.