blonde poker forum

This is my exiting hand from my home game last night ;reallyamsorry;, it's not a whinge but i wanted to know if my play was poor and i'm interested in hearing people's opinions on this.

We had two tables of 6 and we had been playing for about an hour. The villain seems to only play when he has a hand and i haven't seen him bluff. He is also inexperienced. The hero may have a bit of a wild image because he has been aggressively reraising people however this is because he has had a good run of cards. On one occasion he reraised another player preflop who folded and he showed pocket queens. On another occasion he check raised all in and showed that he had flopped two pairs.

Blinds 20/40.

Stacks; Hero 1340, Villain 1340.

Villain is UTG+1 and raises to 80.

Hero is on the BB, looks down and finds  Ad Ks and reraises to 320.

Villain calls.

Flop;  4h Th Jh

Hero bets 500, Villain calls

Turn;  7c

Hero Checks, Villain Checks

River;  2h

Hero pushes all in for his remaining 520.

At this point the villain thinks for ages (accompanied by the usual home game shouts of 'call, call'), calls and then flips over  Td Ts

Was this bad/good/stupid play by me? Was the continuation bet too large? Given the early stages of the tournament should i have called, seen a flop and then ditched the hand if i hadn't improved?

I think the problem is more that the pre-flop re-raise was too large. You're on the BB, there's only the raiser in the pot with you so you don't need to thin the field. If your bet is called, you're playing a big pot out of position the rest of the hand - this is a situation you want to avoid.

Were you trying to get your opponent to fold pre-flop? There's no need to raise this, simply call and keep the pot small till you hit something.

I read in a Bob Ciaffone book that the person who shows the most aggression preflop usually takes down the pot and from my experiences this seems to be very true. I wanted to reraise so that I had a good chance of bluffing if i missed, building the pot if i hit and i would have also been happy to take the pot there.

i agree with andrew in that the raise was too big pre flop therefore pretty much committing you to the hand ( about %25 of your stack in pre flop ). however i think the ctucial mistake is calling pretty much half your stack on the flop with a gutshot draw to a straight when you could already be dead to a flush if your opponent had  Kh Qh for example.then you feel obliged to bluff on the river to save your skin. bad play.

Thanks, i agree with both you and andrew about the preflop raise but i bet half of my stack trying to represent the flush and then shoved the rest in when the fourth flush card hit. I didn't call at any point during the hand.

Edit, I thought that my play on the river would have made it impossible for him to call with anything but the  Ahrt

Its been said above, the preflop raise is ott which almost forces you to make such a big continuation bet (if that was your plan) but you should adapt to the flop. it could well have hit him and you still dont have even a pair.
I wouldnt get so hung up on big continuation bets either, ever since the world and his wife read harrington everyone does it. dont be a sheep.
and on that flop even harrington was letting it go!

You would normally bet such a large amount on that flop to protect your hand from the flush.... If you had a made flush you would want to make some money from him with a smaller bet and with the nut flush you might want to let him catch up with a check. He may well read your big flop bet as being scared of the flush.

youre right about him laying it down on the end though but in a home game is a fish gonna lay down trips even if a 4 card flush is on board? probably not.

why not push your 520 on the turn? you seem to be committed by then.

So you over-played the AKo preflop, on the flop and on the river.... not bad! I do that all the time!!!!

Thanks yt, good advice.

I hadn't slowplayed a good hand all night (which actually wasn't that long cos i went out early) and it was the first time i had played with these people so they didn't know my style. I agree with you about continuation bets and i would expect a lot of players to bet about 350 into a 660 pot here. I bet more because i didn't want my bet to look like a contination bet.

If i had bet on the turn i know i would have been called, actually i was willing to check-fold here. I bet on the river because i know my opponent had something (although not as strong as it was) and it was my only chance to win the hand (maybe it was a mistake to try and knock him off of his hand when he had already put so much into the pot). Again, all these problems started with the preflop reraise however, i still wanted to be the preflop aggressor so what would you suggest, just a min reraise?

Again the PF raise is too large IMO. I do agree that aggression in these situations can take pots down but you're going to be out of position for the rest of the hand if called....I think AndrewT said something along those lines.

Once he's called your flop bet, by your own admission when you said he only plays when he has a hand, he must have a piece of it. From my experience a new player to the game will see his three shiny 10's and will play it to the death.....despite the board. Any heart or any sort of good hand and he'll call.

That type of play can work.....but on more experienced players who can lay a made hand down.

thats if they know what a continuation bet is...... that old chesnut "its easy to play against good players"