a couple of hands of note from last night.
has the curse been lifted?? i won two hands with AQ last night!! in the first one, i called a button raise in the blind. 3 players to the flop. i checked the top pair of Qs on the flop planning to check-raise, but neither of the other guys bet. i turned another Q, so i could at least feel confident that i had the best hand. haha! i led out on the turn and they both folded.
the second hand i won i called a raise in the blind again with AQ. 2 players to the flop. i checked the raggedy flop and he made an underbet. there was a chance i was still good, so i called his small bet. i checked dark before the turn, which was an Ace. he checked behind. i bet the river and he called. he must have had a decent pocket pair like 9s or 10s.
there was a hand later in the night that ended up bugging me.
UTG raises to $25, which was a pretty large raise for that table. he was a loose player though. the player on my right makes it $80 to go. i look down and find two Queens. i have about $250 behind. i could raise to (hopefully) isolate with the player on my right -- he didn't have that many more chips after his raise -- or i could call. obviously folding this in a cash game is very weak, so i didn't consider that. so i just flat called. what would you have done in that spot?
after everyone else folded, the UTG player immediately pushed all in for $110 more than the raise. the player on my right called all in for about $50, but i would have to call another $110. i thought even if i am ahead right now, it is likely that i have to avoid an Ace and/or a King, the large raise by UTG and the immediate push led me to believe he was very strong. i ended up folding the hand face up and he breathed a sigh of relief. the UTG player held 10s and the player to my right never showed, but i'm guessing he lost his race with AK. my Qs would have been good for a large pot. bummer.
on the very last hand of the night, i was on the button and called a loose but solid player's raise from the straddle with J-10. there were 5 players to the flop. i flopped the nuts with a 9-Q-K board, 2 clubs. the straddler / raiser led out for $45 and it folded to me. with both blinds still in the hand i couldn't give a free card to a flush draw or to a possible set. i raised to $105. both blinds folded and the straddler ended up making a great fold. i'm pretty sure he held AQ or AK. this is one of those hands where taking the risk of just calling the flop bet might have won me a bigger pot. if a blank came on the turn, he might put me on a flush draw and make a nice bet, which i could then raise. but with 2 unknown hands in the pot, i was happy to take it down right there. that's the thing about straights, you can't improve, but you sure can lose to boats and flushes.
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2 comments:
Hey Chili.
Regarding your play on the flopped straight... You absolutely played that perfectly. In fact, you should almost raise more than just a little over the min. Just take the pot right there. You absolutely don't slow play flopped straights, with the possible exception of a rainbow flop. Even then, straights are still so vulnerable unless you have some sort of re-draw.
As for your folding QQ, I think this was a moderately bad play. You should've probably checked UTG's stack to determine your IOs, and called the $80 cutoff raise with the possibility that you may have to call UTG's all-in. Looks like there was $345 in dead money pre-flop, and it was only another $110 to take it all. You've got the 3rd best possible hand, so the odds that one of the other hands is KK or AA are marginal. Even if an overpair is out there, you're still drawing live.
It's not an easy call, but once you committed the $80, you gotta prepare yourself for the initial raiser to shove.
In that case, Jacks or worse, you muck, Queens or better, you go all the way.
~CG
in a slightly different situation, i would have pushed all in preflop. there are a couple of reasons i didn't do it here.
1st: the UTG raiser was UTG and the raise was much bigger than the table's standard $12 - $16 preflop raise. he was a loose-weak player and i immediately put him on a big hand based on his raise.
2nd: the middle position player to my right had not made any big "moves" that i was aware of and seemed like a fairly straightforward TAG. since i had been at the table he had not re-raised preflop. so there is a good chance he has a pretty big hand.
in light of that i chose to just call. but i now think i should have either folded or shoved. it was pretty shortsighted on my part to not realize that all the money was going in on the flop anyway.
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