I posted a hand a little while back where I went through my thinking on each street. A few people mentioned that they found it helpful. So, well, here's another one.

Bodog $50 NL FR.

For a little background to this hand, I had had AA twice and lost twice, in about the ten minutes previous to this hand (once at this table and once at a different table: once I limpraised to $10 preflop then shoved the flop and lost to a flopped set; the other time I raised preflop 4-handed and potted flop and pushed turn and lost to Q5 on a Qxxx5 board.) Then immediately before this hand, someone else at this same table had AA and lost with it: he 3-bet preflop and shoved the flop and got a call from JT on a QJ7 board and lost on the river. Also, Bodog had just moved from "bodog.com" to "newbodog.com," which didn't appear to make any difference, but it was my first time playing after that switch. So I had a little thought going through my mind that all the weird hands were hitting, the place was rigged (intentionally or no), so I should start playing some weird hands.

Anyway, I'm OTB with [4c] and a guy in MP raises first in to $1.50 (3x). The next guy calls, and I call too. The PFR only has about $40 behind, the other caller is full. Blinds fold. I called preflop because I had notes that the preflop raiser is a moron, and also because of my feeling about draws hitting. I would basically never call this, especially for less than a full stack. I probably shouldn't have called this time either.

Flop, pot is $5.25, and it's [7s][2d]. I have a lousy gutshot to the idiot end. I'm ready to fold to a decent bet, and chalk up the $1.50 I threw away to a loose preflop call brought on by paranoid thinking about the site being fixed. But now the preflop raiser checks. The second guy thinks for a while and bets a pathetic $1.50 into the $5.25 pot. I can't fold to that weak a bet, so I call. Now the preflop raiser comes alive and checkraises ... to 5 bucks. The other guy thinks for a couple of seconds and calls. Now I have some thinking to do.

I have to call $3.50 into a pot that is $16.75. I have to hit about 1 time in 6 with the pot odds right now (the way I think about this: losing $3.50 5 times [$17.50] about balances out winning $16.75 once) ... and I'll only hit about 1 time in 12. But I'm sure the preflop raiser has a big hand. Whatever he has, his flop checkraise basically shows that he loves his hand and will probably stack off if I catch. So with his 33 bucks or so behind, my implied odds are better than 1 in 12. (Losing $3.50 11 times (-$38.50) versus winning $33 + $17 = +$50 once.) Now this is not a hugely +EV call, especially considering that he may have redraw outs even if I hit ... so I'm not in love with my call, but I think it's the right play. (Importance of stack sizes plays here. If he had had only $25 or less to start the hand, I would have to fold now despite his terribly weak bet. If he had had $50 or more, I would have had way better implied odds and my call would be more +EV ... which in turn would make my preflop call more +EV [or at least less -EV].)

Another important point. A decent checkraise here should be to at least 10 bucks. Probably more. By checkraising so weakly, the preflop raiser lets me stick around: I have implied odds even with my terribly weak draw. Think about that next time you're thinking about checkraising small when you have a big hand: you're likely giving implied odds to even crappy draws, let alone good ones. Don't do it!!

Another thing. If I thought there was any chance at all that the caller was on the flush draw, I would have only 3 outs, and I would have to fold. This particular person, however, I have played with quite a few times, and I knew him to be passive and totally unable to bet any draws. If the hits I may not get paid as much, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to lose the hand. (There is absolutely zero chance the preflop raiser could be on the flush draw. Just never ever possible with this action. At the very least he has pair + FD, but there are no hands he can have with his preflop raise that include the and another spade.) I'm putting the preflop raiser on a set, two pair, or overpair, and the caller on a pair of some kind ... who knows what exactly.

The pot is now about $20. The turn, amazingly enough, brings my . I barely have time to think to myself, "Aha, the site is rigged ," when the preflop raiser checks again. The other guy checks too.

Now think about how horrible this check is by the preflop raiser. An 87x board with 2 to the flush puts out all kinds of draws. He has already raised preflop and checkraised the flop, so it's not like he's fooling anybody into thinking he doesn't have much. He has a big hand. But now he's giving us the chance to catch up.

In fact, if you go back to my flop call of his checkraise, which I think was +EV but not by much ... all of a sudden that flop call becomes hugely +EV. My odds to catch and bust this moron just went up from roughly 1 in 12 to roughly 1 in 6 (because I have two streets to catch my 5) ... all because of that turn check. If the turn had been a blank I would check behind of course, taking my free chance to bust him.

In short, the preflop raiser is a moron. It is because he regularly makes horrible plays like this, that I want to be involved in as many hands as I can against him. He will turn even situations that should be marginal or -EV situations for me into +EV situations. His turn check retrospectively improves the value of my preflop call.

Now of course I know the guy has a pretty big hand ... that turn check didn't fool anybody. I have the nuts, and I'm not worried about them catching up. I'm almost positive neither of them is on the flush draw (and that the preflop caller didn't have 96 for the oesd on the flop ... like I said, this guy can't bet draws). So now I get greedy. I bet just half the pot ($10), hoping to get calls from both of them. I've already added the preflop raiser's stack to mine: I'm sure I've got that. (Unless the PFR sucks out a boat ... I think it's likely he has 2 pair or a set with this action.) The question is, can I get the other guy to come along, at least for the turn? The extra 10 bucks I might get here from the preflop caller is huge: it's 10 PTBBs, which is a solid winrate for any given 100 hands. Since I play 3 tables (the max at Bodog), and they average about 50 hands per hour FR, the 10 bucks I'm trying to make is about 1/2 an hour's expectation even when I'm playing very well and running good. And again, because I called that $1.50 preflop with a very speculative hand, I really need to maximize when I catch something. I'm planning to put the rest in on any river.

Again, if I did not have such a rock-solid read that neither guy could be on the FD, I would not play this so weakly on the turn. Put another way, the fact that both of these players are so dreadful that they telegraph their hands, adds to my expectation: I can make the play to try to get the extra 10 bucks with very little additional risk.

Anyway, all of this becomes irrelevant when the preflop raiser minimum checkraises and the caller instafolds. Ah well, I'm only getting the pfr's stack. I'll take it. I push, he instacalls with 87 and he doesn't hit one of his 4 outs. Unfortunately, he leaves the table after that. Such a beautiful donator. Oh well, hopefully I'll see him around again someday.

I am not posting this hand because I think I played it brilliantly. I think preflop is very marginal and both flop calls are also pretty marginal. Also the turn decision to bet weakly and hope for the overcall is definitely debatable. But it was an interesting hand, to me. I hope it's interesting to some beginners as well.

One last point. With most of the hands that get posted here, especially at the higher levels, the accepted answer most of the time seems to be "raise or fold." You should be playing your hands actively rather than passively. Especially with a weak draw like I had: you almost never have odds to call, so you should be raising or folding. I think that reading about too many hands like that can be misleading for players at the lower levels. At $50 NL and especially at levels lower than that (other than at UB with that damned "Bet The Pot" button), so many players make terrible mistakes of underbetting and trapping and so on, that calling even with a weak draw can (occasionally) be a +EV play. Conversely, at lower levels, raising with a weak draw like this is almost always a mistake, because people rarely let go of even weak made hands. All I did was call preflop, call and call on the flop when I had a draw, and bet once I made my hand. Nothing revolutionary or impressive about that! But I'm not playing poker to impress anybody, just to make money. And as long as there are bad players like my opponents in this hand out there, I'm pretty much guaranteed to do that.

Oh yes, and let me just get this out of the way for everybody:


tl; dr.