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Bottom pair and flush draw

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Bottom pair and flush draw

Postby briachek » Sun Apr 24, 2005 8:40 pm

This hand just shows my inexperience with NLHE but since I was playing with free money from Party, I was willing to donate it to btp people. Both UTG and BB are LAGs.


Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $1 BB (4 handed)

Hero ($260.35)
BB ($369.35)
UTG ($48.5)
Button ($50)

Preflop: Hero is SB with [8c], [7c].
UTG raises to $4, 1 fold, Hero calls $3.50, BB calls $3.

Flop: ($12) [9c], [Qc], [7h] (3 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $11, UTG folds, Hero ????

Calling seemed weak and out of position, raising seemed dangerous against the big stack. I wasn't sure what to do. How do you play these kinds of hands, especially out of position? Should I have just lead out?
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Postby Troyxx » Sun Apr 24, 2005 8:47 pm

I think raising is certainly in order.

Statistically speaking your a favorite to most hands that would bet here AQ, KQ ex..
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Postby iceman5 » Sun Apr 24, 2005 8:49 pm

Id say you have a monster against 2 lags. I would lead out and if raised I would reraise.
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Postby palman » Sun Apr 24, 2005 9:59 pm

Bri, my leading out for the pot first to act here means most likely that I have top pair/weak kicker and am just trying to take the pot down here. Not only is that exactly what I had (Q10) but against most players you face, that will be their exact holding. I'd be inclined to raise that flop virtually every time, and furthermore, you shouldn't be the least bit hesitant to play this hand for your whole stack.

While I do play my sets the same way, odds are I don't have a set here. You folded this hand, and I remember being shocked. Why play an 87s if you flop a pair and a flush draw, and you're going to fold? What better flop could you possibly expect here? If you are going to have a hand, hit it about as strongly as possible, and still fold for one bet, you shouldn't play the hand in the first place.
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Postby briachek » Sun Apr 24, 2005 10:43 pm

I KNOW i f-ed this up and I know this is the kinda of flop I wanted. However, I ended up not knowing what to do, especially being out of position against a lag who has me out chipped when i have 5x buyins in front of me. I took the chicken way out and folded rather that screwing up the whole hand to cost me most if not all of my stack.

Here's the situation. Say I checkraise it to $40 which seems to be a good amount and a blank hits the turn and then I bet $70 on the turn. As the lag with TP with Tkicker and gutshot, what do you do behind me?

If you call and I miss on the river, I'm in the situation to either give up the hand or risk my whole stack. If you raise me on the turn, I would have to go all in and at that point, you are gonna call. This is my inexperience and maybe it was the money or a little of both. I was out of position and was not ready to put in $250 on this hand even though I KNOW this is a good situation for it.
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Postby Mad Genius » Sun Apr 24, 2005 10:56 pm

I would bet out 90% of the time. Especially if BB is palman and UTG is another LAG. Don't know who UTG is though.
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Postby briachek » Sun Apr 24, 2005 11:04 pm

UTG was Tightwad
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Postby Mad Genius » Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:00 am

Bet the pot, and if palman raises you, pop him right back with the intention of putting the rest of it in on the turn. If tightwad gets involved, I would imagine you would be allin on the flop since he doesn't have that much.
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Postby palman » Mon Apr 25, 2005 6:33 am

Basically, based on your thoughts, when you have the big stack you are solely concerned with not losing it, as opposed to using it to scare me. Having a big stack is incredibly incredibly profitiable, as long as you use it to strike fear in your opponnents. Otherwise, what is going to end up happenning is I am going to take your stack, just $10 or $20 at a time.

Basically it comes down to just hand reading. 90% of the time, when most all players make a bet into the pot like I did into that flop, I've got top pair. You should be able to take me off of the hand.

Worst case scenario is that you call on the flop, with the intention of check-raising regardless of the turn (as long as its not another Q). That way, I can only really call you if I have a monster, which odds are I don't.

There's nothing wrong with not raising on the flop, assuming you plan on raising on a future street.
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Postby k3nt » Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:16 pm

Ran the hand through the poker calculator. I gave palman [Qh][Td]. It shows briachek with a 50.40 percent chance to win the hand given this flop, and palman with a 49.60 percent chance. So Brian's only a teensy favorite right now.

Also, remember that palman loves to play for his whole stack. Brian hates it.

My guess is if Brian raises the flop, palman just re-raises and Brian folds.

Brian's only chance to win is if palman realizes the kind of player Brian is, puts him on a monster because Brian is really only willing to raise with a monster, and folds.

But because Brian does only check-raise with a monster, he can't check-raise here, so he's doomed. DOOMED.

In short: Brian, don't play 4-way NLHE against these LAGs until you learn to love risking big chunks of money!!

I know I couldn't do it. No thank you!
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Postby briachek » Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:31 pm

Brian [Js][9s]
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Postby palman » Mon Apr 25, 2005 2:17 pm

kent- being a LAG doesn't mean I'm the least bit willing to commit $250 or a 5 buyin stack with top pair weak kicker. I don't know where people are getting the idea that I'd push that strong with such a weak hand. When I push strong, I either have nothing or the nuts. My medicore hands I generally play fairly weakly. I'll take one stab at the pot and then generally slow down, either checking behind in position, or check-calling/check-folding depending on my read.

Bri - If I lead out for 11 and you raise to 30, I may very well call. But odds are I'm going to fold here. I might call one off hoping to improve, with the intention of folding to a big bet on the turn. I make a lot of questionable calls on the flop with weak pairs hoping to catch 2 or trips or gutshots if the stacks are deep enough, but I generally fold if I don't imrpove. If you raise it up to 30 here and then bet 60 on the turn, I'm folding in most cases. The only situations where I might check-raise you for a large amount is if I put you on a weak hand and a scare card comes. Suppose an A came on the turn, I might try to take you off the hand if I put you on a KQ type of holding. Regardless, the liklihood of me doing this is not high enough for your raise to become unprofitable. You will take me off my hand more often than not.

The key to playing a hand like yours, and to give yourself the best chance to take me off the pot, is to play the hand exactly like you would if you had a set. Check-calling the flop and check-raising the turn is such a strong move, that I would rarely if ever try to bluff you off of it.

I play in plenty of home games with friends where everyone thinks I am a LAG. My general counter strategy is this: I generally play one or two huge bluffs a session, and that's it. If I get caught and lose a buyin, so be it. If I don't get caught, I'll show. This makes everyone think I'm still being LAG. Then, I still continue to take stabs at pots, but these are just small pots where there's a high liklihood that no one hit a hand, like a J62 flop, for example. This creates the image that I'm still aggressive. Finally, I play virtually every hand. But here's the thing, instead of being loose aggressive, I become extremely loose passive. I play every hand because I know if it hits, people are going to think that I'm bluffing quite often, when in fact, I'm hardly ever bluffing at all.
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Postby k3nt » Mon Apr 25, 2005 2:37 pm

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Postby palman » Mon Apr 25, 2005 2:45 pm

Its because he has a much better chance of improving to a hand that he'd be willing to commit his entire stack to than mine does. If he leads out and bets and I raise, I've suddenly made the pot large enough that I could be in serious trouble if I'm beat. His hand figures to have plenty of outs, regardless of my holding. My hand, if I'm behind, can have as little as 3 to 0 outs. It's not so much that its 50/50, its that if I'm behind I'm way behind, if he's behind, he's only behind by a little bit.
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Postby palman » Mon Apr 25, 2005 2:48 pm

Furthermore, if you're going to play a big pot, you want to be able to have clear-cut decisions. In a big pot, he should be able to make much better decisions on further streets than I can. It's much easier to play a flush draw than it is to play top pair weak kicker for a big pot, therefore its much harder to make a mistake with the flush draw.
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