Hand from X-Mas Cracker

Samba

Now that i have one last tourney to play i would like to get some opinions on how i played this hand.


On Table 3 and 3 new players have just joined the table. Blinds at 200/400.

Villian has roughly 10k I have roughly 15k

Villian is to my right and I am in late position with AdJd Villian has raised too many pots for my liking.

3 players in EP limp, Villian raises to 1200 (standard raise), I have position and a decent hand, which at this point before calling I am debating whether it is the best hand or not. I think dump it and I find myself reaching for chips and calling. 1200 to win a 2400+sb+bb pot as it stands I call and everyone folds. I feel if i hit a good flop and he catches some of it that I can take all his chips. I call

Flop comes AJK Rainbow........:eek: O.k this is a trouble flop but i may have the best hand here.

Villian Leads out with a 1200 Bet, so, is this an info bet or is he milking, hmmm? re-raising here could put me in a world of pain and I want to try keep this pot as small as possible, AK would not want to weakbet here so I can cancel that out.

I call, Turn is a Q....oh dear, should i have re-raised? Once again he bets 1200, it's shaping up like he also wants to keep the pot small and he did not like that Q....interesting.


River BLANK.This time he increases his bet to 2k, stinks of weakness.


Whats your move here? There is roughly 15k in the middle and it will cost you 2k to call.

My table image up to this point was cheeky rock, i had been only showing down strong hands and i had shown some rag steals, to get under a few collars and show that i could also be playing weak hands, doing this can also loosen up a table considerably and entice unforced errors.

Only problem is this player has been at the table for roughly 9 hands, of which he has raised over 50% of them. I have not seen a flop since he has sat down, so my image cannot really apply to this hand.

Norwich Fan Rob

i woulda re raised the flop to see where i was.
make it 2400, see what he does.
u say u want to keep the pot small, but u are putting 1200 in on the turn anyway, and still have no info, so just put the 2400 in on the flop, and get this info.
Fair chance u are ahead, and he could have Ax, with that amount in, u have to call the river, u cant call the turn here and then pass the river after a blank falls for a 2k bet into that pot.
And u certainly cant re raise, as he will only call u if u are beat.

willis

Dont like the preflop call, i would either dump or pop it up to 3.6k or so, hope to take it down and if not you have position.A danger flop put cant put him on Q10, why would he bet. I think flat call on the flop is the best move considering stack sizes, he wont bet the turn unless he has something big because he has a large portionof his stack in there and wont make another continuation bet imo with nothing considering that board. The turn is another worry card, now any 10 or AQ beats us. His bet is small but why did u call if your considering whether to call/fold river. the river is a total blank so i presume u called the turn coz u thought u were ahead? u cant call the urn and fold to a 2k bet on the river imo. The problem all stems from preflop, i dont like calling with AJ here, no idea where your at even if the flop is ace high.

Samba

Yes Pre-flop, i should have simply dumped it but we saw a flop. So how can we best play this to win the pot.

Waylander

I think the preflop call was fine, but I would have thrown in a raise post flop, not a min raise as Rob suggested, I would have raised to 3600 as I never trust a minimum raise to stop a player playing a drawing hand and hitting.

Bozzer

I made the pot size 11k unless you raised the turn (which I severely doubt you did).
In any case I’d call the river.
AQ would be the hand I’d be most afraid of seeing. His blocking bets throughout the hand could be in line with that hand.
But you should see KJ/KQ enough of the time to make a call correct.

I’d have played it the same as you postflop. If you raise the flop and villain pushes, you still won't know if you're ahead or behind. He could be pushing a pair + draw combo or he could have you crushed. But given how big the pot will be and the fact that villain is aggro you would have to call imo, but you wouldn't be happy about it.

BTW your table sounded a bit retarded from your post.
3 ppl limping with a guy raising 50% of time behind them, and then they all fold when he only makes it 3x and gets a coldcaller

Samba

Retarded, well no, one of the limpers was a very inexperienced players, the other two had deep stacks and wanted to see a cheap flop.

The Villian was also known and respected by the two initial limpers.

Norwich Fan Rob

his 2k bet on the river does look like a nice value bet to me, and he is probably ahead imo, but u still have to call, given your call on the turn.
I still think u gain more by raising the flop (maybe to 3 times his bet as suggested), i doubt hes coming over the top with a worse hand than u, and if he has a bare ace, hes calling and checking the turn, or more likely folding there and then.
I wouldnt be surprised if he had something like AT and your passive play got u outdrawn.

So what did he have?, i assume u called the river

Bozzer

Samba wrote:

Retarded, well no, one of the limpers was a very inexperienced players, the other two had deep stacks and wanted to see a cheap flop.

The Villian was also known and respected by the two initial limpers.

sorry, poor choice of words.
not a great idea to limp with somebody raising so frequently behind you though.

a-k-47

re raise him to 6k, ur A,J to beat his K,Q ?

Samba

I flat called the river and he flipped over KK :eek:

And u certainly cant re raise, as he will only call u if u are beat.

This is what i am trying to get at, I feel that he can't call an all in bet on the river, his tourney life is on the line and if he folds he still has enough chips to play.

I can re-raise but the only raise i can make is an all in bet as he will most likely call otherwise.

The Pot is roughly 11k, I feel that this is a pot worth bluffing at, the question is do you think it wise to bluff in this scenario, how often will you be called?.

The one obvious hand is 1010. How many people here would call an allin bet based on the information i have provided, holding KK?

In a 20 Euro rebuy, perhaps. The 500 eur buyin and the fact that it's a freezeout will undoubtedly affect anyones line of thinking here.

I feel that the Villain is good enough to laydown here and he remarked that he was very fearful of me holding a Ten.

Glowingmind

you should have folded.

Bozzer

Don’t like villain’s flop bet.

The idea of raising the river could be a good one.
I’d be much more worried about A10 or J10 than 10’s if I was villain - it’s unlikely you call on just a gutshot on the flop because villain doesn’t have enough behind.

His turn & river bets look a lot like blocking bets. I’ve been burnt in cash games raising these types of bets only for villain to stubbornly call anyway.
But this is a tourney and villain will have 10xbb left if he folds, so it might be the situation for a raise.

It all depends on whether villain would donk bet the flop like this with AK or a set & whether he’s good enough to lay them down on the river. The two seem a bit contradictory no? Hard to say whether a raise would’ve been correct without being there.

mewso

Whats his image of you? Is he likely to think you would call the flop bet with 10 10? I'm not sure an all-in bet on the river would work.

Samba

Glowingmind wrote:

you should have folded.

lo m8, long time no see

His bet gave me mixed reading, almost looks like he has an under pair and it's a scared bet or it's a milking bet had he bet too much, i probably would have laid it down fearing a stronger hand. I don't believe he would have played the hand in the same manner with AK. It's a nice flop for KK with only one player in a raised pot, much of the time you will find players pushing their entire stack.

I think this was his intention with the weak flop bet, he put me on an A at the least.

So the bet was not that bad, it very much disguised the strength of his hand, infact I beleive it was a well thought out bet and he took a small bit of time to decide his action.

musician wrote:

Whats his image of you? Is he likely to think you would call the flop bet with 10 10? I'm not sure an all-in bet on the river would work.

This is part of the problem, we have only played 9 hands since he was moved to our table of the 9 hands I have see one flop, I raised one other pot UTG to which the entire table folded.

I think he would be very much inclined to put me on 1010 and that i would call as he has raised over 50% of the hands he has played so far & uncontested.

Bozzer

Samba wrote:

I think this was his intention with the weak flop bet, he put me on an A at the least.

So the bet was not that bad, it very much disguised the strength of his hand, infact I beleive it was a well thought out bet and he took a small bit of time to decide his action.

yeah it actually wasn't that bad a bet now that I think of it.
A bigger flop bet might induce a push from AK/AJ for most players which is good.
But it may also scare away pair + gutshot hands, which may have interpreted a smaller bet as weakness and raised.
The fact that he's been playing pretty aggressively would still make me favour a bigger bet.

On a side note; would villain really think you could've called his flop bet with 10's. You'd have to stack him 100% of time on turn for the call to be correct(unless you thought you'd get a free river). It's tough to stack someone with a 4 card straight on board.

Norwich Fan Rob

unless he puts u on AT or QT which seem unlikely, he has to call a river all in, + theres too much of a chance he has something like AT himself, + hes put a fair bit in already and may get stubborn, not a great one to bluff at imo