Short-handed cash game Whats my action?

luckylucky

shorthanded 4/5 players $1-$2 NL Game

Shortstacked villain who has just joined is and in BB.

The precursor hand...
I make a preflop raise with 66 from cutoff or button(dont rem off-hand), villain calls, rainbow flop J42, it's just heads up and I do continuation bet of half pot villain Check Raises me all-in which is only about the size of my bet - I pretty much have a no brainer call here as far as I'm concerned i have big pot odds 4 to 1 and too many people will make a move here just because they presume the flop has missed Ax, sure enough he has QTo but hits his ten on turn to double up.

Anyway with this hand in mind, this villain is appearing very loose, losse passive pre-flop in particular - I don't think out of the next 6 or 7 hands he has folded once pre-flop. A short time later I'm in SB with A9s, no callers until villain flat calls on button, I figure I'm probably ahead of this type of loose passive player, so i do a pot-size raise from sb, he calls me.

The flop comes raggedy and has missed me.
Now more often than not I will do a continuation bet from this spot but decide not to - still unsure whether I should have done or not but the feeling at the time was he was loose and would have just called me again and I didn't want to just fire money away.
Again turn misses me and I decide to check - basically I'm hoping to see river and hoping ace high is good enough - btw with an AF = 6 this is not my usual style at all - but trying out a more cautious approach.

The river comes an Ace - I think I'm ahead when that hits and I bet a little under half pot, villain raises me quite quickly about 70% pot.

Action?

Other questions?

Is my raise from SB with A9s too loose, certainly I don't like the call here from this guy when I'm out of position with a non-paired hand needing help from the board. Anyways thoughts on this?

Also should I have stuck to my normal continuation betting :- maybe he would have decided to not get tricky and fold if board had missed him after he saw I could make what to him might have looked like a loose call with 66?

Any other thoughts on how this should have been played?

Gholimoli

Your raise pre-flop is bad.
Why are you making the pot big out of position with A9 against who you describe to be a loos player?
This is bad play.
Just take a flop.

Post flop your play is good. Whether or not you should Cbet here or not depends on your opponent. You were spot on to say “he will call you so why put money in”. This is clever thinking and the right way to play.
Turn is again fine with checking.

Now river you make another mistake.
Betting here is very bad. For the exact reason of getting raised. You have single pair and your hand is really only good for catching bluffs.
Check it to him and call if he bets.

luckylucky

Gholimoli wrote:

Your raise pre-flop is bad.
Why are you making the pot big out of position with A9 against who you describe to be a loos player?
This is bad play.
Just take a flop.

Post flop your play is good. Whether or not you should Cbet here or not depends on your opponent. You were spot on to say “he will call you so why put money in”. This is clever thinking and the right way to play.
Turn is again fine with checking.

Now river you make another mistake.
Betting here is very bad. For the exact reason of getting raised. You have single pair and your hand is really only good for catching bluffs.
Check it to him and call if he bets.

Cheers Gholi I totally agree with you on my pre-flop play - it was foolish of me to build the pot out of position with that hand.

My play on river - I can see where your analysis came from and am debating it in my mind as I write this :- at the time I figured I'd make a value bet as figured this guy would look me up with a lot of hands that I could beat and since he had checked both flop and turn I thought if I didn't bet the river he would just check again, then again if I just check I can snap off a bluff like u say and of course i don't risk losing so much chips. I think I'm siding with your analysis overall though I think this is not quite as clear as the pre-flop error.


anyway bearing what I said about this guy in mind do I call his raise or fold - my pot odds are about 2.2 to 1?

Gholimoli

whether you call or fold really depends on how well you know him.
just because he is loose pre flop does not mean he will raise with nothing.
he may well call you down with third pair,second piar even A high but it does not mean he will raise with them as well.
2:1 odds are decent odds but i really think your beat here more often than that.
he can really have two pair that includes an A.if i had to gues i would say top and buttom two pair.so i would really lean towards a fold here .

luckylucky

The more I go through this hand the worse I think I played it - guess that's why I posted it as I didn't feel at all happy with the way it went.

I actually caled him as I felt there was a high chance he had ace rag - he actually had AK :rolleyes: - I would hardly ever if at all just flat call pre flop with ace king on button with nobody but blinds left in hand. Think this leads to an important point actually - it's an error I make from time to time and I think others do too assuming just because you would play a hand a certain way that an opponent particularly a seemingly poorish one like this guy would do the same. Anyway it's easy in hindsight but I agree with you I think a fold would be the right play.

I have thought more about my bet on river and I think it was definitely wrong now... my hand is good enough to check call with but betting here is bad as you say because of the danger of getting raised - once I was raised I got my answer I guess and I compounded the error by calling ...ugh I played this real nasty

Thinking back about the pre-flop raise one of the reasons I did this raise was to teach the guy that he can't just comfortably flat call when I'm in the blinds - taken on it's own merits the raise with A9s was bad but as no hand is totally independent of others it made a certain sense - I figured the guy could have had just about any 2 cards and as I say I didn't want the guy feeling comfortable just calling freely pre-flop to his heart's content. Also at this stage I have played only abut 10 hands with the guy I thought there was a reasonable chance that he might have folded when I made that raise.

Still overall I think my pre-flop raise was wrong - primarily because I'm building a pot with a moderate hand out of position against a player that I don't figure to easily blow out of the hand with post flop betting.

Cheers again for the comments Gholi - I think your comments have helped me to see where I can improve on my game - a little more caution in my game and a tempering of aggression.

Hectorjelly

I dont agree with your analysis of the river play gholi, against loose idiots like this you must bet the river for value, allthough when he raises you are almost certainly beaten. You will often get called by worse hands.

Gholimoli

Hectorjelly wrote:

I dont agree with your analysis of the river play gholi, against loose idiots like this you must bet the river for value, allthough when he raises you are almost certainly beaten. You will often get called by worse hands.

i know what your saying HJ but there is two way to the story i suppose.
if villain is loos passive calling station whith no tricky bone in him then betting here has mertis.
what im trying to say is if you are sure that he would only call with a less hand and not raise with it then you can bet and fold to a raise.but if he is tricky or capable of raising with second pair,bluff etc then betting here is wrong IMO.so basically if you bet and his raise can ONLY mean a better hand then you can bet and fold to a raise but i dont think you can ever be sure of that thats why i like check/calling better.