Maccau main event hand.

connie147

This hand has been bothering me since the week-end.Ive talked it over with a few players and id like to get some boardsters opinions.Its the main event,day two.I've had to play grinding poker since the start of the tourney as my starting hands have been ****e,JJ being the biggest hand I saw in a day and a half.Eventually the hands start coming and over a two hour period I get my stack up to 60k from my day 2 start stack of 22k.My table gets broken and when I move to new table,I sit beside a good friend of mine who tells me the table is tight with one calling station.Anyway,im at the table for approx 1 hour and with Steven Mcleane two to my right with a huge stack and raising every hand im not really involved except I reraised stevens raise once to keep my stack intact(he folded saying you wouldnt do that to me Connie without kings or aces,i actually had 3c-4c) so its good gor my table image as I had been on Stevens table all day.So with blinds at 500-1000 and ante of 100,av stack 35k(me 60k) I get QQ utg,raise to 4000,everyone folds to the calling station in mp who calls,everyone else folds.(he has just called a 22,000 all in bet on the flop with A-10 ---flop Q-9-2,his opponent shows K-Q, and he rivers an ace to send him packing and has a stack of 130k). our flop comes As-7s-3s, (i have Qs) he bets at everything so I decided on a check-raise.He bets 5k and I c/r to 18k.He calls. now the 4c hits the turn and where-as my plan was to push at this point,Im afraid he has a weak ace and my push wont get him off the pot.I check and he checks behind.River is 6h and I check hoping for a cheap showdown but he bets 17k.Ive 36k left which is ave stack so I fold like a little girl.(apparently he had 10-J with the Js and whereas people ive spoken to say I didnt play the hand bad,Im not so sure.I think i should have pushed the turn and even if he had a weak ace I have the spade outs on the river plus my queens.Did I play it too passively?Was this the hand to risk my tournament life in?

Sorry about the long post but im trying to tell it as it was.

Hectorjelly

Why check raise the flop? Since you have the Qs there arent many cards that you arent going to like, from your description he will never fold an ace. If he is over aggro check calling gives him the best chance to bluff off his chips.

anthony112

i agree with hector, i would raise after flop to find out where i am with the ace, if he flat calls then i check the turn, if he bets the turn i fold, if he checks then i lead out on river maybe half the pot so youre still not totally committed if he reraises u allin but hopefully he folds, queens are a hard hand to play in my opinion:D

Ste05

anthony112 wrote:

i agree with hector, i would raise after flop to find out where i am with the ace, if he flat calls then i check the turn, if he bets the turn i fold, if he checks then i lead out on river maybe half the pot so youre still not totally committed if he reraises u allin but hopefully he folds, queens are a hard hand to play in my opinion:D

Don't think that's quite what HJ was talking about. He (which I agree with) was talking about checking the Flop (as the Villain won't fold an A) let the Villain bluff - which we call because there's not many turns we won't like. And then play the rest of the hand accordingly.

As the turn that fell, I'd check call again. We won't bet the calling station off an A so why bother. There's no hands out there worse than ours that will call a bet. That's the problem. We have a good hand, but IMO it's best point in this particular situation is for catching bluffs.

connie147

Ste05 wrote:

Don't think that's quite what HJ was talking about. He (which I agree with) was talking about checking the Flop (as the Villain won't fold an A) let the Villain bluff - which we call because there's not many turns we won't like. And then play the rest of the hand accordingly.

As the turn that fell, I'd check call again. We won't bet the calling station off an A so why bother. There's no hands out there worse than ours that will call a bet. That's the problem. We have a good hand, but IMO it's best point in this particular situation is for catching bluffs.

Would you have called the river bet as the hand played out?

Ste05

connie147 wrote:

Would you have called the river bet as the hand played out?

Very difficult to say, it would probably be one of those gut instinct calls at the time. But with him calling the C/R on the flop it would have set alarm bells ringing. I would have had trouble with putting him on a flush draw there because the A was out. So I would have thought that more than likely he had an A. (which I'd say he had TBH) so ye i'd probably chicken out too. Just got very unlucky with the flop that fell.

connie147

Ste05 wrote:

Very difficult to say, it would probably be one of those gut instinct calls at the time. But with him calling the C/R on the flop it would have set alarm bells ringing. I would have had trouble with putting him on a flush draw there because the A was out. So I would have thought that more than likely he had an A. (which I'd say he had TBH) so ye i'd probably chicken out too. Just got very unlucky with the flop that fell.

Thats what I felt too,there are 30 players left,I've the average stack, calling 17k here puts me on 20k if he has an ace, although I'd have 100k if he hadnt.

Gholimoli

connie147 wrote:

Would you have called the river bet as the hand played out?

your only to blame your self for the river bet being so big that you had to fold to it.
there was no reason to check/raise the flop bloating the pot like that.
Your out of position against the worse type of player you want to be playing out of position (a big stacked calling station who is also aggressive) .
Your check/raise will never get rid of him if he has an A,obviously wont get rid of him if he has the flush ,an will not get rid of him if he has the Ks .so seen as he is not going to fold these (which you want him to do bar from ) and every thing else he has you don’t want him to fold (because you have a good pair and Q high flush draw) so your check/raise achieves nothing .
Also your getting the pot get out of hand with a very very marginal hand which does how ever contain some showdown value + some possible outs.
What you want to do here is check/call him .
If you didn’t have the Q of spade I would suggest to lead the flop and drop if you get raised or shut down if you get called.

Hectorjelly

If I got to the river against this villain I would definitely call

Gholimoli

Hectorjelly wrote:

If I got to the river against this villain I would definitely call

i agree with this but i think we may have different reasons in mind.
my intention would be to try to get the river against him but for cheap and if he makes a stab at it then i would call .
are you suggesting not to let the hand get to river?

Hectorjelly

Gholimoli wrote:

i agree with this but i think we may have different reasons in mind.
my intention would be to try to get the river against him but for cheap and if he makes a stab at it then i would call .
are you suggesting not to let the hand get to river?

I should have said if I got to the river like the OP did I would definitely call.

I also made the exact same points you made in the first response to the thread

MrPillowTalk

anthony112 wrote:

i agree with hector, i would raise after flop to find out where i am with the ace, if he flat calls then i check the turn, if he bets the turn i fold, if he checks then i lead out on river maybe half the pot so youre still not totally committed if he reraises u allin but hopefully he folds, queens are a hard hand to play in my opinion:D

This is terrible advice. If an utg player raises and I call and the flop is A high and he bets out I often call just to see if he checks the turn to me so I can take it off him. I agree check calling is best, if I did reraise like that and he flat called I would push the turn, but if I checked the turn and he checked behind then I am going to commit more chips on the river for sure.

As played I call, I made a similar mistake in a hand in the wsop1500 event I have come to think that the check raise against this type of player should only be done if your prepared to get the rest of the chips in, unless you are very deep stacked.

Ste05

Hectorjelly wrote:

If I got to the river against this villain I would definitely call

Really, what would you have thought about the call of the C/R on the flop?? Obviously you'd have him on a flush draw/ air lower PP a higher % of the time then I would??

EDIT: To all others as well I'm wondering why so many others are saying to call as played. Just because the chances of him floating on the Flop with the intention of taking the pot away on the turn/ river if checked twice increases the chances of our hand being good??

My deep into a MTT game needs serious work, and I think it's situations like this where my main leak is... I'm far too weak tight on the River with a marginal hand..

Hectorjelly

Ste05 wrote:

Really, what would you have thought about the call of the C/R on the flop?? Obviously you'd have him on a flush draw/ air lower PP a higher % of the time then I would??

The guy is a moron so who knows what he has, all I know is im getting a good price the pot is massive, draws missed and he could be betting a worse hand.

nicnicnic

allright connie, have been thinking about this hand a good bit since discussing it with you in cork and its a tuff one. your check raise knowing what he has called with on the flop previously dosent tell you anything and I'm inclined to go with the check/call here. From here its instinct the push is definetly an option on the turn. As for the river, Well its really a gut one but I think I'm calling this guy.

connie147

Hectorjelly wrote:

The guy is a moron so who knows what he has, all I know is im getting a good price the pot is massive, draws missed and he could be betting a worse hand.

HJ,the draw hasnt really missed,there was 3 spades on the flop.He was making bad plays but even bad players hit cards.If he had been sitting with Ks-9s, would he not have played it the same way?And probably with any ace?
My big mistake was reraising on the flop.I realise that now.I do think that having shown power on the flop,I should have followed through with the push on the turn.If, and I mean IF,he had what he said ie: Js-10c, he probably was stupid enough to call on the flush draw and find himself drawing dead.
How these muppets get so deep amazes me lol

Hectorjelly

a possible draw missed

anthony112

i dont know why but if i raise pre flop with high pocket pair and overcards or even seriously dangerous draws come on flop id rather medium bet to find out where i am rather than call maybe a pot sized bet commiting myself to the pot when maybe already behind, I honestly thought that one of the biggest parts of playing this game was knowing when ure in front and when ure behind and also being able to leave down mediocre hands maybe even when i am in front but the percentages are against me. i would still bet a dangerous flop rather than call
also i think if u check raise here it shows u dont have the nuts and i like to ply as if i have the nuts

connie147

also i think if u check raise here it shows u dont have the nuts and i like to ply as if i have the nuts[/QUOTE]

Agreed, but I was trying to send a message that "i've A-K and im trying to stop the flush draw", obviously he wasnt telepathic lol