Interesting hand

Here’s an interesting hand.
I figured the chances of fr8train having an Ah plus another heart were just too slim to fold…ugh

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A few thoughts and a couple of questions for you.

Preflop
I would just fold Q7 in the small blind. In the overall range of starting hands this is pretty much the exact average hand. You’re going to have a lot of issues with it because it’s easy to end up dominated - for example, if you make a pair of queens then you’re often outkicked, or if you hit your flush you’re sometimes still beaten.

Flop
Great flop for your hand, with the flush draw and double gutshot straight draw.

I like that you bet out but think that your bet size needs to be bigger given that you’re multiway. You’re trying to get all the random A-high hands, Tx and 9x to fold.

Another option to consider is going for a big check-raise. This should get more folds (even most Kx hands will fold), will let you get to the river and realize your equity if you do get called, and help you balance for the times when you have QJ and flopped the nuts.

Turn
Once you hit your flush, I again think that your bet size needs to be bigger. You want to get value from smaller flushes and hands like AhTc that called your flop bet and are now drawing to their own flush.

As played, the minraise from fr8train2 on the turn is a small red flag - he is essentially saying he has a flush. Personally I would slow down here - call the raise, then check-call river. This way you let him bet all of his smaller flushes (and any bluffs) into you and avoid getting stacked when he has Ahxh.

When he re-re-raises you, then that’s a huge red flag. If you have a specific read that this player is very aggressive then calling is ok. Otherwise it’s time to lay it down. On this site, most players are simply not bluffing enough here.

Questions

A couple of questions for you:

  • On the flop and turn, when you bet/raised, what hand(s) were you trying to represent? Put another way, what other hands would you play this way?
  • On the turn and river, what possible hands do you think that your opponent could have had that he would have played this way?
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happens all the time. nothing interesting or new.

Was this from tonight’s Disclosure league game? I’m guessing so, given that the table has 3 empty seats with the blinds at 30/60, and no one has enough chips to have eliminated 3 players.

I don’t see anything wrong in playing Q7s from the SB when the blinds are this small, at a short-handed table, really. You can let the 60 go at the flop if it completely misses, and it doesn’t really cost you a whole lot to see a flop. I wouldn’t do it all the time, or in every situation, but in this situation, I don’t think it’s terrible.

You had the big misfortune of playing ahead of a bigger flush draw, but with that Kh on the board, there’s only one card in the deck that can beat you on a flush. However, it’s pretty hard not to put fr8train2 on a flush the way he bets on the turn. I guess the thing to ask yourself is, would a JhXh play this way? Tough to say. Sometimes the smaller flush will play more aggressively, hoping to intimidate a bigger, but still not nut flush. So you could have been good here. Whether you continue the hand or not depends entirely on how good you think you can read fr8train2, and how comfortable you are with going out at this stage of the game.

Other ways to read fr8train2: it could have also been possible that he was playing QxJx or even QxJh, and flopped a straight, slow played it, then tried to hurry up too late when the 3rd heart hit the board, realizing that he could be up against a flush.

But I’d generally give him credit for having hit a flush along with you, and now the question becomes does he have the Ace or not. Sadly, there’s no way to find out except the hard way. Because you’re beating the JhXh, and you’re beating QxJx, but that’s it.

You could have even been up against K5, I’ve seen 2 Pair play like this, and would justify the shove when he fills out 5s full of Kings on the river if that’s what he had. But the nut flush would also shove on the river much of the time, although a better player might try to appear weak and hope that you’ll come to them.

As far as what other mistakes with the way you handled the hand, I’m not so hard on you. Limping in from SB seems OK to me; but the easiest way to get out of this hand is to not play it at all, as tacos pointed out.

The min-bet at the flop makes sense – you don’t have anything yet, and by min-betting you might induce the rest of the table to just call, rather than put in a big bet if they’ve hit Kings, which gives you a cheaper Turn than if you check and someone late in the hand bets half- or full-pot, and you can’t call it. Since you’re first to act, betting bigger than this is risky since you don’t have enough information to know what anyone else has yet. They could all fold and let you take the hand cheaply, or you could get called. Almost certainly A8s calls 4 to a flush here, as even a pot-sized bet at the flop is small enough that it shouldn’t put them off calling, even though the pot odds aren’t exactly right for them to do so.

Re-raising on the Turn is a good move, but when they 4-bet you in response, that was your last chance to get away from the hand. Difficult, considering you had just put in over 800 and had a K-high flush, so I can understand the call, with just one hand in the deck that can beat you at the moment, but it’s time here to consider that you just might be up against it.

Once you’ve called the four-bet Turn, it’s all but guaranteed that you’re going all-in on the River. Checking and then laying down after putting in all those chips on the Turn just ain’t happening, and he knows it. If you had shoved, it’s about 99.95% likely that he’s calling here, too, not worried that you just hit a full house with the now-paired board, but that would have been your best chance to win the hand if he held what he did hold. If you can get him to think you were on K5, somehow, or even T5, then you’d have him beat, but I’m guessing with that many chips already in the pot, and a A-high flush, he’s paying off the full house if someone does have it here. Nobody plays that conservatively on this site, except maybe someone right on the bubble in an MTT, and even then most players are going to make you show them the full house.

In short, I think your fate was sealed the moment you decided to play the hand, and it was unfortunate that you hit a strong draw with it at the same time someone else hit a stronger version of the same draw.

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Hey Grandy,
First of all, let’s clearly see this was a pretty big setup, of which you could maybe have escaped.
Read it fast, it maybe is a bit long…

Pre-flop : Contrary to love2eattacos, IMO you can definitely limp there on the SB with Q7s, it has potentiel, and you’re deep. Good.
Flop : I do not agree there with others here too ; these minbets are horrible imo. Okay, your hand has some big potential : third nut flush draw + gutshot. So, because you are first to speak, i really like going for a check/call here or a check/raise if some players folded. By min-betting here, you’re so easily showing that you have a hand with potential, but are scared to bet more. Why do I say that ? Because with this bet, you have no K, you would bet bigger, but more like 2 hearts or a J10s like hand.
I think that was your first mistake.
Turn : lovely heart, third nut flush draw. You often have the best hand, what do you wanna do. Of course, I would have played it differently already here, but i’ll still try to explain what I would have done. Lead here is fine, you want to avoid it checking around firstly. But 1/7th pot ??! I mean come on, what is that ? Typical bet to represent or the nuts if you’re a decent player, or some kind of bad king or AhX combo hands if you’re bad. But really, here you have to bet BIG ! I would go for around 50/60%. Kings will often call, and maybe some draws.
If you would have done that, vilain would of course raise, and it would be a call for you again. But here you bet small, he raised, and you re-raised. This occurred because of your bad betting size turn. But the min-raise, like love2eattacos says, it really represents the nuts or a big hand. This is so typical of replay ; You already represent a strong hand when leading here turn (even if it’s small), but if he raises on this drawy/flushy wet board, he really represents a big hand. So here you might have been given a hint.
River : blank. Check is pretty interesting. Difficult for me to say whether that was a good play or not, but why not. Why did you check, because you was seeing him on a big big hand too ? Check/call was a good option. Here the pot was so big, you couldn’t even escape anymore. Sometimes I would fold here, especially with the bet/raise/re-raise/call pattern on the turn, you may often actually be beaten :confused:

Anyway, good hand, you should try next time to really think a bit more about your bet sizings, and trying to read a bit better your opponent, asking what he would call you with there ; Often, with a boat, we are so confident to win a pot, that we forget to think about what the opponent has… Sometimes, it is in fact possible to fold these hands.

I’ll admit I wasn’t doing a whole lotta thinking at the time as I was changing my music but I figured Fr8 was playing a 9-K str8, 2 pair or a set…
With the K on the board and the Q in my hand I just figured him having the Ace plus any other heart was highly unlikely.
Pug this was at Sharon Smarty’s league (Poker Amusement) which I find pretty aggressive (a place I fold the winning hand often) and one more reason I didn’t expect fr8 to have the Ace with another heart but that he had one of the hands I mentioned above.
Thanks for your comments guys.

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The problem with the set option is that it gives him a full house by the river.

My take on the hand:
Q-7s is not a great hand. You’re basically hoping for the flush here, and even then, there are two bigger flushes that you could come across even when you hit the flush (if you play enough hands, like it happens in fast-paced online poker, it will happen eventually). Q-7 doesn’t connect, and even if you get top pair with the Queen, you could get beat by even something like Q-8. That being said, if you only have to pay half a bet in order to see a flop, I’d say it’s pretty hard to lay this down pre-flop.

The hand was a huge cooler. By the river, you could’ve laid it down because of the boat possibilities, but the real question is: How good a poker player are you if you play Q-7 suited and then fold the flush because a handful of ridiculously improbable hands beat you? I think there was very little room to get away there. He could be bluffing, have a straight, or maybe even a lower flush.

In short, I think you did alright, and I doubt you’d be a better player for laying that down. More likely, you would be a worse player, because that mentality would more often than not make you the victim of bluffs (and I have had to make my fair share of hero calls on the site, because when people know you give some thought to your moves, they like to put you in that uncomfortable spot where you may throw away the winning hand).

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