Post Hands to Review

When I saw the K and/or 2 of each red suit, I would have bet big or folded, that’s my initial thought, but my ranking is yelling at me to shut up, huggs GrandyB

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I agree with the other responses that 52s is a hand you can fold preflop. In loose games like this it is tempting to see a flop, but 52s doesn’t have much equity even against a bunch of random hands. Plus, when you flop a flush or a straight, it is usually not the nuts and can lose to bigger straights and flushes.

As played, I like your raise on the flop. But on the turn, with so many flop callers, I don’t think you should bet that big because your hand can easily be beaten (A4 is the only hand that makes sense, but clearly AA and 43 are also possible). After the board pairs and you face two all-ins on the turn you should be able to fold because they should have full-houses to make that play. On the other hand, the player went all-in with only trip 4s, so there are some hands that you beat that play this way. But in a bingo-y loose passive game like this, you should be getting all in with the nuts and folding even a hand as strong as yours in this spot.

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I think most of your postflop play was fine. The only issue I would take with how you played this hand is your decision to call preflop. Without knowing anything about your opponent, Replay is usually so passive that players only open JJ+/AK, and some only open KK+, so unless you know this opponent is loose, you are calling out of position against a range you do really poorly against.

On the flop, I like the check-raise, but your stack size is so short that you should just go all-in. If they are going to call 900 more, why not the last 725? Beyond that, you just got unlucky. I am not going to get into how your opponent played the hand…

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Actually I’ve played against him many times and know he can be very loose and sometimes bullies (and I have a note on him to remind me of that). He tends to play pocket pairs like he has the nuts and doesn’t like to fold until he sees the river…this time it worked.

This was all just minutes into the Buffalo Stampede yesterday where we all started with either 2500 or 3000 (I don’t recall off hand) so I wouldn’t consider myself being short stacked… but I didn’t shove because I wanted to have something to try to fight my way back in case he got lucky.
That win shot him up to 2nd place but he wound up not even placing in the end.
Two of my friends at that table did place tho so I’d like to believe they got revenge on him on my behalf :grin:

Ugly beat by a dirty river. Avoid the situation - QJo in a raised multiway pot isn’t going to be profitable for you, especially out of position. Give up the hand preflop when the raise came in. I agree with Joe on the flop, check-shove is a better play. You could have considered leading strong with top 2 pair and a hefty pot in the middle as well. As played, the raise gave him a great price to continue with all sorts of hands. TT isn’t necessarily one of them but there you have it. In general, I like that you look to trap people who overvalue their pocket pairs.

You played it OK but he had a two way hit for a straight or trips and took the risk.

Your check on the K turn gave him some confidence and that would have been the place for a big bet.

Seeing it through his eyes he probably thought you either had a bigger pair or wanted that flush hit and when the K off suit came up he figured he had a 50/50 chance of a hit or keep you off a 2 pair or flush.

Straight was probably not his goal but was trying to get you to fold and the straight just happened to hit.

Thanks for your input guys :slightly_smiling_face:

I didn’t mean to suggest that you were short-stacked, just that instead of making a bet of 1800 when you have 2500 total, you should just move all-in to get maximum value.

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Here’s a hand of mine that I found confusing. I may have misplayed the river in particular. My hand is J9 of diamonds. What do you think?

https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/441243939

Standard open. Flop brings top pair + flush draw, so my first thought is that I’m happy to go for stacks, but in reality it would be awkward to face a check-raise. Against a short stack, I could be ahead of flush draws or have outs against sets, so I probably do need to go for stacks.

I bet flop and get snap-called. Turn pairs the board, which is not great for me because I could be drawing dead and he is also less likely to fold AJ/KJ/QJ. I bet turn again (with sizing intended to set up a river jam) because I still have decent equity against Jx and am ahead of flush draws and Tx, but I may fold to a jam.

The river bricks, and this is the confusing part. I have the exact kind of hand with showdown value to check back here, so that seems like it would have been the right decision. But I also set myself up for the jam, as I would have with a flush draw (KQ/K9/K9/98/78/76 of diamonds) and I block JJ (and JT). So I basically turned top pair into a bluff (or a merge) and went for it. At first it seems bad to be holding two diamonds because a diamond draw is a hand that will fold, but there is no reason to bluff out a diamond draw here (although if I had to guess that is what my opponent may have been holding). Having opened preflop and bet all three streets, I can potentially get folds from AJ/KJ/QJ or maybe even get a hero call from AT. So, how foolish is this bluff/merge/bet?

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Looks like he had a flush draw to me.

A pot size bet on the flop and turn would have extracted more value, i think. If he comes over the top, well, we gonna have to throw you off that bridge when we get to it.

Your river bet only gets called if you’re beat. He could have had a set or overpair, I guess. (but obviously didn’t) Of course, you don’t want to bet the river small and get shoved on, but eh, life is full of risks.

If yer gonna shove, probably better to do it on the turn while he still had hope. Yeah, it’s a little riskier, but will pay more in the long run, I think.

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i have to agree with your self analysis. i think u player all steets well except for the river.

  • 1 small point with the turn, i agree on all the given reasons, but would like to add that if you miss the fd it’s also a good amount to prevent a river bluff. making it even easier to check back.

  • as for the river, you already mentioned you’re turning your hand into a bluff, but there are few things i like to add on this, like u said, the only stuff you might get folds from that beat you are QJ-AJ. maybe overpairs if he’s good but if he is and he has an overpair it would certainly be reraised pre, so these are the only 3 possibilities imo.
    first of all, i don’t know what his table image was, but there are players that would call with those hands anyway (like u said in ur example, some even call with AT).
    another thing is that he check-called you twice, which can usually mean 3 things: a draw, a marginal hand, or a slowplayed monster. obvioulsly the last one you defenitely don’t wanna shove into. the draw you don’t wanna shove into either as you are already far ahead. as for teh marginal hand, unless he’s very tight, i don’t see him play QJ-AJ as a marginal hand. they are actually quite strong into the range of a LP (steal) raiser. so with those hands i think he would either bet right away, or take advantage of the high probability of a Cbet and just checkraise into it, i don’t see him slowplay (check-call) TP either because there are way too many scare cards (diamonds, QKA [overcards to the J] or maybe even 9 [to make straights] ). so in other words, there aren’t any hands into his range that are ahead of you which you can bluff away, but there are hands in his range that can crush you. even if these hands were into his range, you do much better taking value form your hand instead of turning it into a bluff.
    as for the merge theory, i don’t see this work either unless he’s an extremely loose calling station that calls literally everything down 3 streets that might have hit.

hope this helps, gl.
yiazmat.

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Questionable set mining. Hero on 44. First call pre was thinking I may get a call behind which would enable me to win enough to make it profitable. Second call was me thinking, well the shove is small enough I can probably call it. Folded on flop as I didn’t hit (felt kinda stupid to fold to such a small bet, but I just hated everything about the situation and wanted to get out of it, I guess the rational thing would have been to peek at the cheap turn).

https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/442613202

You played it as I would have. Had you hit the set, you would have won a massive pot. The preflop call was OK as it was not threatening your stack. But you missed, so you had third pair at the flop. Give it up and look for a better opportunity to win chips.

I agree with @MekonKing that you played it fine preflop.

You are getting massive pot odds on the flop because the bet is so tiny relative to the pot. You have to call only 1,815 to try to win a 16,720 flop. To be profitable you have to win only 1815 / (1815 + 16720) = about 10% of the time.

You have a small pocket pair in a 4-bet pot so at this point we should assume that your hand is not the best right now* and you are drawing to two outs - the two remaining 4s in the deck. Using the 2/4 rule, you have about an 8% chance of making your hand by the river. If it was going to be just between you and the two all in players, you can fold because 8% is less than the 10% equity you need. However, you also have huge implied odds because there is another player still in the hand and you both have over 200BB behind. If you make your set you have a chance to take a massive side pot in addition to the main pot.

The flush draw on the board is a concern - there is a high chance that you could make your set and still lose given the action from other players on the flop. In particular if you do not have the four of hearts in your hand then one of your outs is likely worthless.

There is also some chance that you are up against a bigger set and already drawing virtually dead.

Overall, I think it’s close between calling and folding. I think if you had the four of hearts in your hand, you should call. If not, fold.

*It turns out this assumption is not correct given what everyone was actually holding lol. I have no idea what the player with K6 offsuit was thinking in this hand. If you had some previous history showing that this player is likely to make this sort of move (3betting preflop and calling a 4bet with total junk) I would be more inclined to call because there is a much better chance of getting paid off when you do hit.

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44 against 4 players was high risk to start. Lots of pairs that beat yours out there and too many players for that risk.

You got lucky someone did not all in pre-flop the way they were betting.

You survived to the flop and two cards higher with still 4 payers in the hand was a good fold.

No bluff equity in that hand and low odds.

I’ll take the other side on this one - Open limping 44 UTG isn’t good, especially if there are active people at your table who may raise and 3-bet. UTG full ring, you can toss small pairs in the muck. However, once you limped in, faced a min raise and then a 3-bet, the hand absolutely goes in the muck without a second thought. You no longer have the stacks required to make it a profitable play except against the 3-bettor and you do not close the action. Muck them and move on. A flat call to his 3-bet loses more money than mucking AA preflop does (~11BB).

There are profitable ways to play small pairs but most people lose money with them in the long term. If you are at a table of chronic limpers, you can get away with limping them behind more but they are still tricky to play and in some cases have negative implied odds.

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Here is how to play pocket 9’s horribly preflop and then somewhat better post-flop. The 1st limper was a calling station and wouldn’t fold to anything short of a shove (and maybe not even then). Otherwise I would have raised large to try and take the pot pre. https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/442875677

When playing calling stations, bet for value and keep betting until they give you a reason to stop. They will let you know when they have top pair beat.

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Here is one of my hands for review that I am pretty proud of:

https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/442912033

I had 67 suited and almost wan’t going to play that hand but I was about done for the day so I called to see the flop.

Flopped 8 9 10 straight but no flush hit. I was worried that someone would have the JQ top straight or a flush would pop out so I slow played it with a medium pot bet.

That got rid of all but one player so now I had to figure out if he was holding a top straight card.

He raised on a second 10 on the turn so I was able to put him on the 10s and now I just had to hope he didn’t have quads which seemed unlikely from his bet.

I checked and let him take the lead and made him think I needed a card for the straight and he bit giving me a big river bet for a nice fat pot on my straight.

“I was worried that someone would have the JQ top straight”
If there are four cards on the board sure, but there are three, so not too likely.
“or a flush would pop out”
If you are scared of the flush you should be more, not less.

Regarding your play I think you played it well but I would have reraised on the river - if he calls you sometimes, you get more money, and if he never calls it opens him up to being bluffed out of the pot.

I could have reraised and maybe got more but this guy had watched me hit big hands against other opponents and felt them so I don’t think he would have bit.

I got over half his stack and there was still a possibility he had quads or a FH or the top straight and I wasn’t willing to take the risk and wanted to take at least half my stack home if I had misread him.