Weird hand

I missed every way you could in this one.

AKQJ
A345
3 spades
4 clubs

Me: 4sJc

Flop: KcQc3c
Turn: 5s
River: As

https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/459556369

Hi puggywug,
whenever I check the forum on new posts, I find a lot new from puggywug. Very long and detailed you show your last adventures on this site. I cant read all of them, as this would take to much time. I see a little danger, that my point of view is shared by other players and you might not get the answers you are looking for.

This one is a perfect sample.
What is the honest intention to post this?

I realy looking forward too reading an answer, cause this will help me to handle your posts in a good way.
A) You want to get an analysis of your play
B) You want to share your hard luck in missing every “out” to create the second best hand.
C) Another reason I dont know and cannot imagin.

Please help me out.

john

3 Likes

For this particular hand, it was just to show an usual situation where the cards were evenly split between two different possible outcomes, and failed to go either way.

In the great “poker is life” metaphor, I think there’s a lesson here: Go for the big straight OR the small straight, but not both. Go for the club flush OR the spade flush, but not both. You won’t hit either if you go for both. Decide what you want and go for that, and forget about whatever else might look good.

Hey Puggy,

This statement is absurd to begin with. If they were evenly split between 2 possible outcomes, then how did neither of them happen? The 2 outcomes you are talking about were not that likely to happen; you just wanted them to.

I disagree. That is not the lesson here at all. If you look back and the cards you had, and the way you played them, just counting to hit a straight or a flush for some reason, you would see that the lesson here is not to bet on hopes and dreams and then limp at the end when you don’t get them :wink:

As for what @johnlittle was asking, I believe he meant all your posts, not just this particular one.

I guess his point is, you never specify whether you’re looking for advice, or just sharing, or what other reason is behind your post, just to know if to reply and what to say about it. That’s all.
I think he’s suggesting you just clarify what you need from others when you post your hands and your tourneys.

For me personally, your last long description of the SnG you won, detailing every hand, was like reading the book vs watching the movie. I could’ve gone to the first hand and watched the replay of the whole tourney, or read your post and got an insight of the author’s mind while playing the tourney :slight_smile:

To be honest, it was too long and too descriptive to read, so in that particular case I would have preferred to watch the actual movie. But I did look through your post for any questions or advice you might have asked for, and didn’t find any. That’s why I agree with john that it’s not always clear what you actually want from others in some of your post. That’s all :wink:

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Well, because of the unstated 3rd outcome, that none of the draws would hit.

It’s also a very symmetrical hand. J is the 4th highest rank, 4 is the 4th lowest. To me it’s really remarkable that the board would provide so many different potential ways to hit a straight or flush. None of them landed, of course.

But how can you lay down a hand like that? I’m actually curious how someone else would have played it. How far would you go before folding?

I know, but I’m not going to explain myself in every post I’ve made to the forums in this thread. That would be ridiculous. I’m tempted to say if you don’t get why I’m posting, then maybe don’t respond and also maybe skip reading my posts.

I don’t mean to be rude though.

Basically, I post to share my experiences, ask for advice and maybe provide some theories on strategy and ask for feedback on them. I mostly get that. So the forums seem to be working as intended. I suppose I could clarify more, but really however you want to take something I write and however you want to respond to it, more or less, is going to be close to the mark if your intention is to post something to make the thread better.

Or sometimes something really interesting or unusual happens, I’ll post just to share that it happened, like the royal flush I hit last week.

As for the long SNG post, it’s more of a diary entry than anything else, I guess. There were some pretty remarkable moments throughout, I thought, and there were enough of them, leading one into the next, I felt it could only be conveyed by narrating the whole thing. But it was really too long, agreed. That’s why after writing it out, I put a “LONG” warning in the title.

You had 4sJc and the flop was KcQc3c, and you started betting immediately at the flop. What were your thoughts then, right at the flop? How is the J promising you a straight already? and how is it promising you a flush? you need 2 more cards for the J to complete a straight, AT or 9T. So you were expecting both cards to come on turn and river and that’s why you started betting? That’s not reasonable at all. Or you were expecting another club to come and then you would hit a flush? Well none came!

Then the turn came, and it was 5s, which meant there was NO WAY you will complete a straight anymore, and yet you continued betting. Why? What were you expecting then? Another club to complete a flush at the river? And even then, do you think you would have had the best flush?

The river came and it was As, so you obviously didn’t hit a straight or a flush, which was actually very probable and expected. What did you do then? You limped! Why? After all the betting you showed the others that you had nothing. Your opponent placed a pot size bet and won the pot and declared that he had the nut flush since the flop and was slow-playing it, waiting for you to bet with nothing obviously, and he was just calling.

I’m not sure why you believe your Jc was such a great card by the flop to start betting so much on it, and continue betting at the turn even after it was obvious you weren’t getting that straight.

I know you you’re asking for analysis and opinion about how you played that hand and I’m giving you mine.

I also know that you’re trying to provide theories and strategies in other threads, but just like this one, your theories or strategies could be off. And if you like others to weigh in and give you their thoughts and perspectives, maybe make it easier for them by specifying exactly where you need help and input, and making your posts shorter and straight to the point for others to have the energy and time to read them and respond.

I’m also not trying to be rude, and I really like your posts and like to read them and sometime respond, but you’re making it more and more difficult to follow you by creating these long almost endless posts and talking about each and every hand.

Unfortunately that’s what’s happening with your posts gradually. I’m happy to give you an analysis myself, but if you go to your forum profile yourself, and you look at all the topics you created, you will see that out of the 41 threads that you created in the last couple of months, the number of views and number of replies have kept decreasing significantly, until your latest (and longest) threads have attracted very few views and nearly no replies at all.

When you write on the forums, you write for everyone to see, read or skip, reply or not, and give their opinion or not. You will get positive, negative, neutral, or no response at all, it’s normal. Please don’t always get offended and defensive when someone tries to give you some criticism, especially when it’s positive, and especially when it’s coming from your own readers who genuinely like your style but are finding it difficult to keep up with it for one reason or another. :wink:

3 Likes

I limped in from the BB. I would have folded J4o if I wasn’t already in the hand through the blind.

At the flop, I have KcQcJc3c, and am 4 cards to a flush, and need 2 cards to hit a royal flush. I’m not banking on the royal, obviously, but I know if another club comes I have the best hand unless someone has the Ac. Pot size at the flop is 120, and I tried to buy it right there, hoping to close the hand. There’s also a chance for Broadway if the Turn and River are a T and A, but that’s a long shot.

True, at the Turn I lose the straight possibilities, but I’m really more playing this for flush potential. When the Turn didn’t fill my flush, I decided to make another bet here, and this was a mistake. I shouldn’t have went with a half-pot bet here. I should have either checked. If I was going to bet, making it too big to call would have been better.

The river ace makes the hand “weird”, because it can be read high or low, and because of that, gives me two 4-card near-straights. Not that they’re interesting from a strategy standpoint, but it’s a curious final card because of the way it completes the symmetry of my worthless hand. I don’t bet here because I know I’m beat, and I’m 90% sure any bet here will get called. If I’d gotten a club here, I’d have been confident and then probably gotten broken by GSOPhil holding the Ace of clubs, lol.

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Not much weird about this hand. You bet pot into 3 players with the 2nd nut flush draw. They limped into the pot, meaning their starting hands should not be very strong (They should not have AA/KK/QQ/AK/AQ), but this flop hits the range they would limp. Kx/Qx/33 are very much the kinds of hand that they would limp (including KQ because people are so passive). They can also easily have the ace of clubs along with any other card. They can also have almost any combination of 2 clubs, particularly A2/A4/A5/A6/A7/A8/A9/AT/AJ/JT/J9/J8/J7/T9/T8/T7/98/97/96/87/86/76/75/65/64/54. They could also have JT of any suit, which is an open-ended straight draw. You are behind against all of these. You have under 37% equity against 1 opponent with this very broad range (which includes unpaired Ax and open-ended straight draws). With 3 opponents, your equity goes way down.

In other words, in this hand you should check and hope to see the turn for free and hope it’s the ace of clubs. If anybody bets you should fold (calling a 1bb bet is fine). Your starting hand is poor, you can be drawing dead or way behind, you are out of position, and you are behind against even unmade hands that might continue. Even if a club hits, you can’t be too happy, unless it’s the ace. And that’s your only real out.

Edit: Including KQ/33 and the made flushes I listed, there are 32 combos that have you drawing quite thin. You have 23.4% equity versus that range, and again that’s if there were only 1 opponent. More opponents is worse. If I give them only nut flushes and KQ/33, that’s still 20 combos, which is still a lot of combos, against which you have 20% equity. If a club hits, they have plenty of hands with the ace of clubs in it, and if a club doesn’t hit, you definitely lose. Bluffing out of position on a monotone board is a pretty sketchy proposition. You need to hit the ace of clubs or running T9 of clubs to feel good about your hand.

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You’re absolutely right. Thank you.