Hand analysis #3
This hand has been bothering me and I debated whether or not to post it, but here goes:
I sit down at a new casino that I've been wanting to try where they have a 1/3 match-the-stack. My usual haunt closes at 2AM but this place is just down the road and stays open until 4AM.
Table limit is $2,500 which is what I buy in for. I'm dealt Qh Jh in the BB. There's a $6 UTG straddle so the action folds to the LJ who calls straddle. HJ folds, CO calls and BTN bumps things up to $20. SB calls the $20 as do I. UTG folds but all other players call the $20 .
Pot is now $106 and the flop comes Kh 10c 9c. I am salivating. I'm thinking that it must be divine providence to have flopped it like this on my first hand. Everyone checks to the BTN who c-bets $20. SB calls and I raise it $75. I was pleasantly surprised to see everyone call and contribute to my pot which is now $481.
As the turn card comes, I'm praying for anything but another club and of course it's the 3c. With four others in the hand, I do not feel good about this. When the SB checks, I also check as does everyone until it reaches the BTN who shoves to the tune of around $450.
Should I have done a small feeler bet on the turn so that everyone calls with their weak hands and raises with their strong hands? Was checking my best option since there was a reasonable chance that someone was on a club draw?
8 Replies
Raise big pre. The button raising a bunch of limps and then getting called is just a textbook spot to raise. You are supposed to raise more deep, but I think you could go less big with your semi-bluffs because nobody is going to notice. $120 should work.
On the flop, you could throw in a weak lead here, hoping for a raise and/or a lot of light calls. People like to check to the raiser and, while this is a good board for the raiser, he isn't going to be betting light into so many people. He might even check some kings. So you have a funny situation where the board is going to connect with a lot of people, but it could easily check through. And it is pretty bad if someone else has like t9 and it checks around.
AP, so there are a ton of sets, 2p, combo draws and flush draws. The way you played it worked out very well because you got a lot more in the pot without putting much in yourself and some Vs will be near dead. You wouldn't want this to happen if you had a weaker/more vulnerable hand. But with your hand it's great. If this is typical of how the game plays, I like it. In most games, I would raise much bigger and expect to get called or even raised by sets and called by good draws and 2p.
With so many people calling decent action OTF it's hard to imagine nobody having a flush. With fewer people, you might be able to bet fold but I would check the river.
As it played out, kind of a weird spot. As you are now the aggressor, I would not expect anyone behind you to check a flush. I wouldn't really expect the SB to check a flush, even. So there is a realistic chance that the button just realizes that nobody seems to have a flush and is bluffing. OTOH, there are many flushes that make sense for him. KcXc, 8c7c many AcXc. I'd rather that the King on the board was a club and the 9 or T was the heart. Of course, we would rather have a club in our hand. You do have 2 others left behind you and, while I wouldn't expect them to have flushes, they might. So overall, you can fold.
I would squeeze pre-flop. The straddle is to $6, so you have BTN (the most likely position to be raising light) making it ~3x over two limpers. This is never a strong hand. SB just flats -- he also never has a strong hand. Give yourself a chance to win pre and take down the dead money, or at least thin the field with your playable hand versus what is likely to be a very weak range. I would make it at least $110.
OTF, I would raise MUCH bigger as played. This is a board where there are a bunch of "inelastic hands" that are never folding for any size (sets, nut flush draws, nutted combo draws) so you can pile in money with the nuts and still rep some strong bluffs.
As played, I think you can probably fold when the button shoves. He is shoving his sets and straights on the flop, so the only thing you beat is an overplayed AcKx (if he actually has this hand when he "juices it" pre) or KcQx, and those hands still have equity versus your hand (which cannot improve.)
2500$ BI at 1/3 lmao
Raise big pre. The button raising a bunch of limps and then getting called is just a textbook spot to raise. You are supposed to raise more deep, but I think you could go less big with your semi-bluffs because nobody is going to notice. $120 should work.On the flop, you could throw in a weak lead here, hoping for a raise and/or a lot of light calls. People like to check to
I don't like raising preflop in that instance because of the position it puts me in postflop, but maybe I need to explore that option more. Isolating is my #1 strategy, but from early position, I generally don't do something like that unless I've got a top five hand or there are fewer players involved. As you said, with so many players in the hand, it's hard not to imagine someone having two clubs and a decent-sized preflop bet may have thinned it out enough.
I ultimately folded and V shows the ace of clubs. I don't think he had "it", but I think he did a nice job of leveraging his fold equity and still had a one in five shot at finishing me off if I did call.
I will consider more preflop aggression from those positions, but QJs is really tough to play when you whiff or even if you hit and there's also an ace or a king on the board.
There are a lot of ways to play this hand that will all earn you gobs of EV in live poker, and how I specifically would play this hand in most instances would cause a big argument I don't feel like having.
The most important piece of advice I can give you is this mantra: The hand doesn't start until the turn. Don't waste your emotional and mental energy kicking yourself for all the times you flopped the nuts but everyone folded and/or the board ran out ugly.
By all means, analyze whether calling the pot-sized shove OTT with the nut straight on a 3-flush board in a multiway pot is +EV, but if you look at it purely from that perspective (and not as The Hand That Got Away), I think you'll appreciate that it's a close call that's not worth losing sleep over.
All that being said:
Preflop should be a 3b a high percentage of the time.
And you could maybe argue x/small raise is lower on the list of options. If you want to set the price at $75, you could lead out yourself because I don't know if trapping $40 is worth the risk of a check through. Otherwise, a check/raise to $150 might be a better way to build the pot now that you induced the bet.
You can also lead out small to induce a raise, which might trap more action before it comes back to you, at which point you can 3b and really get the pot cooking. Or for the slowest possible play, I don't hate a x/c with the intention of backraising if the action gets back to you.
Since it's literally your first hand and you have the literal nuts at what is likely a very splashy big stack game, you might just want to play it as fast as possible, have people get as much money in as quickly as possible with all the junk they're likely to cram money in with, and then just see getting stacks in as a nice bluebird that happens once a blue moon.
That's not the part that would cause an argument. I didn't bother pushing the truly heterodox thing. I have an argument offline with another LLSNL poster about it like 3 times a week, and that's enough to scratch my contrarian itch.
