Trips on Monotone Board - Did I overplay the turn?
Stakes: $2/$3 NLH with $6 Optional Straddle
Hero's Effective Stacks: $235 (Everyone else covered hero by at least 2x)
Hero: BTN, Ac 9c
Pre-flop:
UTG opens to $20, HJ calls, Hero calls.
Flop: Qs Ks 9s
UTG checks, HJ checks, Hero checks.
Turn: 9d
UTG checks, HJ checks. Hero bets $100.
HJ folds, UTG calls.
I improved to trips. I wanted to bet for value and protection against a single spade. However, I realized that this was an overbet. At the time, I just grabbed a $100 chip because I was out of $5 chips, which was a huge mistake in sizing.
River: 5d
UTG leads a bet of $115. Hero calls.
At the time I thought he might have a flush, but given my remaining chips, I couldn't fold trips.
Result: V shows Qc Qd for a full house. Hero loses.
Questions:
1. Where did my biggest mistake come from?
2. Pre-flop: Is Ac9c a standard call here or too loose against the open from UTG?
3. Turn Sizing: Obviously $100 is a very unreasonable size. What is the optimal sizing here?
4. River: If I had bet a normal size on the turn and V leads the river, is it ever a fold?
10 Replies
A9 is way too junky to be playing with this stack depth. When you're 80BB's deep, you really shouldn't have much of a pre-flop calling range at all.
If we're playing this hand, it's a jam pre-flop. There's already $45 in the middle and winning it increases your stack by 20%. That by itself is a great result. You're probably in trouble if called which is why this hand is a little too weak for this play.
Ideally you want V's to put some money in the pot when you have AJ+, 88+, maybe KQ, and then squeeze-shove.
I do realize that my pre-roll strategy might be wrong, but considering I'm in the BTN position I did it anyway.
Why does being the BTN matter?
You don't have enough chips to bet, bluff, or maneuver post-flop without getting pot-committed. Your position is irrelevant.
It seems that I have overemphasized my own position.
Fold pre.
A lot of coolers go like this…
Play a questionable hand that turns into a monster that turns out to be second best.
Don’t play the hand, don’t suffer the cooler
You have to give credit (strong hand) to an early position raiser, unless you classify them a wide-opener
No player info given
You heard play wider range on the button, but you didn’t hear respect the raise as strong.
Indeed...
If I had handled the raise better, I could have avoided being forced into a difficult choice.
Fold preflop. The raise from UTG is large (relative to blinds and relative to your stack) and you have an easily dominated hand.
I don't like the large turn bet. Do you think a weaker hand is going to call?
That was indeed a huge mistake. My gut feeling at the time was that I should try to extract value, but now it seems that bet was clearly not going to be paid off.
Reads on how often UTG is raising and what his usual sizing is and what standard open sizing for the table is would be helpful. However, the large open UTG is probably 80+% AT+/99+, hands that dominate yours. When UTG goes that large, you should usually fold all but premium hands and maybe pps if it is multiway and deep enough.
There was about 58 in the pot and you bet 100. You can put out a $100 chip and say "40". The sizing is a huge overplay, and should fold out worse hands.
