a 10\20nl hand that had me thinking afterwards.

[Oystein]

This is a hand I played a few weeks ago at the party 1020nl table, that have had me kept thinking about it afterwards.

Villain in the pot is lolTRICKEDu, and at the time this pot was played, I had only played a few days at party and didnt really know much about him beside that he was suppose to be one of the biggest winners in the game. The image I had of him was that he always had the goods whenever the chips went in, and that even tho he played very aggro preflop and on flop, he usually didnt get out of line in big pots. I guess he viewed me as sort of loose\donkish since I was raising alot and virtually always calling his reraises, and often giving up the pots when I didnt like the flops.

Well anyway, when the hand starts in the 1020nl 6max table, he has about 4300-4400, and I cover.
He raises EP to his standard 79 raise, fold to me at the button who calls with AJo with J of heart and both blinds folds.
Now the flop comes Ah Jc 8h
And he checks into me, and I make it 160 to go and he reraises me to a total of 550.
So the question is now, what do hero do?

the way I see it I have 4 choices
Nr.1 just call the flop, and decide what to do on the turn if a blank comes (even tho thats only a non-heart below 7 in my opinion)
Nr.2 Make a raise to about 1k or so and then decide what to do if he goes all in, and take the turnplay as it comes if he calls.
Nr.3 Push it
Nr.4 fold, but thats not an option in my world...

Important note is that I have the jack of heart that blocks any pair+flushdraw possibilities.

So what do hero do??

Regards Oystein

[IRV]

If he views you as donk/loose top two is certainly in your range here and with position I like a call here.

[jdefoe]

I like calling the flop here, it seems that if you reraise the flop, he'll fold hands you have crushed.

[Oystein]

Well, this post was gonna lead to my next question.
I ended up pushing all in, and afterwards I have been thinking, can I ever be called by a worse hand here??? Or can I ever be looked up by a worse hand? Or is the only purpose of the raise, to push away all draws, except T9hh maybe?

[creedofhubris]

If you only had 2k i would imagine you would get called by a healthy range and this would be a fine play.

with 4k the problem is that you're too deep to get called by ak, without a misread/crazy image.

[samoleus]

with the stacks as deep as they are, I think you ought to reraise big: make it about 1200 more. You are almost certainly ahead here, but way too many turn cards poison your hand.

[EmpireMaker2]

1444 to go push turn

[Oystein]

say I make it 1200 more or so and he calls, and the turn comes a heart or any card between 7 and K that dont pairs, or even worse like Q of hearts. And he bets into me? just instantfold? and what to do if he checks up front? and if I check behind and he leads river?? this pot could get ugly in so many ways [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]
+ lots of straights he can make that I "have" to pay him off at if he has flushdraw /w gutter\double belly ect

[tyboy74]

I would raise on the flop but not push. You probably have the best hand at this time. If you raise and he push you will probably have to call. But I would make a raise that would give him the wrong odds to call if he is on a draw. The goal in poker is to provoke your opponent into making a mistake. If you push all-in and he dont have more then top pair he will probably fold which means you will have provoked him into making the right decision by pushing all-in. I think a lot of players in this situation will strongly consider pushing all in because they feel that if a scare card comes they wont know what to do. But that is just bad poker in my opinion. The best you can do in poker is to pick the play that max your expectation in the current situation. The dillemma of scare card coming on the turn is a concern but it should not get in the way of you trying to max your expectation.

[TheHoss]

either raising or flatting is fine. the decision should be based on your image and your willingness to gamble on a blank turn.