1-for-4?

[Nate.]

[ QUOTE ]
Nate,

I think the preflop play is absolutely horrible. If you do some basic equities on your hand vs. 2 random hands (given that the two coldcallers don't have great hands but you can't eliminate some "premiums" either) then your equity isn't horrible, but once you consider that you still have several people left to act, your average equity goes down quite a bit.

I think you'll be getting yourself in a lot more trouble raising than you would be by folding, and I don't think it's particularly close given your position and the fact that you still have to win the hand, even when you manage to get some folds behind you.

Rob

[/ QUOTE ]

Rob --

Yeah, I think this is about right. I was hoping for people to have something to say about the flop or turn, but I don't think that there's too much to say about either of them, and anyhow, the money I'd win or lose by, say, folding the flop is probably insignificant compared to the expectation I lost by not folding preflop.

Amusing side-note: the guy right behind me claimed to have folded a king. Yikes.

Thanks for tolerating this thread, everyone.

--Nate

[DougL]

Nate,

Your problem on both the flop and the turn is that you're multi-way with a heads up hand. You don't have good reads because the raising has been devalued.

I'll go along with others, flop is an easy fold. The “young winner” behind you makes this really easy to drop. Turn is a fold if you believe your read of Q or better. The river is great on a lot of levels.

You mentioned the bad cold callers being a plus in this hand. I've played in a lot of games with staddlers, and I think they're a big minus. They'll never fold when you want them to, so you need a good drawing hand. Based on your description, they'll never fold PF and your hand hates the action.

Hope you get more chances to practice your straddle defense against this lineup…

Doug

[Nate.]

[ QUOTE ]
Nate,

Your problem on both the flop and the turn is that you're multi-way with a heads up hand. You don't have good reads because the raising has been devalued.

I'll go along with others, flop is an easy fold. The “young winner” behind you makes this really easy to drop. Turn is a fold if you believe your read of Q or better. The river is great on a lot of levels.

You mentioned the bad cold callers being a plus in this hand. I've played in a lot of games with staddlers, and I think they're a big minus. They'll never fold when you want them to, so you need a good drawing hand. Based on your description, they'll never fold PF and your hand hates the action.

Hope you get more chances to practice your straddle defense against this lineup…

Doug

[/ QUOTE ]

Doug --

Thanks.

Preflop is obviously terrible. I overestimated my capabilities against uberloose limpers.

The flop, I think, is sort of interesting, because one guy has a random hand and two guys actually have worse-than-random hands, because they call almost anything preflop and have given off weak tells postflop and just called. I'm actually fine with my flop call.

I didn't get the read on the turn until after I raised, because he didn't look at his cards until then. But a (literally) random hand bets and I have a pair and the pot is big. No way I can't raise, right?

--Nate

[DougL]

My only complaint on the flop is the guy behind you who should have you beat. If he's good, he knows no-one is folding and expects there might be a raise from the straddler PF. He hasn't acted, and I fear his hand if he keeps calling. How would you play if you were in his chair?

On the turn, you're still out of position vs. the good player behind. I guess you're at raise or fold, so... I guess I agree, but what happens if the good player calls?

You could have been ahead the whole way. I agree with everything you said about your reasoning except I don't think it matters as much how you play against the straddler (and his tell makes you more correct). Once you add a rational player to the mix and the flop comes with two paint cards, I'm looking for excuses to dump. Once you start pairing and you’re still getting tells of weakness from the field, I think you have to play it like you did.

If you had managed to get heads-up with the straddler, I’d say you played it in text-book fashion. For all my whining about a couple of spots in the hand, I love playing in a game with a straddle because you get to play hands just the way you did. You’ve got a guy dark betting who allows you to play junk like it was rockets.

GL,

Doug