insane push or standard?

[DLizzle]

where this hand went wrong is your first flop raise. That raise to 2200 is actually really, really terrible. Worst play of the hand by far, unless you are pretty certain he will fold to your push if he reraises. As for the push, I guess its ok, I definitely wouldn't say I like it, but you got yourself into that difficult spot with the flop raise. I mean, you know he probably has a big pair, so what are you doing? bluffing? i don't think you can expect a ME donk in level 2 to fold a big pair here, and you can expect him to reraise you here, so why do it?

Once you call the flop, see how big he bets on the turn then make the calculation, you have a 10 out draw. If you call and miss the river fold to a bet check behind if he checks.

[Temp Hutter]

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In general I hate calling when a raise will win the pot.

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Agree. But what do you do when a raise didn't win. He can be a station or a guy only plays his own big hand without thinking about yours.

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Obviously I thought the first raise had a chance to win the pot.

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I understand. But when your raise triggered a re-raise rather than a fold, maybe you should stay with your first plan which is generally folding. (Calling is good if both of you are deeper than you are)

Our plan (the first raise) was to take down the pot by telling him he's behind and we also want to know he can fold over pair, but he comes back re-raise us which gives us "NO" to both questions we asked. For this kind of villain, when we push, he would mostly think "why you push if you have the nuts?"

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If I call the flop bet (instead of raise) and do not improve on the turn then what? Call a big turn bet? Try and re-raise a big turn bet? Hope he checks? Fold?

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First, we have position on him. His hand must be much stronger than ours to bet the turn OOP. If you don't improve on the turn, fold to a big turn bet because we're done with the hand. Odd isn't right for us to move on plus this seems to be the right way to play against this guy.

On the other hand, he bet 700 on the flop, probably would bet 1400 on the turn and will generally check the river.
If he checks, you bet and can generally take down the pot. He's not committed and not likely to cr with air on the turn. But if a scare card for his hand falls on the turn/river, you can bluff him.



(just my own thought, still I like the push against decent player)

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My only hesitation in making the push was trying to decide if this player was a thinking player. If he is a thinking player then a fold should be standard for him in this spot. It would be for me. We had not played together long enough to really know each other yet, so I hesitated to think it out and then pushed.

[Todd Terry]

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Our plan (the first raise) was to take down the pot by telling him he's behind and we also want to know he can fold over pair, but he comes back re-raise us which gives us "NO" to both questions we asked.

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This I disagree with. I think there is a big difference between being unwilling to fold an overpair to a single raise on the flop and being unwilling to fold an overpair to a push on top of our reraise on the flop. If I had AA, I would have raised preflop, bet the flop, and reraised the raise just like villian did, and I would have folded to Temp's push. With deep stacks, I can't see anyone folding an overpair, especially AA or KK, to a single raise on the flop. Especially because the flop came 3 little cards, I would expect a raise from an overpair, top pair, a pair of 3s, maybe even a pair of 2s, which is why I would reraise with AA or KK. Being OOP would make the reraise a more favorable play than a call of Temp's first raise. In other words, I don't think the villian's play of this particular hand gives us any real insight into whether he will fold to a push here.

[Temp Hutter]

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where this hand went wrong is your first flop raise. That raise to 2200 is actually really, really terrible. Worst play of the hand by far, unless you are pretty certain he will fold to your push if he reraises. As for the push, I guess its ok, but you got yourself into that difficult spot with the flop raise. I mean, you know he probably has a big pair, so what are you doing? bluffing? i don't think you can expect a ME donk in level 2 to fold a big pair here, and you can expect him to reraise you here, so why do it?

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I disagree that the raise is "really, really terrible". I expect to take it down more than half the time right there. When he raises me back I pretty much know he has a big pair. Before the re-raise he could be continuation betting with any number of hands.

[NYWalker]

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My only hesitation in making the push was trying to decide if this player was a thinking player. If he is a thinking player then a fold should be standard for him in this spot. It would be for me. We had not played together long enough to really know each other yet, so I hesitated to think it out and then pushed.

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I don't blame a push.

It's easy to think when not in the hand, but difficult when actually playing the hand.

But when you play for 8.2m, maybe you should take a safe route against unknown. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[MLG]

I think a push is pretty good in this spot. I also vehemently disagree with people who say that calling the flop is better than raising. I mean, you have lots of equity, but like zero implied odds to calling and hitting. You have an opponent who should have a very very very narrow range, and playing very aggro on this flop is very scary to him, since you can easily have a str. or set, or 2 pair or something. I vote for good (almost mandatory) jam.

[DLizzle]

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I think a push is pretty good in this spot. I also vehemently disagree with people who say that calling the flop is better than raising. I mean, you have lots of equity, but like zero implied odds to calling and hitting. You have an opponent who should have a very very very narrow range, and playing very aggro on this flop is very scary to him, since you can easily have a str. or set, or 2 pair or something. I vote for good (almost mandatory) jam.

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wow i would argue to the death about a raise on the flop here being ridiculously bad. what is the purpose of it again? OP defends it with, well I'll take the pot down on the flop a lot. Can anyone else reinforce this? It seems like an extremely weak point.

[MLG]

D,
Here's my thought process.
1. Villain has a very very small range (like TT+/AK)
2. Board is very scary to villain (he can't have hit it, and we obv could have).
3. Even if I can't get villain to fold, I have 40% eq.

Given all that, I'm raising the flop fully intending to keep firing away. because there is just no way an overpair can stand 2-3 streets of pressure with this board. and even if he is either good enough or bad enough to not fold, I'm still going to win almost half the time.

If I call, I am very rarely getting more money out of an OP if I hit, and I'm often not going to be able to call a turn bet at all, since I have zero implied odds (I mean really, how are we getting action from an OP with a 4 straight on board) and if the turn blanks my equity basically halves.

Thats my justification.

[Cornell Fiji]

MLG,
I love your advice but I totally disagree with you on this one.

The majority of players are not reraising an UTG raiser out of the SB with AK. Additionally, many people will just call in the blinds with 22-TT. This means that the villain almost always has a big over pair here, especially after he leads the flop. I think out of his range of JJ-AA the villains range is also weighted toward AA/KK after his flop lead.

Nobody is folding JJ+ to a single flop raise and often they will panic with their big pair on a drawy flop and 3-bet, just as it happened in this hand.

Most people have a lot of trouble folding over pairs. After we raise and get 3 bet we have no choice but to try to get him to fold that AA... Hopefully he read somewhere that he shouldn't go broke with just one pair.

Hero should just play our draw as a draw in a small pot and value bet him when we hit.

[MLG]

CF. He limped UTG.