An interesting flop decision

[OrigamiSensei]

I was self-reviewing the session I sent to Guitierez for our session reviews and came across this hand. It's pretty rare I feel the need to fire one to the forums but honestly what to do on this flop has me at a bit of a loss. Pardon the hand conversion. I can't seem to find a good automated ones these days.

It's pretty early in the session so not much in the way of reads but I do anticipate that villain's UTG raise is probably legit.

Ultimate Bet $.50/$1 Limit Hold'em

OrigamiSensei holds: 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 9[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

Pre-flop:
Villain raises to $1, 2 folds, MP2calls, 2 folds, SB calls, OrigamiSensei calls.

I see no reason to do anything but call here.

Flop: 7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

SB checks, OrigamiSensei checks, Villain bets $.50, MP2 folds, SB calls, OrigamiSensei raises to $1, villain calls, SB folds

Here's what I wrote in my self-review:

I’m really not in a great position here but I can’t afford to play this timidly or I certainly will lose the hand. I am having a bad reaction to my decision to check-raise the flop with my gut but my head says it shouldn’t be a bad play. The other two villains should not have been calling that raise with something that hit that flop unless it’s a pair of sixes or sevens and I think my plan was to play the flop strong and see if someone reacted back with strength themselves. I’d really like to knock out some opponents drawing to overcards if I can. – Ah – That’s the reason for the bad reaction. Maybe I need to donk the flop and get villain to raise behind me to knock out opponents by facing them with two. On the other hand I’m remembering now why I pulled the check-raise maneuver. I was playing a psychological game trying to do the old “aha!” trap and setting up to take the pot down with a c/r flop, lead turn line.

At this point I'm leaning toward a flop donk being the better line to take but I can't convince myself that the original line was all that bad, either. Discuss.

[tyler_cracker]

os,

this is the easiest c/r ever. donking is terrible because villain will never protect your hand; he will only protect his own.

[Gib]

yup standard c/r here.

[NIX]

Check/raise is good. I won't donk into a PFRer hoping they'll raise anymore for the most part without a 'raises overs on the flop' read.

[OrigamiSensei]

NIX, your comment on the player read makes a lot of sense and serves to reinforce Tyler's point.

I'm not sure why I had such trouble thinking this situation through, although part of it was rust from not playing online minbet for a full month. Sorry for an "interesting flop decision" that turned out not to be so interesting.