How much should you trust your reads?

[Shattered]

Earlier today I had an interesting hand where I knew exactly where I was the entire way. I'll explain my thought process and the action in words before I post the hand history because I feel I can better give an example of how things played out.

Preflop, I had AA in the BB and the SB completed. I was really happy to see this because in the 20 hands I had played with SB, he was a complete donk. He had minraised my BB last orbit and I had 3-bet him with 66, taking it down on an AK4 flop.

The flop came a beautiful K57 two tone, one of the best flops I could hope for. I bet 3/4 pot and he snap called. At this point, I know exactly what his potential hands are. HIs range is any pair or draw; a flush draw, a gutter draw, a king, a 7, whatever. The turn comes a six and my heart sinks a little as the gutter draw was a huge portion of what I hoped to valuetown. He immediately slumps into a 20 second thinking period before firing off 3/5 pot.

I'm 100% certain he just filled his gutter. Granted, I'd only played 20 hands with him, but I was absolutely certain; my intuition was screaming it and I'd seen the same thing before. Yet, I called anyways. Raising was the "principled" thing to do, but I knew I was behind which was burning money; so I compromised and did the worst of all the options.

Turn came the 6h, filling the only other draw out there. This, I felt, was irrelevant, as I was still sure he had the straight. I called down the same size bet on the river that I did on the turn (after all, to call on the turn and fold here would be ridiculously bad, says the logical portion of my mind).

Completely unsurprisingly, he flips over 34o and scoops the pot, and I'm left confused as to what the right play was. I should never be folding AA on the turn to an "unknown at 25NL in BvB" and the read was "only over 20 hands." Yet my prediction was rock-solid based off of things like timing, table dynamic, history, and past identical experiences. Although this may seem superficially like the hundreds of "I have a hunch my middle set is no good" posts you see, I feel like my read was impeccable and there's no way he could have anything but what he did. Should I go with my instincts or go by the book?

Here's the hand converted.

Poker Stars, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

UTG: $23.40
MP: $72.45
CO: $24.90
BTN: $24.30
SB: $22.75
Hero (BB): $25.70

Pre-Flop: A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] dealt to Hero (BB)
4 folds, SB calls $0.15, <font color="red">Hero raises to $1</font>, SB calls $0.75

Flop: ($2) 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] (2 Players)
SB checks, <font color="red">Hero bets $1.50</font>, SB calls $1.50

Turn: ($5) 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] (2 Players)
<font color="red">SB bets $3</font>, Hero calls $3

River: ($11) 6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] (2 Players)
<font color="red">SB bets $3</font>, Hero calls $3

Results: $17 Pot ($0.80 Rake)
SB showed 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 4[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (a straight, Three to Seven) and WON $16.20 (+$7.70 NET)
Hero mucked A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] and LOST (-$8.50 NET)

[Monster207]

Reads are important.
They obviously gain value against predictable players or players who have predictable patterns (i.e. too high bluffing frequencies and never adjusts, calling stations..these are obviously pretty simple examples)
Reads go up in value (for me at least, over a decent sample size)
Your post really sounds just like a bad beat post. By telling us the results I don't think we can really help you all that much. Also, I'm never 100% on what villain has, I think you made a mistake in going from a range on the flop which was probably quite accurate, to all of a sudden "100% he has the gutter". There's good chance that villain would play 76 on the turn the same way. Regardless, if by some means you were a 100% then its pretty obvious you need to fold the turn.

[Shattered]

I'm sorry if this sounds like a bad beat post as I certainly didn't intended it to be one. The reason I posted results is because I'm also not asking people to critique the hand, really, so much as the thought process (I know the hand was played poorly on the later streets). The thing is, there really is nothing in the hand that suggests that a straight is the biggest part of his range except for subjective timing tells and the like. The sample size is tiny, we've been in maybe 2 pots together, but my gut is screaming at me that he has the straight here every single time based on timing cues and other subtle factors.

Now, one of the first rules of gambling is to not rely on hunches to play against the odds. The standard play on a wet board BvB against someone who's shown to not be very good is to just stick it in ASAP, and I would normally not even think twice before shoving. However, since everything except what's shown in the hand history says that I was behind, I'm wondering if I should trust my read or to go with what's the standard +EV play. Obviously, the extent to which you should avoid going on your gut instinct in poker as opposed to in games such as blackjack is greatly reduced due to the human element, but I'm asking to what point I should trust what I feel rather than what is technically the "correct" play. (Obviously I don't want to get caught inbetween the two and cop out by just calling, as I did in the actual hand).

[Shattered]

Bump

[Burcak]

I believe putting your opponents on 1 hand exactly is just a bad idea.

I have friends who say "I put him on AK" where AA, KK and AK play the same way. It is easy to remember the times where your read was correct and forget the times where it wasn't.

If somebody folds KK pf to a rr and says "I put him on AA when he 3bet" I think he is a bad player.

That said, of course you should fold when you think you are beat and don't think you can bluff. And no, you don't have to take std lines. Here, if you said "I think I am mostly beat here" it would be a good read. When you say "I know he had a gutshot" I think that's more like a bad range evaluation than a perfect read.

[Profish2285]

I think its a terrible idea to put a villain on exactly 1 hand. Im glad you got it right this time but when he shows you something completely different from what you expected, then what? Villains dont do the same thing everytime, thats why you assign a range so you try to encompass all the hands he could be doing this with.