$4/180 decisions

[CybrPunk]

In regards to raising the flop, as many people are suggesting:

I don't like pushing the flop here because the preflop raiser is still to act immediately behind hero. I prefer keeping everyone in the pot and allowing the PFR to pop it up which makes it easier for the early position player to come along as well. It's all too likely that if hero pushes, the PFR behind us will call and the EP player may be driven out of the pot. I'm fairly certain with heros draw that it's much more profitable to get 2 other players all-in as opposed to just one. If the PFR fails to raise the rest of the money is still going in on the turn for sure and hero would still be correct as per FTOP to put his chips in because he's being offered the correct odds by having 2 opponents still active in the pot.

I think this line gives our opponents more of an opportunity to make a mistake and also increases our expectation in the hand.

[Snarf]

after having looked at the hand more closely,

I agree w/cyber 100%

[Jeff76]

[ QUOTE ]
I think I read this somewhere...but if you're not comfortable getting $ in at this point with this hand - don't play TJs plz

[/ QUOTE ]This is correct, of course. Obviously this wasn't an instacall for OP, or if it was the needeling of villan caused him to question his play. For this reason it is good that he posted his hand so that he can be reassured that it was correct and that it was standard.

When I first started betting my draws more agressivly I had moments of doubt whether what I was doing was correct or not. I'd fear that I missed something important, miscounted my outs, or just wasn't playing correctly, especially if another opponent was ragging on me. Ragging doesn't mean much to me if I KNOW I played the hand correctly, but when learning something like playing big draws where it's not totally intuitive (like a draw being a favoirte to win againsts a made hand), doubts can creep in. If I'd never posted those hands (or read about others posting those hands, since I think my only post along these lines was in 7 card stud where I capped a big draw on 4th street), I'd have never understood big draws the way I do now, where I realize this is an insta-push (or insta-call) and I laugh and people who call me a donk for doing it.

The important thing is for the OP to understand why this is a no-brainer so tgat he can comfortable enough playing these hands in the future and he doesn't come back and question his play. The "why" in this case is that he is a slight favorite to win the hand over almost any made hand except a set, and even there he's not that big a dog. This isn't even a close decision with all of the money already in the pot, which is why this hand is so great to play multi-way in a big pot- which is also why the PF call was correct.

[Jeff76]

CybrPunk, you might be right, but if raising is a mistake it's probably marginal. In light of the fact that the pot has already been raised once on the flop, PF raiser is only going to raise with a few select hands (AA, AK), and sometimes not even those. I think the decision between calling or raising is probably marginal.

Either way, I don't like checking w/o the intention of trying to get all the chips in the middle on the flop, which is how I read OP's flop call here.

[Wetdog]

Thanks, Jeff, for the reassurance. Actually it was an almost instacall but not intuitive (obviously). This is something I need to work on, but as I get more experience I'm sure it'll come. The bad beat whining was added for comedic value. I figured that I was closer to 3:2 if not a small favorite. As for Snarf's comments, of course he's right. I know that a thicker skin is part of the uniform here.

Having been a LHE player for a year and making the transition to NL tournys, I think that some use can be made of the things that became obvious to me in my limit days, e.g. getting 3.5:1 to call the push because I was getting nearly even money odds in hitting this one. I think that knowing these probabilities will make me stronger than someone who plays intuitively, all other considerations being equal. Any thoughts on that?