Play a Hand With the Masters #3 Flop

[Lloyd]

Welcome to our second "Hand With the Masters". This was originally submitted by Jason Strasser (Strassa). Much thanks to him for taking the time to not only submit the hand but provide a lot of his thought process, more of which will hopefully come at the end when we bring our Masters together.

Here's how this is going to work (same as last time):

1. Our expert panel includes Justin Bonomo (Zee Justin) and Shane Schleger (Shaniac). They were sent the hand decision point by decision point so they only had access to the information that they would have had if they were playing the hand themselves. Obviously, this was an actual hand and when a panelist's line deviated from how the hand was played they still played the hand out as it actually went down. So if they said they would fold and in the actual hand it was raised, they played the next decision point as if they had raised.

2. I'm going to post the hand in multiple threads step by step over the next couple of days. This will make it as real as possible. I plan on adding a decision point approximately every 24 hours. Please be patient and understand that we're trying to 1) allow everyone a chance to view the decision point post prior to being influenced by a subsquent post; and 2) allow enough time for lots of discussion.

3. Once everyone has had a chance to comment on all aspects of the hand, I'll post how our experts played it out along with the thought process they have presented. We'll then give them an opportunity to post and discuss why they liked one approach versus another.

4. We'll bring the forum back to continue the discussion. Essentially, this will be the hand we'll talk about over the next week.

So without further adieu:

Setup
$650 PokerStars Qualifier for the PokerStars Carribean Adventure (PCA)
9-Handed
Blinds 10/20
Hero is Strassa
No reads on villain

Stacks
Hero (CO) t2540
BB t3245

Pre-Flop
All fold to hero who has 7[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] and raises to t80. Button and SB fold. BB calls t60.

Flop
Pot: t170

Flop: 7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 5[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

BB checks. Action is on the hero.

Pre-Flop and Flop Questions

1) A lot of people talk about playing tight early and don't try to steal blinds when they are this small. What do you think about blind stealing at this level? Would you do it and if so under what conditions?

2) What's your decision on the flop? Do you check or bet (and if so, how much)?

3) What's your plan on the turn (if any) based on your decision on the flop, the villain's action, and what card comes?

4) Any other thoughts at this point?