Was This A Terrible Way To Play A Hand?

[dirtydeeds 0]

Blinds were at 100-200 in a 50 player field. I had 6,500 chips from a 5,000 starting stack. I opened UTG with A-J offsuit to 650 and received 2 calls. Flop came 7h-Js-8h, i bet 1,200 got one fold and another call from new player to the table with a tight image from what I could see. Turn comes Jh, which completes the flush draw and gives me trips. I bet 2,500 into the pot, which commited me to the hand, and the villian shoved for my remaining chips. He had me covered so I called and was drawing to 10 full house outs. Should I have checked the turn? I don't think there is any way I was getting away from this hand, a meaningless 5s fell on the river. Any suggestions are welcomed! Thanks

[donk4life 34]

Rig the deck next time so a 7 falls on the river.

[dirtydeeds 0]

By the way the villian table 6h-4h for the flush on the turn

[answer20 5]

Looks as though you were meant to lose this hand ... The meaningless 5 on the River also gave him a straight!! We don't know what your image was but AJo from UTG with only 30BB isn't a premium hand in that position. Was this the typical raise (3.25x) for this table? I would say you didn't get too much respect either with 2 smooth calls ... You have to assume all 3 of you are 'hunting' the Flop since there was no 3-bet. I would say that 500 is plenty and then this also provides some pot control for your later bets. Obviously this guy was playing 'hi-lo' poker (you must be high, so I will play the low cards) and he had position on you. Now he gets a dream Flop that he can assume probably missed you but he would rather have you hit it so he can bust you with his draws (and he might even have 2 live cards if you have AK). You do need to c-bet here to see where you are at ... anywhere from 30% to 70% of the pot ... and with this Flop having both flush and straight draws out there you have to determine how hard you want to attack this pot. There is no right or wrong answer. If you want them to assume you have AK, 99 or 1010 then you could bet to the smaller side. You have top pair-top kicker so you could go to the high side to price out the draws. In this case here the only thing you could have done was to shove and I still don't think he is going to pass up 2 cards with his holdings. Rember that with the smaller opeining bet you would have only needed to bet 750 or so instead of 1200 on the Flop and would have had 5000 behind going into the Turn.I probably could have checked the Turn for 2 reasons. One, with the smaller c-bet (playing this hand like you have AK) this is a card that gets checked quite a bit and then you get to see what he is going to do since one of the draws did hit. You also hide the strength of your hand regardless of whether you are ahead or behind. If your opponent was not on a flush draw they will fold to most any bet here and you have a strong enough hand to get some value on the River if they do hit part of their hand. Two, since your opponent did hit his draw he may not want to scare you away with a large Turn bet and you get to draw to your full house at a better price than the one you paid here. He may have shoved anyway with such a low flush but then you could have got away from it or just called, your choice but you were not committed to the pot at that point with only 1250 or so into it and 5000 behind.If your check gets through, or even if you call a bet, now you potentially can bluff if another heart hits the River or lead out with your full house. If you blank again, you may have to cry check-call another bet, but you are stll in the tournament. Your choice of line just ran into a cooler board and by betting the Turn so strongly you just told your opponent that he had a customer. He could have flopped a straight as well with the 9-10 ...You felt good about this hand and ran with it, nothing to be ashamed of, but that board just put you in a tough spot whether or not you attack it ... you could already be behind and there's a ton of hands than could catch up and pass you by ... that's why they call it a 'coin flip'. Also shows you that 'top-top' doesn't always carry the weight you think it does at times. Next time you will be aginst KJ and kicking yourself for not pressing the issue!! Good Luck going foward ...

[dirtydeeds 0]

Thanks for the awesome feedback!! I feel like my game is strong enough in the future to maybe play this hand a little differently. You made a lot of great points into different ways I could have played this hand and taking everything into consideration I believe c-betting the flop and checking the turn for pot control should be the best option. That way I could have drawn cheaper to my full house and not go bust. Thanks again for replying

[Vtlaxer09 4]

450-500 preflop. 700 on flop. Check/call turn or bet/decide is fine on turn.

[dirtydeeds 0]

Would you consider this daniel negreanu's small ball strategy? I like this style also because it isn't risking my whole stack. I need to fix this leak in my game because I'm going to play in some bigger buy-in tournaments this summer! Thanks for the post

[TrueAce13 18]

Can't be considered small ball when you make it over 3x pre.

[Vtlaxer09 4]

Can't be considered small ball when you make it over 3x pre.

I think he's referring to my post. <3Re:dirtydeeds:Its not really "DN's small ball," as much as it is just playing pot controlled, effective, and good poker.You've bloated the pot so much that once you've flopped top pair you are totally commited to going broke regardless of turn card because of the pot odds you've already created. Its not a terrible strategy for inexperienced players because you get to put a lot of pressure on your opponents and will usually run up a stack or bust. Keeping pots smaller as an inexperienced player is going to allow better, smarter opponents to methodically take your stack as it requires much deeper thought process and good decision making.

[dirtydeeds 0]

This tournament that I was playing in is very casual and not many experienced players so I usually just try to go for max value and get stacks in. In bigger buy-in tournaments I use the pot control method more often because its more of a thinking mans game. My style is defensive most of the time in bigger games but I've really been working on opening up my hand range lately.

[Ank 0]

I think pre flop and flop play is fineBy the sounds of things you are playing in a low limit game or even a free roll tournment where most players you face are really passive and dont think to much more then the cards they hold.I think after the flop you out think your self abit.. if you assess their hand ranges on the flop their range mainly consists of flush draws and straight draws.On the turn gives you trips but also completes the villans flush draw range on the flop. Personally id check the turn and probably check muck the turn depending on the villians bet size. Id call if i was getting the right price to draw out but most likely fold.. we're only 20-25% favourate to win the hand if villain has a flush.Also checking the turn allows us to identify villians hand range. Villian being so passive is never bluffing the turn on this board, he checks back any straight draws and he very rarely has a jack in this spot even then i think a passive villian checks that back.he can only have a flush in my view or even a full house if the villain plays back on the turn we're in such a bad shapecheck-folding the turn is also fine because it leaves us with around 25bbs which is plenty to play around in these types of tournaments.Hope that input helped ~Ank~

[dirtydeeds 0]

Thank you for your feedback Ank! That makes a lot of sense to me as well, checking the turn is the optimum play here as I am beat by all flushes. I think when I was in the hand I was thinking if I check the turn and he bets I would have been in a tough spot. It is hard for me to get away from hands like this, which is a leak in my game, because I feel like if I fold and am put in the same situation again he can try to bluff me in this spot thinking I will fold. Also because his flush was such a low flush he probably would have bet big in fear of another heart coming. I should have check-folded this turn against this player every time but I didn't have any history with him so it was a tough spot. Thanks again for the reply.

[MIddLES 0]

In such a soft field I would strongly consider just folding AJo under the gun here especially with this stack. Possibly someone could maybe convince me into check folding this turn against the most passive straightforward opponents out there, however I think that check folding this turn as a standard is getting completely ran over in general. Villains with any competency can be expected to bet this turn with a large portion if not the entirety of their range a very large percentage of the time especially with stacks that can set up for a pot size jam on the river... In general if we reach this turn without a heart in our hand I think that betting for value and the lead in the hand is mandatory and we are just going to have to evaluate and play some poker...

[EAPaaron 4]

People often find themselves in trouble when they commit so much chips for a tptk. When a tight player gets into it, redflags should be waving

[Mercury69 3]

Do tourney regs prevent you from shooting the guy playing 64s in the face?

 

The river 5 was salt in the wound, imo. It would be perfectly understandable in a court of law if you went ballistic and caved the guy's face in, just like Driver did to that guy in the elevator n Driven.

 

Love a movie, live a movie.

[Tomag51 0]

Most of you say this was a good play, but I would think about it again. I mean you bet 3xBB from UTG with AJo? In most online poker room you will get at least one caller (short or not stacked) who will call your bet only cos of their possition over you. For me that AJo (depending on the tournament and how deap in it you are) was easily foldable. What I mean is that if you gonna get called, it will be either someone with a hand that covers your J like AQ or AK or a hand that can crack your hand on flop like suited connectors.

 

Personally I would fold that hand in that possition and wait for something better or a better moment to make a move.