Flop play in a (raised) Multiway Pot

[Scottieboy08]

After the Scottie/Muze/Doc debate of a previous thread, I have this one:

** Dealing card to Scottieboy08: Qh Qc

GoAheadPunk_ called - $0.50
wildsurfer called - $0.50
harley101 folded
ChilloutNoob folded
_JmF_VmF_ called - $0.50
SkyWalker_ folded
Scottieboy08 raised - $3.00
RV1972 folded
charlie02 folded
Profile84 folded
GoAheadPunk_ called - $2.50
wildsurfer called - $2.50
_JmF_VmF_ folded

** Dealing the flop: Js, 10s, 7d

GoAheadPunk_ checked
wildsurfer went all-in - $13.63
Scottieboy08 raised - $27.26
GoAheadPunk_ went all-in - $43.40
Scottieboy08 called - $16.14

** Dealing the turn: 5s
** Dealing the river: 9h

GoAheadPunk_ shows: 7h, 7c
Scottieboy08 mucks: Qh, Qc
wildsurfer shows: 8c, 8d

GoAheadPunk_ wins $59.09 from side pot 1
wildsurfer wins $48.59 from the main pot


N.B. Both players had been playing loose aggressive and allsorts of cards

I seriously think I got the bet (and following call) wrong on the flop. Need some help on the correct play here please team

[mrmuzeman]

Hmm ill do a much better reply later but I dont think you did much wrong there mate from looking at it quickly there. When the guy moves in over the top, it looks rough as fcuk for you but its not much more to call at the end of the day. You made a good play a lot of the time by reraising the inital all in push but just happened to run into a cheeky checkraiser which 90% of the time would be a folding player probably.

[Scottieboy08]

Thanks for the vote of confidence mate

[mrmuzeman]

Preflop I think your play is fine enough, at least you put in a proper raise. Personally I would have gone 7/8bb with 3 limpers before me but hey 6bb is ok just a personal thing to really try and make sure the best I can that I isolate against 1 opponent.

The 2 limps in early then calls, youve gota be putting definitely 1 of them on a medium pocket pair. Sounds fine for me to say now seeing they had 77 and 88! but I promise you thats what I would have said anyway. Its what I always say when I see a limp UTG or UTG+1 call a raise, 'I bet hes got a pocket pair' is what I say. Yep.

So the flop is a wee bit scary being a bit conjoined BUT no A and no K so thats the main worry taken care of. Bout $10 in the pot and it goes CHECK / ALL IN FOR $14. You HAVE to at least call that no doubt about it. He could so easily have top pair J, flush draw, pair and a gutshot, lots of things you are ahead of % wise. Anyone who says thats a fold I really disagree with.

SO, should we call the $14 or reraise is the question basically. I think in hindsight a straight call would have done the trick, the UTG check would be having to call $14 into a pot of $38 if he was on a draw and those odds are nothing to shout on about for him so I guess theres no real need to reraise in terms of making him pay to draw.

I totally can see why you minreraise though and I might have even done it myself in the heat of battle just to really try and isolate that all in who I believe im ahead of % wise. Who knows maybe it is the right play, its a close one between that and calling anyway.

When UTG checkraises all in, id be like oh ffs hes flopped something really good. At least 2 pair and as I though pocket pair could well be a set, theres a possible straight on too with the 98. Still with $92 in the pot and only $16 to call thatd be a pretty disciplined laydown (though probably correct horribly). Id hate to fold and see some random donk flush check raise all in or something though so id call just incase I reckon

The pluspoint to just calling the all in would have been when the UTG reraised all in, you could have safely folded as it would have been WAY more expensive to call it (around $30). Thing is though I really wouldnt be expecting the UTG to do that so its not really something you can factor in, in the 20 or 30 seconds you get to act.

I really think a very large proportion of the time UTG has nothing and folds and youre left heads up as a favourite (in this circumstance around an 80% fave against the 88 off the top of my head).

[Beanie]

Nice post muse - I'd tend to go all in there in order to 100% shut out a draw, but your point about giving the fold option if UTG goes all in is a good one. Not particularly likely as you mention, but food for thought all the same.

Anyway, not much to add...can't really fault your play Scottie - when the final all in comes its pretty obvious your behind and a lay down is possible, but its tough to do and I doubt I'd manage it myself.

[mrmuzeman]

your point about giving the fold option if UTG goes all in is a good one. Not particularly likely as you mention, but food for thought all the same.

It is a good point but tbh it is a mute point really I was making, cos its really hard to actually think like that during a game. One of those things that I and almost everyone bar awesome players wouldnt consider during the game itself and I only notice analysing the hand on paper afterwards as it were.

Yeah all in reraise, min reraise its all the same really I guess, I dont think many people are folding for that little bit extra in a very big pot just incase they make a mistake by folding.

[Scottieboy08]

Thanks for your time and comments muze/beanie, I appreciate it

Looking back, a flat call may have been best but did want to shut out draws but perhaps the mini-raise prob wasnt big enough

[Doc]

Pretty much agree with muse here. A bigger raise pre-flop is more decisive and gives more information about your callers.

I wouldn't fold that flop for that bet against the overwhelming majority of players - I'd really want to be sure he was a complete rock (i.e. he'd just made trip Jacks or Tens) to do that. Again that is an advantage of a bigger pre-flop raise - a rock would probably fold TT or even JJ to a bigger raise.
Against loose aggressive players I could well be against AJ, KQ (Especially), AQ - anything of that nature. Even against 2 pair, you're not actually in terrible trouble - you have a back door straight, two queens for trips and the option of a running pair or pairing the third flop card. I'd be scared of trips, but I'd definitely call here as I said.

The isolation raise is pointless here - it is a very large amount to call against two players showing strength. This is a classic case of a bet (raise in this case) only being called if you are beaten/behind.
I wouldn't be worried about the flush draw - you're up against aggressive players - i.e. they'll probably raise with AKs, or AQs. KQs is about the only credible hand for an aggressive player to check call.

Now, given you had raised the all-in, and got re-raised - call. Even if you saw the hands they had - you're still 13% to win the hand from that flop. It is costing you $16 to win $91 - i.e. you're getting nearly 6 to 1. You'd have to be more than 87% sure that they held these hands or better to fold. You can NEVER be that sure with this type of flop against anyone - let alone an aggressive player.

[christianu]

Cant you just see DOC playing poker one hand on the mouse and the other occupied with this gigantic calculator taking maximum time for every move as the exact %'s are worked out, I CALL BUT THERES A 13.8% CHANCE YOU ARE BEATING ME

only messing mate, its just theres no time to really think like this.

I use the once bitten twice shy method of poker.

By the way scott to even think you played this hand wrong is ridiculous. Nothing wrong with it at all.

[christianu]

I use the once bitten twice shy method of poker.

By the way i mean as in just keep playing and playing hands, experience will teach you what to do in these situations if your smart enough to learn by your mistakes and experiences. You dont need to know these percentages, the more your play the more you'll know what to do and what is the best play.

I dont need to read anything about +EV play or talk about it because I should know it instinctively.

A good example I use is when not knowing what implied odds meant, but knowing that when im calling a pot bet on the flop with a flush draw im thinking "will i get more money out of him to make it worth my while?".. so basically knowing about it but not knowing about it. These concepts should come naturally in a way.

I think experience helps you 100000000000000000000000% more than reading a poker book ever will.

[Doc]

obviously you don't get to do the calculations at the table like this - but the whole point about doing this is that you improve your play away from the table, as well as at it. Poker can be very deceptive - psychologically we are wired in a way that doesn't always work for poker. For example, if we do something 'wrong' (i.e. it will usually lose money for us) that actually works in our favour - we will tend to disproportionately value that action. Conversely, when we do something wrong that loses us money we are more inclined to dismiss it as bad luck. In a sense it comes down to intellectual vanity - in the former we like to think of ourselves as super-clever and in the latter, we reassure ourselves that it wasn't our bad play, just bad luck.

Doing this type of analysis away from the table is a powerful way of counteracting those tendencies so that when a similar situation comes up at the table next time, we have something rational to draw on where our instincts on our own might fail us.

[Jezza]

You did nothing wrong here Scottie. You have wildsurfer beat the VAST majority of the time on the flop, you just got unlucky the other guy behind him flopped a set.

[Scottieboy08]

Thanks for the comments all. Good to know that more or less I got it right.