Poker question/situation

[crowie]

Have been giving poker a break for the last week and a half and went to have a game last night. Bet365 $5 STT.

I played pretty tight throughout, sacrificed a few blinds due to poor hands, was down to about 450 chips but worked my way back up to 900.

6 people left, I have taken a couple of hands out of last 4 and I am on SB. Blinds were 80, 160.

Everyone folds to me and I am sitting with QQ. The big blind was a looser player, had been down at about 400 but, in part due to winning a 3 way all in (he had went all in on 10,10 and hit 10 on the flop and 9, 9 on the turn/river for a full house), was now chip leader on 3000+, I was last out of 6 on 900. He had played a few hands.

I raised for 320. He re-raised me 160. I was tempted just to call this but would only have been left with just 340, very short stacked compared to the rest of the table. I was pretty much certain I was ahead so went all in with my remaining 500. He called.

He turned AJs (spades). Flop came K, 7, 8 rainbow (no spades). Of course the turn then came 9 and the river came up with a 10 to give him a J high straight


My first thoughts (which were proved correct) were that I was ahead pre-flop and wanted to get as many chips in as possible, while getting him to play as well, at that point as I figured I had a decent advantage. I would have been delighted to get dealt QQ and go all in 900 and have him call me, which in effect I ended up with.

My thoughts later on were that maybe I shouldn't have re-raised him when going all in, rather just called his re-raise leaving me with 340.

I thought about this and the flop that came. I am pretty sure I would have went all in post flop as I didn't put him on a great hand. However is 340 a big enough bet to get him to lay down his hand when post flop he has A high at best? Given his stack, is he pot committed having bet 400 on top of his BB?

Pretty p'd off about going out in this manner but question is, would anyone have played it differently?

[aliensyndm]

I think you're just suffering a grrrrr can't believe he beat with that syndrome.
There's no danger in the situation you describe that you are throwing QQ away. Personally I probably would have raised the BB all in from the start.
Like I've said if you don't have 10 x the big blind you are short stacked. At those blinds you didnt have many hands before your stack was desperately fecked.

With regard to your question....I think raise all in was fine. In fact like I said all in from the start was ok as well and probably better. The danger with just raising a bit is.....say he just calls you. And the flop brings an ace or a king, what you gonna do ? Check it ? If he bets are you gonna call ? He may not have an ace or a king afterall.
It's a position where you need to pot commit yourself. You need to double through. You don't have enough chips to sit and wait on the pefect position. Here you can get heads up with the 3rd best hand possible. Unlikley you are gonna get a better chance you would think. Best way to do pot commit yourself is raise his blind all in, you almost want him to call as it's a very good chance you will be ahead and hopefully double up. If he folds well you got the blinds and a bit longer to catch another hand. OK if he has KK or AA well that's too bad, you can of course still win but you can't account for that.
Other than KK or AA you're slight favourite against AK and decent/big favourite against anything else.


Whether or not he would have folded the flop....is 300 enough to get him to do so ? Probably not but why let him see that flop any cheaper than you need to ? Preflop is when you are most likely to be ahead, so get all the chips in there, preferably from an all in straight off.

[crowie]

Cheers Alien.

I did think about going all in from my SB position with one bet but, thinking I was pretty much certain to be ahead, I wanted to get more than his BB off him. I suppose its being greedy with the hand I had. I have a feeling he would have folded if I had went all in - which in hindsight would have been better for me

I say now, again with hindsight, that I if I had just called his re-raise then I would have went all in post flop but thats easy for me to say that now and may have been different when I saw the K flop.

Also, as you say, a 300 odd bet isn't probably enough to scare him off considering his stack and the size of the pot at that point.

In the end I got what I wanted, him matching my 900, I just hit a bad beat.