On the way to scooping a pot. Now, I will reconstruct the hand, and give you the way the hand played out as best I can. You are holding A-Q suited in diamonds. You are the villain.
Blinds are 300-600 with a 75 ante (from my Sunday game). UTG player raises it to 2400 preflop. All fold to you, and you, with AQ suited, make the call. What hand does the UTG player have?
Think about that as you look at this flop:
10h-2c-4d
The UTG player bets out a little more than half the pot. What do you do?
A-fold
B-Call
C-Raise
In this case, you chose B-Call.
Turn card: 5d
Now you have the nut flush draw.
UTG player puts you all-in, and has you covered by about 1100. What do you do?
A-Call
B-Fold
Well, considering the size of the pot, and your hand (now), it's an auto call. Your tourney life is at stake, but you have 9 outs. What does the UTG player have?
You call, because the pot, and your hand, make it the right thing to do.
UTG shows the 2 black Aces.
River cared: 8d.
Congrats! You just won the hand.
Are you proud of yourself? You really shouldn't be. I have been thinking about this hand since Sunday (obviously, I was the guy with the AA), and for the life of me, can not figure out that post-flop call. The preflop call makes perfect sense to me. I can totally see making the preflop call with the suited AQ. It's the post flop call of the big bet that has me completely confused, although one of my friends, whose opinion, and poker skills I truly respect and appreciate, says he understood the play.
Now, I know, some players get married to hands, and in the long run, they end up busted out of tournaments chasing hands because they are too stubborn to get away from them. In the long run, they are not winning players. In the short term, 1 bolt of lightning can cripple you, or bust you altogether, when the bad play gets rewarded.
After the 10h-2c-4d flop, the Ad-Qd hand is less than 7 percent to win (dominated 92.12-6.36). The AA holds the hammer, and when faced with a more than half the pot bet after the flop, something ought to go off in your head that says, "AQ is no good here." In this case it did not. After the turn 5d, the AdQd was only trailing 72.73%-20.45%--because now there are 9 outs. Basically, you need runner-runner to win the hand. Many players I know are not willing to push most of their chips to the middle needing runner-runner.
Truth be told, had the AQ shoved all-in pre-flop, I would just chalk it up to a sick beat. Really, I would. I have learned (quite painfully I might add), over the past few years that you have to fade bad beats as best you can, otherwise they haunt you. I would have honestly preferred an all-in move pre-flop. I am sickened that the player in question CONSCIOUSLY made the decision to chase down a hand when they had to AT LEAST THINK they were behind. I could have had 10-10, KK, AA, 22, 44...any of those (which I of course had), but that apparently didn't register with this player.
Yes, I know luck plays a part in poker. I have benefited from good luck my fair share, but I also think that I have been able to get away from hands at key moments, when I knew I was gonna need a ton of help to win the pot. When you're beat, you're beat.
I have since recovered from the above story, and look forward to sitting at the table again soon (although I don't know when). Football season is fast approaching (awesome), so I know at least 8 Sunday's are spoken for.
Ugh.
OK, enough moaning. You need to check out this very VERY sick table of hands--a 6 handed game played in Europe (no idea what show it is), but watch it all the way through, and ask yourself if you could do what seat 6 (the guy on the right end of the table) does.
Very work safe: Click here
OK, enough from me.
Good luck and good cards.
And fade those bad beats.
~M
PS--almost forgot--you can check out the Poker Odds Calculator at Cardplayer.com (provider of the hand data above) by clicking here.
5 comments:
Since the pot was offering close to 3:1, the only reasonable hands the hero could be holding that don't offer the villian the right straight pot odds to call are AA, KK, QQ, TT or a loose AT. That's a super tight range to put someone on 6 handed.
The QQ, KK and the AT are around 4:1 favorites, so the call is only a small mistake against them.
Pairs from JJ on down (we'll exclude 5's down if the PF raiser is tight)would be a mistake not to call agains based on the odds.
Your flop bet was as close to perfect as it can get. You got the AQ to make a huge mistake and there are really only two reasonable hands that are huge mistakes for him to call against. AA or TT.
I told ya I appreciate your knowledge.
Thanks, Mikey.
I didn't think the flop call was out of line.
The turn play? Check calling and leaving only $900 behind (remember that?)is a different matter. :D
BV, do you really and truly think the villian understood the pot odds?
I don't. I'm not even sure he understands we were playing poker.
I don't think the villian thinks in pot odd terms. Like so many folks we play with, he thinks in the "There's a shitload of money out there and I may get it" mode.
Nevertheless, it doesn't change the hand or whether his play was correct or not from a theory standpoint. He's only making a huge mistake calling with those odds against 2 hands.
I don't like the passive play. I think a flop shove would have been better with his hand if he was committed to playing it. Either and open push or check/push is a stronger more +EV play there. Going passive and calling the flop bet pot commits him to the hand with no way to win it unless he hits.
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