Thoughts Wanted
Playing a rebuy tourney. Rebuy period is over.
Blinds are 200-400.
There are 7 players at my table.
I am on the button.
Get A-10 of hearts.
Three limpers and I limp as well (pot is now $1600) . <Should I have raised here ?>
Flop comes A-Q-J with 2 spades.
Check, check, check to me. I bet $1500 thinking I have top pair top kicker
and want the pot odds to be too high for a flush draw to call.
Fold, fold, call. I have a caller...hmmmm 2 pair? Ace with better kicker?
The turn was a 5 of diamonds. He checks, I go all in with $1300 - I wish I had
more $ here because now it is correct for him to call me with a flush draw.
He does. And hits his spade on the river.
I go home.
I dont know if I should have raised pre-flop or not. A-10 is not THAT strong - I am the short stack at the table ($3200) and people that have limped have all been calling raises AFTER they have limped anyway. I didnt want to risk raising here and having an agressive player with a ton of chips pushing all in to steal my raise and I would have to call with a marginal hand.
Any thoughts on how I could/should have played this?
I also can't believe a guy would call with pot odds of 2:1 when his draw is more than 4:1.
Crazy.
Blinds are 200-400.
There are 7 players at my table.
I am on the button.
Get A-10 of hearts.
Three limpers and I limp as well (pot is now $1600) . <Should I have raised here ?>
Flop comes A-Q-J with 2 spades.
Check, check, check to me. I bet $1500 thinking I have top pair top kicker
and want the pot odds to be too high for a flush draw to call.
Fold, fold, call. I have a caller...hmmmm 2 pair? Ace with better kicker?
The turn was a 5 of diamonds. He checks, I go all in with $1300 - I wish I had
more $ here because now it is correct for him to call me with a flush draw.
He does. And hits his spade on the river.
I go home.
I dont know if I should have raised pre-flop or not. A-10 is not THAT strong - I am the short stack at the table ($3200) and people that have limped have all been calling raises AFTER they have limped anyway. I didnt want to risk raising here and having an agressive player with a ton of chips pushing all in to steal my raise and I would have to call with a marginal hand.
Any thoughts on how I could/should have played this?
I also can't believe a guy would call with pot odds of 2:1 when his draw is more than 4:1.
Crazy.
Comments
You could have given that player a free river card and if the flush comes, you can either fold, or check depending on the players action. Would have obviously saved you $1300 now that you know the outcome, but with $1300, you would have been very short stacked with 200/400 blinds. I don't think pushing was bad at that point either, you have a good shot at doubling up.
What were the player's hole cards and what was your read on this player? Do you think they would have dropped them for a 2-3x BB raise by you pre-flop?
I think you were already invested in the pot and put your money in with the best hand.
I think if you were willing to push on the turn you would have been better off to push on the flop.
I think the play I would have made is as follows: Limp and see the flop (with great position). When the flop is checked to me not knowing much about the players I would guess I have the best hand since almost any made would want to protect against so many draws. With $1,600 in the pot and having $2,800 I would be deciding what to raise. I would probably bet 2/3-3/4 of the pot so say $1,000 - $1,200 with the intention of pushing on a nonspade turn if called. Actually, I would bet $1,000 now giving you more fold equity on a nonspade turn. The check on the turn has me pushing unless I have them on better hand (than mine) that they will not fold.
More information would help in a better observation though (ie chip counts and player styles).
P.S. Depending on the chip count of Mr. Flush I'm not sure I like their call on the turn at all.
I think limping in pre-flop is fine, particularly since you believe moving all-in may not cause the limpers to fold as often as you'd like. Raising less than all-in with with 8*BB when you could probably limp instead is questionable IMO.
I would either check or move all-in on the flop. I prefer checking. Even though there's a decent chance you have the best hand, the board is highly co-ordinated. I prefer seeing the turn for free since:
1. I have a 3-out nut draw myself.
2. If it is checked to me *again* on the turn (and a scare card did not come off), I now have much more confidence that I have the best hand.
3. A 4- to 8-out draw is very incorrect to call when I move all-in on the turn with one card to come.
I'd go ahead and move all-in on the turn if it was checked to me again, and a scare card did not fall. Otherwise, I'd fold (or check).
The downside of this plan of course is that there is some chance of getting moved off of the best hand on the turn when you (and everyone else) showed weakness on the flop. I don't mind this all that much since (yay, another list!)
1. My hand is not super-strong anyway.
2. My opponents might believe that *I* am the one making a move on the turn, and make a poor call with a weak hand such as a pair of Queens if I am the one who ends up betting. Being a short stack, I don't mind encouraging players making -EV calls against me (rather than trying to encourage them to fold weak hands) even though they increase my own variance.
Possibly he felt his implied odds were ~4 to 1 on the flop since you would be pot-stuck on the turn. Your opponent probably does not expect you to fold with only 1,300 chips remaining if the turn card does complete the draw, and he realizes he will get over 4 to 1 pot odds if he misses and faces a turn bet.
It's also entirely possible that your opponent would call with any flush draw regardless of pot/effective/implied odds and number of cards to come. The key thing is to force this kind of opponent to make a *big* mistake when calling you. I think that moving all-in on the turn maximizes this particular mistake.
ScottyZ
He had a 10-3 of spades...so if I would have raised 3X BB ($1200) he might have dropped it.
However, most players were willing to go all in and gamble many times when someone rasied it 3X BB - and in particular with me being the shortest stack - Im sure someone would have done this to eleminate me - which I dont want to happen cause A-10s is not what I want to push all in with...
BTW - thanks all for the comments so far. I have better insight on to what to do next time.
Basically, I favour ScottyZ's approach. Limp in. Nothing wrong with that. A big move pre-flop is required to win it now. Probably will not work. And, you will be all in with a marginal hand. So, limp.
On the flop? I favour checking. You are probably a big favourite. But, you will be called by most draws because you don't have enough chips. Take off the turn and then move in when you are a bigger favourite. Having said that, moving in on the flop is also OK. Offering the flush draw two smaller calls doesn't seem a good plan though. Surviving the hand with a small win is more important than trying to milk chips out of your opponents.
Yeah, I was almost certain he did not have an ace, or even a pair at this point (post flop). With his checking after the flop I was pretty sure he was chasing a flush - which is why I hate to check and give him the turn for free (thus I bet $1500 here) but if I would have checked, and the turn did not complete his flush I should have moved in here making it a bad call on his part to try to catch it on his last card.
Thanks for the post.