[Closed] Did I waste money?

Hey dicekeyrollz,

in order to get your hands evaluated, you have to post it into our sample hands forum. The professional handjudges of PokerStrategy.com are happy to help you there.

For the future I would also like to ask you to give your threads an informative headline so our judges know what to expect. You should probably have a look at this this sticky, it contains all the information on how to post a sample hand.

I moved this thread into the No Limit BSS Bronze Forum for you.

Regards,
Timo

I would bet flop. Board is not that drawy, but it's limped pot and they could limp with hell knows what. But still, MP1 is shortstack, so I can't see way to avoid stacking him off at some point. 45 is basically the only hand on turn that beats you, but his range is a lot wider. And don't forget you have more callers. River ofc is clear bet and I would even bet more - if UTG2 has some stuff he wants to call with, let him do that costly.

Bet flop, at least 2/3. You want the ace holders to call you here.
Raising turn is good, solid. His call should have you questioning his range though.
River card is your money maker but you have to be careful. I would have made a bigger river bet here myself to get paid off, and fold to any decent raise.

edit; my bad...call any raise/ai. neglected to see how much he would have after your bet
NH

You guys have been suggesting betting, which in all its entirety I understand the logic of, but I reckoned that with none of them betting, and none of them really slowplayers, I wanted to give them a card to catch up instead of fold against my flop bet.

seriously: which card?

Oh yeah, sorry for not mentioning that. It seems you guys were recommending me to bet the flop to coax some value from the one who hit an Ace, but I didn't believe at that time that anybody had an Ace, so betting there would just get everybody to fold, was my logic.

And what's wrong with that? Seriously, take the pot on the flop if possible. By checking this, you let villain catch his straight, and were lucky to boat up on the end. Could have cost you a lot of money on the river otherwise.

Its far better to take a small pot on the flop than lose a big one on the river.

The two last points, that I let him catch my straight, and was lucky to catch my boat, are true and valid. However, there are a lot of other hands that villain could call with on the turn should a favorable card (which still loses to me) comes. Ergo, give a free card and let them hit two pair, or a pair of kings and conceal the strength of my hand. 45 is one hand out of a thousand in his range in this limped pot. But, given that, I would've proceeded with more caution had the boat not come.

You can't assume:

1) Villians will always bet if they have an ace. It's pretty standard to check some mid ace on such a dry board multiway.

2) Villians will always fold worse made hands than Ax if you bet.

If villian is too weak to call the flop, there are very few turn cards that can change the situation. It's really hard to turn two pair here without also having Ax. So to catch up, it will mainly be if they have like 22, and the turn is a 2. However, this event is very rare. Imo - the value gained from letting them catch up is, on average, far less than the value lost from not betting.

As played, you should be raising/betting larger on the turn and river.

Hi,

Originally posted by johnbeattie85
You can't assume:

1) Villians will always bet if they have an ace. It's pretty standard to check some mid ace on such a dry board multiway.

2) Villians will always fold worse made hands than Ax if you bet.

If villian is too weak to call the flop, there are very few turn cards that can change the situation. It's really hard to turn two pair here without also having Ax. So to catch up, it will mainly be if they have like 22, and the turn is a 2. However, this event is very rare. Imo - the value gained from letting them catch up is, on average, far less than the value lost from not betting.

As played, you should be raising/betting larger on the turn and river.

This.

At microstakes the biggest mistakes people are making is calling too much and not valuebetting enough. When you decide to slowplay a monster hand you don't take advantage of the first mistake made by your opponents, and you make the second mistake yourself. The "just bet your strong hands and hope somebody has something he can call with" approach is usually far more effective, especially on boards where it's hard for people to improve on the turn anyway.

If some fish has Ax he'll call you down for 3 streets or even raise somewhere and you'll get a stack, which is a lot better than letting someone catch a K or something on the turn, that he may or may not even check/call one street with given that the A is on board.

Hope it helps.

Personally i like to slowplay trips like you did on dry boards. If it's a board with 2 cards of the same suit or like 9-10 or A-K-J or something like that i think it's better to bet out and make sure they don't complete their draw.

If they don't hold an ace they will usualy instantly fold. However if for example a king comes on the turn. They might think "hey, no one probably has an Ace because they all checked so my pair of kings is probably good" So then you would actualy get paid off alot more..

I'd have played it the same way you did.

edit: didn't realise the thread was old. I saw it from a link from another forum so i didn't see the date.