1st scenario: An early position player raises to $18 with about $140 behind. I have Q/Q in late position. At least one player has called, I call, and two others call. The flop is J/x/x with two of a suit but unconnected, the jack is the highest card. The player shoves. I tank for a while pondering his hand range. What kind of a hand shoves here? AK is possible as well as A/J flopping top pair top kicker and not wanting any more action. The whole range of small pairs comes to mind, shoving to avoid the overcards. I finally call. A king hits the turn and I figure I am dead. He turns over A/A. Could I have avoided this by re-raising pre-flop then folding to a shove? Doubtful. I decided that it was just a cold deck kind of thing as only 2 hands were ahead of me pre-flop.
2nd Scenario: I have A/K in early position. I raise to $25. A player or two calls and the button re-raises to $75. I suspect larceny, but with only about $125 behind, I shove. The other players fold, he calls and the board runs out with small cards. He has Q/Q, and I am stacked again.
3rd Scenario: I have K/10 in the cutoff in a multi-way pot that has been raised by a very activmee player to my immediate left on the button. He has been very lucky and aggressive, straddling every opportunity and hitting a piece of every flop. The flop comes K/9/5. It is checked to me and I bet the pot, around $40. He calls, the other players fold. The turn card is a 6, I shove around $125, and he says, "sorry, I sucked out on you". He has 7/8 for the gutshot straight. I thought his call on the flop was horrible, particularly since there were other players who could possible be trapping with a better king. Very bad odds for a gutshot 4 outer.
Bonus Scenario: You have Q/3 diamonds (big blind) in an unraised board of X/x/4, 2 of your diamonds on the flop. An aggressive young player in the small blind bets $50. What do you do?
In this case, I shove around $125 and he calls. There is another 4 on the turn, I hit the ace of diamonds on the river. He has 4/6 for trip 4's and I stack him.
Overall, a very bad session for me, stuck $400. With a little luck either with my queens or against them it would have been a different story. The aggressive player rebought a couple of times, but probably only lost a hundred or two. My bad on seat choice as we both sat down at the same time but I chose first. I would have liked to have been downwind of his raises. I chose that seat based on sitting next to the aggressive kid as I didn't want him to be on the button vs. my big blind. He was stuck worse than me when I left due to some bad beats.
2 comments:
1st scenario: I don't think most people would play it any differently. Having said that, if you did re-raise (with only $140 behind) I would think you would be pot committed anyway and wouldn't fold to an all-in. It was just bad luck that he had one of the two larger pairs. Such is poker. I will get back to you later on the other two scenarios.
2nd scenario: AK is my personal nightmare hand. I probably would have tried to limp in and would have folded to any significant raise. I usually only shove with it when short in a tournament. n cash games, I rarely play it at all, let alone to raises. It simply hates me. Go figure. By the way, it's almost always a good fold for me.
3rd scenario: In this case you did nothing wrong. You were simply up against a bad player who got lucky. Welcome to poker LOL.
Bonus scenario: I would have played it exactly the same way. If your opponent has bigger diamonds so be it.
Better luck next time!!!
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