Great example of passive play costing big

I am at my normal 5/5 300-500 buy in local game .. I have managed to chip up to 1000 and there are a few players at the table that I think I can exploit. A new player comes from the must move and I have played a couple of times with him and he is very aggressvie. If he senses weakness he pounces and likes to make large value bets on the river and gets called because he will also throw in a big bluff every now and again. Its up to you to decide which one.

I am in the sb and a straightforward abc player raises to 20 from utg and 4 players call him. I see A2 hearts and although I am not thrilled with the hand I have to see a flop given the multiway pot. Flop comes

346 with two hearts. I have a gutshot and nut flush draw. I check .. I like checking in this spot because I have a big positional disadvantage and when drawing the the nuts on a coordinated board I like to see the turn cheaply. Well the goober who raised 20 pre bets only 10 bucks..lol.. really? Well naturally the agressive player pounces and raised to 65. now 65 is still only a little over half pot so its not a huge bet.. everyone folds to me and I elect to just call. Turn

5 spades. there are now two spades and two hearts.. I have the sucker end of the straight and am not happy.. Aggressive guy immediately bets 100... I have seen him bet on a 4 card straight board before with air so this isnt an immediate lay down. I call and he says "really?" .. River is the

J spades. I check again and now he bets 250 and says "I know you missed your flush draw" dammit .. I forgot that my overcall on the flop was rather obvious and now I am left with a big bet on the river with a pretty weak hand against a player who likes to make large value bets/bluffs.. Then he goes silent. Silent as a mouse.. he is normally very talkative and I am left with trying to find out if his talk was to get me to fold or to call.

I finally call and he says "flush" and flips over K4 spades. shit.. I had him and let him slip away. had I reraised his ass on the flop he couldnt possibly call. I had a big draw against a very aggressive player . I played it weakly because he had me covered and I had 200bbs and didnt want to get stacked. Instead it cost me 100bbs because he hit the river.

I need to continue to put pressure on my opponents when I have a big stack and had I reraised him on the flop to say 200 I am sure he would have folded. there is no way he could call that and although he is aggressive he is not an idiot and would have folded to my reraise with only a 4.. after I let him see the turn he was in it for the river..

Later when he bet big again on the river and went dead silent against another player I immediately thought he had a huge hand.. he was called there too and hit runner runner for a full house. I think I have a big tell on him now so if I played against him again I sure be able to read him alot better.. Just wish I learned my lesson a bit sooner..

Question to the forum: how deep do you and your opponent need to be to play softly on big draws? What might affect your play?



h

I don't hate your line. It's a tough hand to play OOP that deep, and you are getting a good price on the river to call.

I always thought when someone says something like, "I know you don't have anything" it was a tell they are really strong, though. I don't play enough live to know how reliable that is though.

The bigger tell with this guy was that he was so chatty and then went dead quiet.. he also took peeks glancing over at me but didnt stare. he also did not call the clock on me either.. another player did. I know I dont hate my line.. but against this guy he seemed to be more aggressive when taking the lead.. didnt check raise at all and would call with weak hands that had showdown.

I would like to play against him again..knowing this time a bit more information about him.. but I still think pushing would get him to fold pretty much everything except a flopped straight or a set..

I did manage to win 400 or so last night.. but it took me another 3.5 hours.. the bigger thing I need to do that I am still struggling with is leaving up when I have to wake up early the next day. I was up 500 and then in 20 pissed it away. today I am dead tired because I didnt want to leave..

h

Well, that's sort of the problem with being so deep. You raise, say to $200, if you get jammed on, then what? Your probably looking at calling $800 in a $500 pot. I don't have pokerstove in front of me, but you'll probably have odds to call. That said, you're not crazy about it, because as you said you're only getting it in against made straights and sets. If villain is very aggressive maybe some pair draws, but nothing you're thrilled with.

The downside of raising is you take a really strong draw and make it a bluff when you are getting a great price to call. Compare that to raising with 78, here. It's a much better pure bluff, because it plays so easy. You mostly pick up the pot, and when you don't it's an easy fold.

Ah2h gains value when you think your opponent will call the flop and fold the turn. If you get jammed on the turn, it could be another tough spot though.

A line I do like with these hands is calling the flop and check jamming the turn. That said, you might be a bit too deep to do it here. Also, you hit a much better hand. You beat bluffs and overpairs. It makes the fold equity you have much less valuable. Even if I called planned to check jam, I almost surely wouldn't do it on that card.

You have to remember that on the turn, villain was still drawing to 9 outs. Most of the time he misses, and if he is bluffing with some of those hands, your river call isn't bad. Also, you had good equity on your flop and turn calls.

You didn't have a big draw. You had a one card gutshot str8 draw to the stupid side. That's worse than worthless in a multiway pot.

You had a flush draw and an overcard OOP. That's an awful situation.

On suited aces PF, Chris Ferguson said it best, "I hate drawing to a draw."

In my opinion, your hand should've been raised or folded PF. Given the PF action, and the deep stacks, you should have led into the flop, at least 1/2 pot.

"When war does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson

Marcus

I dont feel betting into the field is a good idea. I can easily be raised on my nut draw and many players limp with worse flush draws and I will lose out on a big hit if I get raised out of this pot by leading into it. against the laggy guy I am not so upset with the sucker end of the straight because his range is so much bigger than a normal player.

that said given I did have a st and a flush draw I could have given his hand won the pot with a big check raise once no one else came along..

In general I dont like play oop but with so many players in the pot pre and with a suited ace I think it would be way way too tight to not call. I could have certainly saved money on this hand but on a meta game level I would be tagged as a NIT and never get any action on my good hands .. This is the situation I used to be in for years..

To get action you must give action and that is on occassion to get drawn out on too. I play looser when appropriate because I think I have better post flop play than most. I prefer to play in pos of the raiser but it was only 15 dollars more since I was in the blinds and I could win a big pot..

I know a few NITs in vegas and LA and I never I mean never give them action unless I have a pair and can flop a set against them or I have AA or KK.. I dont want to be this kind of player and I have to accept the occassional bad beat like this hand..

I now get alot more action, I value bet more and my big hands get paid off. in the last few months, I have had numerous 1k+ days , two 2k+ days and one 3.5k+ day.

h

Why would you let yourself be raised off? You don't like playing for big pots with nut draws? I'm confused.

Raising to thin the field would work if I thought it would actually thin the field. The guy who is very aggressive generally will play pots for stacks and might not fold unless the bet is very big. That said I could run into a hand where some other player could reraise me and now I have made a big raise oop and facing an all in .. just yesterday a bozo called my $110 bet when I squeezed with AK went all in on the flop for 200 more and he called having hit a 9 on the 779 board. he had 10 9 os.. LA is very different than almost anywhere else and these players just dont fold.. remember my squeeze with 9s to almost 300 and still got three players to call?

The check raise was after the aggressive player bet and only I was left. In that situation it was more likely that not that he was just stealing and with my straight and flush draw I should have been willing to play for stacks. He likes being the aggressor and if I took control and raised to let him know I wasnt going to fold and then shove on the turn I dont think he calls even when he hit the flush draw on the turn.

now if there were more than just he and I in the pot I would have played the hand pretty much the same for the flush draw as I want to draw to the nuts as cheaply as I can . The third player is also more likely than not also on a draw and with the board so wet I could easily have them dominated but I dont want them out of the pot if we both hit a flush.. or if they hit a straight and I hit the flush..

I dont think there is just one right way to play this.. I just think I have the most equity in playing it heads up against the aggressive player for stacks or more passively in a multi-way pot with the nut draw.

h

In your OP, you stated the PF raiser was UTG and still behind you when the aggy guy raised into you.

Again, the hand is so problematic that if I didn't feel comfortable playing it fast PF, I would just fold it. Just MO.

Marcus....the raise was small.. maybe 3x or 4x at most. with about 4 other players already in the pot do you generally fold getting better than 5 or 6:1 on your money? Playing multiway pots arent bad you just have to be more careful.. if you are a good player this should not be an issue.

I could have raised preflop but I would have been making a move and I just dont think it works often enough to make it profitable. My raise would have had to been more than $120 imho and quite honestly if I am called I am in deep shit unless I happen to get the flop I did. even with this flop I might still get called by someone with an ace and I would have eneded up chopping or worse they have the high straight draw with pocket 6s..

Ax suited is a great hand to get into a multiway pot even oop as long as it wasnt too expensive. After the aggro player bet on the flop and everyone else folded that was my spot to make a big raise now that it was heads up with all that dead money in the pot.

Raising to iso pre is a great play if it actually iso or steals the pot. Having experienced in many occassion players calling big raises $150+ at my local casino I just didnt think it would actually iso anything but rather leave me playing oop for a raised multiway pot ..

h