Great example of passive play costing big

I have little experience in small stakes NL cash games, so sometimes the donk-dynamics are a little hard for me to wrap my head around. That being said, here my take:
I like the pre-flop call. I hate to build big pots OOP without a big hand. Your hand has good flopping value and you’ll have to fold to a RR. On the flop with your hand, I’m definitely leading at it most of the time. I’m also going to have an image of leading at raised multi-way pots strongly with my big hands, because I believe it’s correct in most cases on drawy boards. I want to get out any bigger aces and random 7’s. I think lower flush draws will call. If I get raised I’m going to 3-bet large. You’ve always got at least 9 outs with this hand, and likely 12 or even 15.

If I do check it, with the way the action came down, I’d put in a big CR. The OR will almost surely fold, and the raiser hasn’t shown much with a raise that small other than trying to isolate against the OR who has shown weakness. What can he call with that he would raise with that small on this board? If he happens to call I’m betting big on the turn regardless, unless the flush card comes, in which case I might check about 20-30% of the time.

Blair

I agree 100%.. I hadnt played enough with the aggro player to know how he played.. I chickened out and it cost me the pot. Since then though there are a number of other aggro players like him and I have not made the same mistake. Just a couple of weeks ago I won a 1400 pot with 3 high..

So what happened was this. Aggro player who I had position on raised pre to like 4x or 5x. there were a number of players already calling and I flatted with 23 spades. yeah I know but I had position on the preflop raiser and like I said he is very aggro and if I flop big I could win a huge pot. well the flop came Q 4s 5s.. So I flopped an oesfd.. player lead into the preflop raiser for a small amount and the aggro player raised 100 on top. I have seen him do this alot with almost any two cards and so I just decided to represent the monster I had and shove for 600 on top.. a bozo with just the nut oesd calls off his stack for 500 and aggro and donk bettor both folded.. I asked the caller if he had a flush draw and he said no he had the straight draw .. well the turn came 10 and so did the river.. so I hesitated a second and the bozo mucked his 6 high which would have played.. I win the pot turning over my 23.. lol..These are the types of player I play against in LA.. he CALLED off with the flush draw out there with just 65 os. My generally tight image won me that pot..

now this doesnt happen too often but tonight I did something similar when I had only 300 and I called a raise with KQ of hearts and on the J high board with two hearts against a small flop bet and like 4 callers I shoved and won the pot on the river against the same aggro player from the above hand when I hit a K on the river..

I think this is so important to your meta game so that I dont have a NIT tag.. I play with a bunch of NITs and I just dont give them any action.. that is unless I generally have a pair and can flop a set against them..

So when I play with these guys they just never know if I have the nuts or on a big draw.. I will win my fair share and thats just fine with me.

thanks for the feedback Blair!

h

I think my basic point is that playing draws OOP in NLH just sucks. And when it's multiway, the difficulty gets compounded.

So if I decide to do it, I do it the "wrong" way. Because if I play a draw OOP, and I'm playing it like I'm playing a draw, I'm toast. It just doesn't work!!

I think this is fine at limit, if you're not facing a re-raise PF. But at NLH, it's just not a plan. Just MO.

What I'm trying to say is that you got yourself into difficulty. After you get into these spots, it's incredibly hard to play your way out, so just avoid them.

I think this is our fundamental disagreement. In my opinion, emphatically, it is NOT a great hand to play OOP, at no limit.

Blair,

Are there any draws you would check call with on this board? Are there any hands that you would check call with?

Thanks,
Wagon

I'm not sure how my entire range looks here, but I think I want to be check calling with some midpair hands like 77 - JJ. Some of those hands will be calling once and folding and some will be calling twice and folding the river. I want to have some big hands in my range, so that villain isn't profitable 3-barreling every time I check call. Good draws give lots of cards that hit my range and protect the weaker parts of it.