Ok, did I mess up here or was the other dude's play just bad? I'm to the right of the button. UTG doubles the blinds (he has about 20% more chips than I do). I call with BB also calls. The flop is . There is a little more than 6bb in the pot. Its checked to me and I bet 4bb, figuering they have crap and I want to get a caller so I don't bet too much. They both call. Turn comes , checked to me again, I bet a little more than the pot, not wanting to give a straight draw odds to call. BB folds, UTG raises almost tripple my bet, I go all in, he calls and shows . He rivers a Q to take my $. Did I play it wrong?

Since he didnt have JT, I guess you did ok, your bet on the flop was big enough.


The turn play is questionable, since you could have been badly beaten when all the money went in, drawing to 4 outs.

I dont really understand what straight draw you were worried about on the turn- the most likely straight was made at that point.

Pre-flop, I don't think I would want 98s against an early raise and only one other caller.

Originally Posted by Beavis68

I dont really understand what straight draw you were worried about on the turn- the most likely straight was made at that point.

Pre-flop, I don't think I would want 98s against an early raise and only one other caller.

Yeah I guess I was thinking he could have AJ or KT or something. In my home game its very important to see flops and usually there are lots of callers to a preflop minimum raise. When the blinds are 5/10 cents and there is 35 cents in the pot and I'm 90% sure at least one of the other people are going to call, I'll throw in 20 cents with the implied pot gonna be 55 cents with a hugh suited connector. Remember its only 6 way action so the guy who raised probably doesn't have a great hand.

I'm not so certain that the BB's call on the flop was an error, depending on what hand he thought you were holding.

If the BB has QJ, the flop is 9 8 3, AND he thinks you only have made a pair, then I think that he had the pot odds to call your bet.

On the flop, the pot had 6.5 bets. If he thinks that you have only a pair (w/ a hand like A9s, e.g.), then he has 10 outs to improve over you: 3 Qs, 3 JavaScript, and 4 Ts. With 10 outs and two cards to come, the pot only has to lay him 1.6 to 1 odds to make his call proper. When you made it 4 bets to call, that made the pot at least 10.5 bets, more than enough to give him the proper odds. If the BB thinks that the UTG is going to call, too, then he probably figured that the pot would have 14.5 bets, again laying him large enough odds to make the call for only 4 bets.

When the turn comes and the Q falls, the BB probably figured that he had made his hand, and he bet it accordingly. I don't think that either of you were going to get away from the pot at that point.

Yeah that makes sense. But would you call an all in from a tight player who's shown aggession the whole way with top pair J kicker? I don't think I would. If the situation was reversed and I had QJ I'd know I was behind when they moved in on me and that I needed a Q or 10 to win, giving me 6 outs or 7.3-1 against me winning. The pot was about $6 and I raised all in another $2.50 or so. I don't know, obviously he didn't think I had more than a pair. But the way I look at it, JT, Q9s, Q8s, KQ or AQ as well as 33 88 and 99 are all reasonable hands for me to have at that point and they all kick his hand around. There is a lot in the pot but not enough to make calling the all in +EV. Maybe I'm just bitter cause I know I'm a better player than this guy and the only pot he won off me all night was the biggest.

I hear what you're saying. This is just a tough hand all around.

I guess you put him on top pair after the turn, and that's not unreasonable (and turned out to be correct). However, you did sort of dodge a bullet because he very easily could have been playing JT, have made the nut straight, and left you drawing to 4 outs with one card to come.

But you made a great read and bet your hand hard. Even so, the outcome of the hand was not all that wild. As things stood after you re-raised the turn, you were a solid favorite to win the hand, but the odds were still less than 3 to 1 that your two-pair would hold up against the 9 outs that he still had. Since it cost your opponent only $2.50 more to call a pot that now stood at $8.50, he actually had the correct odds.

The truth of the matter is that your opponent almost certainly did not analyze where he stood all that deeply. The more likely explanation for his call is that he was pot and/or stack committed and was determined to see this hand through. His call and his thinking were wrong, but he got away with it. And, as we all know, that's what really hurts.

In retrospect, only two things may have changed the final outcome here. One is if you had overbet the flop, making it way too expensive for anyone on a draw to continue playing. But I don't think many of us would have gone that route. Top two-pair on a rainbow board is a pretty strong hand, and you were certainly correct to bet enough that overcame most pot odds, but still encouraged some marginal calls.

The only other thing that might have helped is if you had had more money on the table. If you had had $20 in your stack instead of $2.50 when you went all-in, he probably would have acquiesced. But it sounds like in the game that you were playing, no one had this kind of money on the table.

All in all, you played it pretty well, and your opponent just got lucky when the last card was dealt.

Thanks for the insight. I did have him on a queen when he raised me. I usually read this guy well, he's not a great player. You're right about the money too. We all buy in for $5 and the rule is you cant rebuy until you have 0 so the only way you get up there in chips is to win them. We usually play with blinds a little lower. We'll give everyone $1000 in chips for each buy in and make the blinds $5 and $10, or 1/2 the size of last night. We try to change up the format sometimes to prevent ruts. So yeah it sucked but as I posted in the glory corner, I made back my $5 and them some and finished the night with $18 for an $8 profit. Flopping nut flushes is wonderful