Empire 25PLO .1/.25 blinds. Regular table with some PF raises, $17 pot ave and 54% seeing the flop. If you read this to the end you will be in for a sweet, hilarious surprise.

I am in the SB with Ad 9d Qs Ts. MP1 and MP2 and MP3 limp. All tight passive. CO raises to 1.60 and button folds. I call, BB folds and other limpers call too. Pot: 8.25

Flop: Kh Jd 7c

I flopped the mother of all draws but in first position so I check (weak?) into the large field. MP 1 bets 7.85 (same stack as me) and my notes on him say that if he is betting he has something powerful. So it is folded to me and it is time to make a decision. No flush on board so I count up all my outs. I figure I have 12 outs to the straight and a possible back door flush draw. It is apparent to me he has a set, at least this is what I am thinking.

I go ahead and call and the turn is a 4s. So no flush draw at all and it is my straight draw against his set. I have 14 left to his 15. I remember reading FM's post about a play he made that he was gonna call an all in so you might as well bet it yourself and put pressure on him. So, I bet all in. He called with a set of Jacks but to my fortune a 9 hit the river.

I checked 2 dimes calculator and it said I was a 45% chance to win against his hand. So where did I go wrong in this hand and how would you have played it differently?

The surprise... On another table at the same time this guy raises pot in MP with TTT9, calls a limp raise from EP guy which is about 7 dollars more! BB calls and the pot is 27. Flop is T96 and EP reraiser bets enough to put them all in. MP calls with his set of Ts and starts to complain when he loses to a guy with KKQJ when his straight comes on the turn and then a flush on the river.

The fact that he first raised with this hand then called a huge limp reraise with it made me laugh my ass off for several minutes. But wait, there's more. He then tried to explain for the next 10 hands that he held TT99 and flopped top 2 sets. A few people at the table, including myself, all looked at the hand history and told this guy he had TTT9 and he wouldn't believe us. So he finally left after giving up trying to explain what he "really" held and saying we were all idiots.

Ok, fun is over, please review my hand.

I am glad I asked this question bc the same type of hand happened just now. The flop was KT3 rainbow and I hold AQJ8 so any 9, Q, J, or A makes my straight. This time we all limp so the pot is 1.75 and SB bets out. One caller and I call but the guy behind me raises pot. I figure him for a set so the EP bettor folds but MP calls. I go ahead and call 8.50 more and the turn brings the magical card. Both MP and I end up splitting while the raiser had a set of kings. Review is much needed so I can see if I made the right play. Thanks.

Anybody?

Well in your second hand I think the call is usually justified on loose tables. Even if the intermediate caller has a straight draw, some of your outs are likely to be live and you can't just automatically assume he has precisely the same draw and lay down, when he could easily have a hand like two pair and be drawing pretty dead. On the turn when you hit you should move all in. It does depend on how deep the stacks are though; if you or the other players are especially shallow it could change things somewhat.

On the first hand I think you make the error of going all in on the turn. The idea of moving all in FIRST if you are going to CALL an all-in is only really sensible if you either a) likely have fold equity of some sort (your opponent may fold) or b) you might just be ahead. If you had a big draw with, say, an overpair, it wouldn't be a bad play because your opponent might JUST be on a draw himself. Similarly, if you have a massive wrap and will call an all-in on the turn against a cautious opponent, you might elect to bet out on the off-chance he had a hand like 2 pair he would be willing to fold. In this spot I think he is almost certain to call if your notes said he was liable to be betting a strong hand (top two or a set) and thus your bet doesn't get you anywhere. However, in any spot where there is chance your opponent may fold OR that your hand might just be good, there is a very good argument for making the first move. If, in this case, I misunderstood you, and you thought there WAS some chance he had a weak hand (like 2 pair) he would be willing to fold, then your bet was a good one. That is the "make or break" variable on whether this decision would be correct or not.

In any case, on the turn you said you had 12 outs, and thus it's marginal (and indeed likely to be marginally -ve EV) to play it out so you should have checked and hoped that he underbet the pot to give you odds to continue. With 12 outs and if we ASSUME none of them are in his hand (not necessarily the case at all!) you have 40 cards unseen. That means that you're somewhere in the 30% pot equity region. If you bet pot on the turn, you put in 33% of the chips (or so, give or take the rake depending on how the site figures it out) so unless you have some fold equity by betting first this is not a money-making proposition.

So in summary the two situations you could continue with this hand on the turn are:

a) If you bet out and have likely fold equity (i.e. your opponent is possibly gonna fold) which makes up extra pot equity for you and pushes you over the +ve EV margin.

b) If you check to your opponent and he makes the mistake of underbetting the pot, allowing you to call when you have correct pot odds (i.e. any bet of, say $10, would allow that as you're then putting in less than 1/3 of the money to win and you have a few bucks to bet on the river).

Hope this helps.

Monk
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