When capping can cost you a pot

[piersmajestyk]

I played this hand against a guy that I had beaten up pretty bad a couple of times with an overpair and top pair top kicker so I had to think he had a little respect for my play. I three bet with 77 because the table wasn't likely to call behind me making a mulitway pot and I wanted to take charge of the hand and try to get it heads up with my middle pair. Well I got it heads up but he 4 bets me. When someone four bets at this level it MOST of the time means BIG POCKET PAIR so I knew I would need some help. If he would have only called my three bet and bet into me on the flop I would have folded fearing that I was facing an ace big kicker but with the cap I knew that he either had AAA or he didn't have an ace at all. With 10.5 bets in the pot I chose to raise his flop bet and find out and he quietly mucked his hand which I am positive had me beat. This is one reason among many that I will just call a three bet of my raise when I hold a big overpair as by capping you may as well flip your cards up on the table to the astute player. The extra bet lost from the lack of a preflop cap is usually easily made up for by having played the hand more deceptively post flop.

Game #862294354: Texas Hold'em Limit ($1/$2) - 2005/09/10 - 19:24:36 (GMT)
Table "Monarchos" Seat 9 is the button.
Seat 1: Eggnoodle ($19.12 in chips)
Seat 2: VeNSe ($9.50 in chips)
Seat 3: NORTE ($160.83 in chips)
Seat 4: Necro99 ($95 in chips)
Seat 5: hackermik ($49 in chips)
Seat 6: pavlov ($49 in chips)
Seat 7: majestyk4 ($60.75 in chips)
Seat 8: pokerowl ($32 in chips)
Seat 9: JavaDuke ($73.25 in chips)
Seat 10: FakeBoobs ($48 in chips)
FakeBoobs: posts small blind $0.50
Eggnoodle: posts big blind $1
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to majestyk4 [7h 7d]
VeNSe: folds
NORTE: folds
Necro99: folds
hackermik: folds
pavlov: raises $2
majestyk4: raises $3
pokerowl: folds
JavaDuke: folds
FakeBoobs: folds
Eggnoodle: folds
pavlov: raises $2
majestyk4: calls $1
----- FLOP ----- [5h Ac 9h]
pavlov: bets $1
majestyk4: raises $2
pavlov: folds
Returned uncalled bets $1 to majestyk4
majestyk4: doesn't show hand
majestyk4 collected $11 from Main pot

[Kuso]

thanks for analysis, piers. the kind of info you're talking about is very subtle (at least to me) but very valuable.

[MecosKing]

[piersmajestyk]

When it is not going to be HU I usually just go ahead and cap it off as you might not get the chance to extract from those others players after the flop. I am not a huge fan of capping with AK in a multiway pot because more often than not alot of your outs are sitting in the hands of other folks.

[EscapePlan9]

[Xaston]