I figure I would usually fold here on the turn, but in this case I was slightly steaming from losing to an awful play from someone on my Gaming Club table who lucked out on the river, and from having been drawn out on several times in the evening. I finished the session about $150 down, my biggest loss in a little while.
Anyways, $200PLO. I have a stack of about 240, the opponent has me covered by a fairly long shot. I have some weak AA hand (AA56 no suits or something) and limp from EP. There are two callers with position on me, SB completes and the BB checks.
Flop brings A[h] 8[h] 4[h]
Both blinds check. I always bet pot in this spot because it makes it hard for non-nut flushes to call, and if anyone wants to chase a boat my top set has them beaten. Fairly easy bet in most situations with only two players to act.
MP limper folds, and the LP player min-raises me, $9.50 on top of the $9.50 I bet out. Well, this is a conundrum. Background on this player is that she's been very aggressive so far, but I've not seen her before and there's not been a lot of showdowns so I dont have a great read. She's been see-sawing quite dramatically, money-wise, has been down as low as $200-odd bu currently has about 500. She's won a lot of pots uncontested with aggression, but what little I have seen of her I get the feeling she may be a little loose or fishy, but it's very hard to put her on a hand here, unlike the usual Stars punters.
Now, on a flop like this I sometimes make that small raise (though generally maybe 1/2 pot or so) with a hand like the 2nd or 3rd nut flush, just to get some more info on my opponent's hand, on a relatively passive table (I only expect to get re-raised by a nut flush), knowing I can lay down to a deep reach without much hassle but I can carry on aggressing on the turn if they start to play passively. I would also very occasionally do it with the nut flush as a change of scene against a passive (but good) player, or against a total action-obsessed maniac who may re-raise against a player showing weakness. Now, I basically didn't really know what the opponent had here to make that small raise. I had a half consideration to make a full pot re-raise back, and I might do so against someone I knew to be tight enough to throw away a non-nut flush and not pay me off if I hit a boat (especially if it put me all in), but I wasn't sure just how loose this player was; I had an inkling she might fish along with a weak flush, which I didnt want.
So, I merely called the min re-raise. Everybody else folds. There's now about $45-50 in the pot. I know if I miss the turn and check she'll probably bet the pot, but I may get paid off if I hit because I also have a feeling she's rather loose, and may even bet if checked to.
Alas, the turn misses with a low blank. I check and as I feared a pot bet comes my way. So it's $45 to me. Hard to know what to do here, on the one hand I might force a fold with a massive over-the-top move, and still likely have 10 outs to win even if called, but on the other hand, despite the wierd flop raise, I am not 100% sure she doesn't have the nut flush and was milking me. In retrospect the pattern of betting looks like something other than the nut flush. At the time, the thought I had was that I had 20-25% chance of winning the hand (depending on her hand), probably a bit nearer 25%. I thought she would pay off a bet on the river if i hit my boat, no real evidence to back that up but she was pretty loose IMO, and a 1/2 pot bet or something might just be too tempting. There was always the tiniest chance I could capture her stack if I hit. I am putting in a third of the chips in the pot and stand to probably win a little less than a quarter of them. So I had to make up the rest from implied odds - the pot is going to be about $140, I'll have called just over $45 of that so I need the final pot to be somewhere in the $200 range (not including my river bet) to have odds to make the call. That means I needed her to call something like $60 or $70 on the river if I hit the boat (about 1/2 pot).
But then, i wouldn't know how much to bet, being out of position. I could make a milking bet of $30 or so just to ensure a call, but then I wouldn't really have odds to play. I could push in 1/2 pot, which has no guarantee of being called, so she'd need to call 100% of the time with a flush if I make the call for it to be +ve EV. I could bet the full pot, and I wouldn't need her to always call for it to be +ve EV to call the turn but, will I really get called if I catch the river and bet most of my stack, especially if I'm right and she has a non-nut flush?
Well, they're all intangibles I guess. My read was not good enough to know for sure how it'd go down if I hit. I also didn't know enough to be able to suggest I could run a bluff if I missed, but that would be highly risky since I'd have to bet the full pot and would need it to work over 50% of the time (unlikely).
Anyways, I called the bet (would I have folded if I wasn't slightly annoyed at my earlier bad luck?) and the river missed. We both checked and she showed
8[d] 9[d] 4[s] 4[c]
to win with the 9 high flush and bottom set. Played oddly, but sometimes these unusual players do such things.
So what could I have done differently?
Calling preflop looks fine to me. The table was not super-tight so I figured if I raised my AA hand I would get several callers in position and basically be looking for an ace on the flop, so even though as it turns out I'd likely have won had I raised preflop, I generally don't like doing so out of position with a relatively weak AA hand.
My bet on the flop is pretty automatic IMO. I can't call a bet if someone leads a weak flush, but they may all fold weaker flushes to a bet, and I have odds to continue if someone mis-plays a big flush by just calling me or making a small raise.
Calling the minimum raise seems fairly easy too. I get two streets to squeeze out more money if i catch on the turn, and I might get a free ride to the river anyhow if I'm lucky. I hit on the turn about one time in 6 or so and the pot is paying me 4:1 odds so I barely need any extra money (another 10 or $20) on later streets if I hit to make it payable. I'd probably call anything up to about a $15 raise on the flop here, more if the stacks are deeper and the opponent is very bad.
Could I have made another re-raise here? Perhaps. Normally against a bad calling station you would just take the cheap turn and hope to win big later on, but against a solid player (like me) who sometimes makes that small bet with a non-nut hand and would be prepared to lay it down, making the re-raise would make good financial sense. Even if I get called, I can maybe force a win on the turn with a big bet. Some PLO players do odd things. It would be much nicer in position though, here I'd have much more idea what she had after the flop. I'm just not sure in myself whether this play could've worked, or whether I'd just be throwing good money into a very marginal spot, which i hate doing usually. My intuition tells me that it might have been a nice and very astute play here, but my mental state at the time was not willing to risk such a white-knuckle manoeuvre.
On the turn, should I have called? If my intuition was right and she would pay off a decent sized river bet, then yes I probably should have. Given that my read was only based on her aggression, though, and a general impression, perhaps I should have folded. After the hand I certainly felt I should have, and my impression at the time was that I'd played well until the turn but really given it away here. I had not taken into account that she might have some of my outs covered, I simply thought she had some sort of medium-high flush, or quite possibly the nuts.
On the turn, might I have lead out? I suspect that may very well have been called, given her hand, but if she had a non-nut flush, perhaps I should've. I can think of at least two decent reasons for doing so, but was the fold equity there, that's the big question? In my mind I considered it but in the end I decided to check and hope she'd offer tasty odds by betting less than the pot, although I thought a pot bet was the most likely outcome.
Could I even have made some sort of blocking bet? I hate this in PLO, but if she had a non-nut flush I am being very obstinate and she could easily give me a free ride to the river if I bet out $20 or so. I never really considered this possibility at the time because I hate such moves in PLO (I find them so easy to read in my opponents and always just pop them back if I have a made hand or even a large draw) and because I had no guarantee I wasn't just feeding her big flush AND probably costing myself any chance to look at the river. Maybe it might've worked against this opponent though, and might just have been a good way to get away from the hand cheaply or perhaps get a cheap river and a potentially large pot. Maybe I'll try this next time, although it still goes against just about everything I believe about this game.
Another element of the hand is that IF I hit the river and take down a big pot, I would have somewhere in the $350-400 region, minimum, giving me a nice big stack to attack the opponent in this hand (who had about $500-odd at the begininning) and slight opportunity for making a huge score down the line. And how much did I lose in EV terms by making that turn call? I suspect the answer is probably a bit less than $10 on the $45 call. Could the stack-building opportunity be another reason to swing the hand towards calling, or is it merely an excuse that holds little water?
Anyhow, a fascinating situation. I suspect the ABC answer (and probably, in all honesty, the best answer) is to play it how I did to the turn then check-folded to a bet bigger than $30. Just wondered if anyone else had any opinions about this, and also to let you in a little way into my thought processes after and during this hand.
Somewhat irritatingly, this was only one of two relatively large ($150+) pots I played last night, I lost the other two after attempting to check-raise on the flop with a wheel and nut flush draw, the table of 6 or 7 callers at gaming club PLO$100 checked behind me, I caught my flush on the turn, decided to check again, and some goon in LP bet out for the pot. I raised him up a bit over 2/3 of the pot and he then cleverly decided to go over the top for his last $30 with a set of jacks. The annoying thing was that when he did that I put him on the second-nut flush and assumed there was a good chance he was drawing dead. When the board paired the river and the pot slid his way I was somewhat irate because he'd made that horrible last raise with a hand that he KNOWS is drawing to only 10 outs, and could easily have saved it if he missed or got the bet out of me on the river if he hit. I also lost a flopped nut flush on stars when someone chased me all the way with middle set and then checked it down when it hit the river (that's one way to use your implied odds...), and another medium-sized pot when I bet my top set all the way and lost to a rivered flush, who also decided that checking was the best way to maximise his advantage in the hand. Poker can be annoying sometimes, but there's nothing more annoying than losing several large pots to some very bad plays (btw, anyone who does play against me should note that I don't pay off obvious draws, so they really should stop bothering
)
Anyhow, thoughts gratefully received
sorry about the length again! After last night I am up only $100 after three sessions this month, but i do have some rebate due from GCP and empire, as well as the empire bonus, so i guess i cant complain too much.
Monk
xxxxx
