This is a very thin river shove to begin with. It’s not that Villain is all that likely to hold better, but it’s also hard to see him paying off with worse. My hand looks very strong here and could easily be a full house. Still, people do talk themselves into bad calls (both players were on the loose side, especially CO).
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $50.00 BB (8 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
UTG+1 ($2341)
MP1 ($11912)
Hero (MP2) ($4203)
CO ($2009)
Button ($565)
SB ($2491)
BB ($1000)
UTG ($2797)
Preflop: Hero is MP2 with A
, 8
2 folds, MP1 bets $100, Hero raises to $250, CO calls $250, Button calls $250, 2 folds, MP1 calls $150
Flop: ($1075) 8
, 8
, K (4 players)
MP1 checks, Hero checks, CO checks, Button checks
Turn: ($1075) J (4 players)
MP1 checks, Hero bets $666, CO calls $666, 1 fold, MP1 calls $666
River: ($3073) 10 (3 players)
MP1 checks, Hero bets $3287 (All-In), 1 fold, MP1 calls $3287
Total pot: $9647 | Rake: $3
Results:
MP1 had 7, 9 (straight, Jack high).
Hero had A, 8 (three of a kind, eights).
Outcome: MP1 won $9644
What makes this funny is that my internet wigged out after I shoved, after Villain activated his time bank, but before he called. I didn’t realize immediately what had happened, and on the client side his timer continued to count down. I figured that if he had to think this long about it I was good. It was only when his time bank hit zero but his hand wasn’t folded that I realized there was a problem with my connection. I reconnected to find myself short $3000. 🙁
Andrew,
Can you help me understand why we dont bet the flop here? esp after
a. showing strength preflop and
b. looking at a flushy board with 3 other players still in the hand
Wouldnt we get some folds and some calls from weaker hands?
Thanks!
Andrew, can you discuss the pre-flop action a little more. I play beginner/micro stakes, where there is a ton of limping or min-raising with many callers. I’d love to understand the dynamics of this four way pot pre-flop. Did you raise based on your view of MP1, your position (your 2+2 article is great) or something else. It seems MP1 only min-raised, so your raise shows good strength. Are you ever just calling MP1?
If you slowrolled yourself, what is the correction? do you think if you had bet more on the turn, MP1 would have folded his draw? to an inexperience player like me, MP1’s play seems really loose.
Thanks for your time and thoughts.
The whole hand was played somewhat strangely because of specific table dynamics. The original raiser was extremely loose with his opens, he was something like 32/26 (at a full ring table, mind you) with a 75% attempt to steal. So A8s is well ahead of his range. Ordinarily I’d call with this hand; it plays well post-flop, but can’t stand a 4-bet.
There are a few reasons I didn’t do that here. First, this guy also called 3-bets pretty light, so I felt like I’d be ahead of his calling range and could isolate him with the 3-bet. Also, there were a couple of short stacks behind me who would probably shove an annoying range if I flat called. That is, they’d be wide enough that I’d often fold the best hand, but not quite so wide that I could call with A8s.
The cold-calls surprised me. Given the stack sizes of the players who called behind me, I thought one of them was very likely to bet or shove the flop if it checked to them. This vastly improves my relative position. Betting into three people on the flop shows huge strength, whereas I can hopefully represent a total whiff, get someone behind me to shove a much wider range, and ideally have one of the other players call or re-raise before the action is back on me.
When I say I slowrolled myself, I just mean that I tricked myself into believing I had the best hand based on how long it seemed Villain was taking to call. It has nothing to do with a mistake in the hand.
That said, the river decision is quite close, and a check may be correct. The results of this hand don’t necessarily speak to that one way or the other.
thanks again for taking the time to educate me.
Fantasic response, very helpful.
i think the flop check is good if players aren’t gonna call off muliple barrels with kjs,kq. But I would imagine he’s checking the flop here to balance his range in this spot, since he probably would want to do the same with 99-QQ…so when he c/c this flop against one of the looser players, they (theoretically) won’t be able to mercilessly barrel his fasceup range.