2 questions on odds.
Today at the $1/$2 no limit at the Golden Nugget I had two troublesome hands (for me).
Hand 1 - An aggressive player to my right raises to $12 and I have two red Queens. I thought about raising to $25 but I know he will call regardless and I will be stuck if any overcards come out on the flop. I call and so do 2 others. $48 in the pot and the flop comes J74 with 2 hearts. He does a continuation bet of $20 and I raise to $50. Everyone else folds. I feel if he has missed the flop completely he will fold. He calls. The turn card comes a King of hearts and he checks. I have 4 to the flush and I bet $30, He calls. The river is a 3 of clubs. He checks. I check. He turns over AK with no hearts and wins. I say nice hand as he stacks the pot. Inside I'm wondering why did he call my re-raise with 2 overcards?
Hand 2 - I get my $200 original buy-in back up to $210 when villain 1 raises to $8 and one other player and I call. I have KJ clubs. (Royal flush in clubs pays $2000!) The flop comes Q,10, 9 rainbow no clubs. Original villain bets $15, villain 2 calls. I have the nuts. I raise to $45. Villain 1 calls and villain 2 folds. The turn pairs the board with the Q of clubs. No flush possibilities. I bet $30 and villain 1 goes all in. I show him my straight and go into the tank. He talks and talks and dares me to go all in. After 3 minutes of thinking I call and he shows Q 10 for a full house. Nice hand I say as he rakes in all of my chips. BURNED BY THE TURN CARD AGAIN! Not my day as I pick up and leave.
I know that in hand 1 I raised enough after the flop that the villain should not have called. But what about in hand 2 when I raised to $45? Did he have the right amount of outs (4) to call that bet?
Comments
Sorry for suffering those two beats. Not fun in same session especially!
Hand 1 - Interesting because your flatting instead of 3-betting pre-flop likely saved you some money as the AK was not going away and likely would have called. Challenge is whether, given his full range not what he actually had, is flatting the best strategy especially as you may want to run the players behind out whose calls then reduced your equity as well. I do think though raising to $25 does not achieve much. Even assuming everyone else folds, he has to call $13 into a pot of $40 (including blinds without taking the rake into consideration for a moment). So he is getting 3 to 1 on a call. Most aggressive players are not going anywhere even with the lower range of their holdings like suited connectors. So if you did 3-bet I'd put it more in the $35 range so you are only giving him more like 2 to 1 odds for a call.
I guess the question is whether he is a good, tight aggressive player or a wilder loose aggressive player as to what his call on your flop raise is all about. Sure maybe he should have folded when he calls $30 into a pot of $114 (taking out a few dollars for rake) so he is getting less than 4 to 1 and he is only getting 7 to 1 to hit his turn as he has to assuming you are jamming if no K or A comes out. Still with an aggressive player, especially if he is loose and more the type to just think "I have 2 overs and I'm getting almost 4 to 1 on call and I am 3 to 1 to get there by the river" is going to be tempted to call. I think your raise for the full range of aggressive players is small if what you want is a fold or at least getting even more profitable calls. Seems like your raise amount is based on his bet (2.5x) rather than on the full size of the pot. Raising $30 into a pot of $84 (counting your $20 call amount excluding rake) is on the small side. I would like to have seen you you go $70-$80 on this flop and put more pressure on you.
Hand 2 - I think the key is when you say did he have the right amount of outs to call is that he only needs outs if you have exactly what you have (or potentially a set although less likely given what he holds). He doesn't know you have a made straight and he needs to hit one of 4 outs. If he did, then your raise of $30 into a pot of about $52 ($15+$15+$24 preflop and perhaps blinds and minus the rake) would mean he should fold as he is not getting the odds even if he sees two cards. But he does not know you are made. You could have A-Q (another hand you would raise with potentially) and he is ahead. He's sitting with Top 2 on a rainbow board. But you don't mind that call at all. You got unlucky this time, but this scenario is incredibly profitable for you in the long run.
As an aside, when you flipped open your hand, what were you hoping to achieve? Getting him to talk I imagine. Looking back, do you think his talk hurt you as you interpreted it as his faking strong? I only say this as I had a player talk to me (without seeing my cards) in a similar way this past weekend when I went into the taking with AA and redraw to nut flush. I was probably calling him anyway because he was a bluffy aggressive player and he would have had to have strange hand that he called in the big blind with to my 3x pre-flop raise (although there were two callers before him so maybe he played any two cards). Turns out he indeed had that odd hand 5-8 off. And I did not suck out on river sadly.
Thanks for your comments. In hand 1 it would make sense to re-raise more after the flop but with my luck that day he would have still called and I would have lost more. After the hand he made a comment that he was leaving for his flight in 40 minutes and that is why he was overly aggressive.
In hand 2 the villain that took my money when he hit the full house was actually a friend of mine. So right before I called his all in I commented "I like you Eddy, here is a donation". And whoosh, the chips were his...
Tough to beat the "Gotta catch a ride/train/plane" player! They simply do not care and want to go out big one way or another. And the friend factor is another tough one.