AJ suited UTG

TwoShedsJackson

Here's a hand I played on Partypoker this morning, it was the first playable hand I'd seen in 40 or so, I had seen MP1 make some loose plays, and bluff at a pot or two. I've run this through bisonbison's hand converter from the twoplustwo forums.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (10 handed)

UTG+2 ($89.46)
MP1 ($31.67)
MP2 ($37.85)
MP3 ($52.34)
CO ($8)
Button ($3.25)
SB ($7.50)
BB ($25)
Hero ($25)
UTG+1 ($10.75)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with J clubs, A clubs. CO posts a blind of $0.75.
Hero calls $0.50, UTG+1 folds, UTG+2 folds, MP1 calls $0.50, MP2 folds, MP3 raises to $3, CO (poster) calls $2.50, Button folds, SB folds, BB folds, Hero calls $2.50, MP1 calls $2.50.

Flop: ($13) 5 of clubs, 9 of spades, 2 of clubs(4 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets $5, MP3 folds, CO folds, Hero calls $5.

Turn: ($23) J of hearts(2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets $17, Hero calls $17 (All-In).

River: ($57) A of spades (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $57

I'll post the result later if there's any interest, anyone care to comment or work out what MP1 was holding?

gerire

A, 9. Hits top pair on flop and bets out trying to end it there, J on turn biger bet as only has 2nd pair. River He thinks he is in the clear.

But given this has the sound of a bad beat to it he was playing with 3,4

Krusty_Clown

34o.

DapperGent

Pocket twos or fives for a flopped set perhaps.

If I saw him as a loose player I would probably have called the same bets. The crux of the hand is the $17 bet on the turn.

Is he betting that big because he was a great hand and wants to close it down there or because he's bluffing a reasonably good pot?

It's difficult to see him holding an over pair in the pocket to the jacks given his preflop play. He might have flat called from where he was with AA, KK or QQ but you've have to see him re-raising when it came his turn to call the $2.50 preflop. You'd hope anyway.

Holding 55 looks fairly consistent with his play. He might have scared me away with the monster bet on the turn but top pair and flush draw looks awful nice. Interesting hand.

Hyzepher

I would guess KJ/QJ etc

Hyzepher

Hectorjelly

I would think your stack isnt big enough to make playing AJs out of position to a preflop raiser profitable. You are not going to hit a flush draw enough times to make up for calling 1/10 of your stack of pre flop, and AJ is a pretty crap hand. It is almost impossible to get away from the hand if an A hits when your that short stacked.

Its hard to tell what your opponent has without knowing him, but since its posted here Id guess 34s.

CoD

K, 9 clubs
?

Juan Pablo

3c4c?

TwoShedsJackson

Hectorjelly wrote:

I would think your stack isnt big enough to make playing AJs out of position to a preflop raiser profitable. You are not going to hit a flush draw enough times to make up for calling 1/10 of your stack of pre flop, and AJ is a pretty crap hand. It is almost impossible to get away from the hand if an A hits when your that short stacked.

Its hard to tell what your opponent has without knowing him, but since its posted here Id guess 34s.

Actually the thought of the size of the raise compared to my stack didn't cross my mind here The fact that it was the first playable hand I'd seen in 40 or so (and I'm talking serious rubbish in the previous 40 hands, not just being overly-tight ) contributed to that.

Anyway he ended up turning over the pocket 2s for the set.

DapperGent

TwoShedsJackson wrote:

Anyway he ended up turning over the pocket 2s for the set.

Woohoo! Take that biznatches! I have teh reading skillz.

TwoShedsJackson

I was just about to edit my post to add that you win the grand prize of nowt whatsoever for guessing right, Dapper. Well done

DeVore

My thoughts are this:

He didnt raise preflop so he doesnt have a high pair imho. He might have 22 or 55 but more likely he has a drawing hand. He calls a raise so he must like his hand, marginal hands like J9 can be discounted, presuming decent play.

On the flop he comes out betting heavy indicating at a basic level that he likes the flop and doesnt want to see much more of this hand. I doubt he has tripped up or he would probably have slow played it on that flop.... theres bugger all for the other players so he's not going to get paid off if he bets now. On the other hand he might be trying to kill a club draw but it wouldnt be my first thought about his play.

Its more likely that he has A9 as this fits how he has bet reasonably well.

Obviously there are other possibilities like:
1. He's completely bluffing.
2. He has a huge over pair (say kings) and was just playing nuts preflop.
3. He has tripped up and decided he doesnt like the clubs.

If I had to make a stand and pick one hand, my gut tells me he has A9, K9 or J9 (quite likely given that he bets strong on the Jack on the turn, though that could be to kill the club draw entirely...).

DeV.

DapperGent

TwoShedsJackson wrote:

I was just about to edit my post to add that you win the grand prize of nowt whatsoever for guessing right, Dapper.

Sweet. I'll take it in fifties.

DeVore

note to self... do not press Reply button at 10am and then submit at 12am. Doh.

DeV.

DapperGent

Midnight?

DeVore

Quiet you!


DeV.

Samba

having read that, the first thing that came to my mind was trips, why? The $5 bet, think about it, who bets $5 on a hand like A9, K9, i would have put my cards down at that very bet, had it been 2 or 3, worth a call, the bet indicated very good strength in his hand after the flop, no pre raise.

You rarely see (bar the muppets and the crazy players) players betting $5 on a top pair, even with a two pair.(well at least in my experience i have not seen it much)

Unfortunately there was a flush draw on the board and his betting probably gave you the idea that he was trying to push you off drawing for the flush, very difficult situation but when in doubt....fold, I know it's hard especially when you are having a bad run of the cards, but you have to say to yourself, how many more hands are you going to play if you fold, whereas if you call your entire buy in is at risk

Hectorjelly

Samba wrote:

having read that, the first thing that came to my mind was trips, why? The $5 bet, think about it, who bets $5 on a hand like A9, K9, i would have put my cards down at that very bet, had it been 2 or 3, worth a call, the bet indicated very good strength in his hand after the flop, no pre raise.
You rarely see (bar the muppets and the crazy players) players betting $5 on a top pair, even with a two pair.(well at least in my experience i have not seen it much)

I dont play those stakes, but your surprised that he bet $5 into a pot of around $10? Thats a very weak bet. Betting 2 or 3$ into a pot of $10 is giving everybody correct odds to call even if all they have are overcards.

Samba wrote:

Unfortunately there was a flush draw on the board and his betting probably gave you the idea that he was trying to push you off drawing for the flush, very difficult situation but when in doubt....fold, I know it's hard especially when you are having a bad run of the cards, but you have to say to yourself, how many more hands are you going to play if you fold, whereas if you call your entire buy in is at risk

You absolutely cannot fold this hand now. If you call a raise preflop with AJ suited, you dont get many better flops than this. You have the nut flush draw, and two overcards. Which means that you are marginally ahead of all one pair hands (below J's) that dont contain an ace or a J.

You can either lead out or check raise all in. It doesnt make much difference in this case as your so short stacked. Calling is a bad idea as if you are raising you can add folding equity into your chance of winning.

Unfortunately in this case your against a set, but thats poker.

Hectorjelly

calling is also a bad idea as you can easily get pushed off you hand on the turn.

Samba

Well, i play the 25/50 tables on ladbrokes, not on Party poker, so I can only comment on what i've seen there, but yes $5 to me indicates a very strong hand or an attempt to push off the flush draw with AK, but then there was no raise, so AK can be scratched as few slow play it,


It's hard to know when to fold the good hands imo it is an essential thing to learn in Poker.

I'll give you an example that happened earlier today.

Dealt KK, I raise to 4 from 4 flat callers , two callers Flop comes Kc 6s 8d, so I am thinking magnifienct flop, couldn't have hoped for more but i didn't want to scare either of them off so I check, 1st caller checks, 2nd caller bets $3, both of us call, Turn brings 4h, i start thinking to myself time to put this one to bed, i bet 10, 1st caller calls, second caller raises $25. At this point I am thinking, what the hell has this guy got, did he hit trips? he couldn't have rags because he called the 4 preflop. So after much thought i folded, thankfully the other guy called(all in), river brings As, 1st caller mucks, 2nd caller shows 75s.......



The transition between the 1st bet and his last bet, while i was in the hand indicated strength, as in the case of Twosheds,While the size of his bet was not as considerable as my case, it still indicates that somthing is fishy, the A and the J didn't seem to bother him at all, yet no raise preflop? Alarm bells for me.


I suppose I play a quite a few hands in the day but my line of thinking would be play it safe, you'll see AJ again, not worth that amount of money(i have rules as to how much i will pay with certain hands and I stick to them, no matter how attractive the flop is)

In a Tourney, in that exact situation, I would have played it exactly as TwoshedsJackson Did, but in a Cash game there isn't the pressure of blinds increasing so less of a need to take risks.

Hectorjelly

Samba wrote:

It's hard to know when to fold the good hands imo it is an essential thing to learn in Poker.

I'll give you an example that happened earlier today.

Dealt KK, I raise to 4 from 4 flat callers , two callers Flop comes Kc 6s 8d, so I am thinking magnifienct flop, couldn't have hoped for more but i didn't want to scare either of them off so I check, 1st caller checks, 2nd caller bets $3, both of us call, Turn brings 4h, i start thinking to myself time to put this one to bed, i bet 10, 1st caller calls, second caller raises $25. At this point I am thinking, what the hell has this guy got, did he hit trips? he couldn't have rags because he called the 4 preflop. So after much thought i folded, thankfully the other guy called(all in), river brings As, 1st caller mucks, 2nd caller shows 75s.......

I suppose I play a quite a few hands in the day but my line of thinking would be play it safe, you'll see AJ again, not worth that amount of money(i have rules as to how much i will pay with certain hands and I stick to them, no matter how attractive the flop is)

In a Tourney, in that exact situation, I would have played it exactly as TwoshedsJackson Did, but in a Cash game there isn't the pressure of blinds increasing so less of a need to take risks.

On the turn you will win the hand 22.7% of the time, the pot was 81$ and you had to call 15$. You were getting pot odds to call this bet. If both you and your opponent has more money behind you then this call is even better, as my guess is that an average 25/50 player will not be able to get away from his straight once the board pairs.