Miracle flop goes bad
I spent the last two nights playing 1/2 NL at the Golden Nugget. I think it's the best downtown poker room and that 1 AM daily $65 tournament means there's usually action to be had from 7 pm on. Last night it was pretty full up with 5 tables going, I think the imminient arrival of the WSOP is also helping.
Anyway, I was grinding along and doing all right, up a bit with no real hands, not a pocket pair higher than jacks, no flops going for me but trying to steal where I could, no major mistakes made. Doing what I can with what I got.
And then I was dealt a very pretty flop which, as so often is the case I suppose, ended up being quite the trap for me. I was in middle position with 9d10d, one of my favorite hands, and an aggressive sunglasses sporting player in late position bumped it up to $20. The only woman at our table, a cute girl here with her boyfriend who had only been playing about 20 mins, was in the big blind and called. I called as well.
The flop is 6c7d8c. BB pretty lady stares at it a bit too long and bets $50 right out, her biggest bet so far, and almost half her stack. I'm thinking she's gotta have an over pair like jacks or queens that she limped with.
I decide to not slow play my nut straight with the clubs on board, and bet $120, which I think should chase the aggressive late player out and then thinking pretty lady will have to call me since she's pot committed and I'm good.
Aggressive sunglasses goes into the tank though, oddly, and now I'm thinking he has the overpair that he just can't let go of. Odd that he would be so attached to a flop that I can't imagine him hitting with that preflop raise. Does he have aces? I could handle that.
I do my best Chris Ferguson impression and just sit there staring at the felt impassively. I don't want to say anything because I don't want to get too tricky and screw this up. I want action from this guy, he's not been playing that well tonight and I'm sure whatever "move" he makes will be the wrong one. He's got a much bigger stack than me, maybe $700 to my $300, so he might be thinking of trying to push me off.
And he does.
Stating "I don't think you've got anything, buddy," he goes all in. Pretty lady immediately calls, and yes she does have Queens, and I instacall and flip over my nut straight.
"Do you have aces?" I ask.
"No, 2c10c, flush and inside straight draw, I just didn't put you on anything, I thought you were making a move" he says.
Wow. Which is exactly what I wanted til after the the turn blank, a club does come on the river and his flush connects. Wham bam I'm done and decide to call it a night. I'd be tilting if I played further. If the guy had a higher flush draw I would have been cool with his play, or top pair, or even an over pair. But that was just a nasty call imo. Really bothered me. I know it's just gambling but we'd been playing together 2 hours and mostly avoiding each other and then he decides to drop the hammer on me with almost nothing.
Sometimes it's best not to get what you want in this game, I suppose.
Although this was definitely a tough beat, I can't agree that villain's play was a bad or stupid play. Looking at it from his perspective, your action probably looked like an overpair (99 to JJ), a set, or TPTK, with a decent chance you were semi-bluffing with a big flush draw or combo draw, or bluffing at villain's AK/AQ that missed the flop. You were playing solid, so villain probably thought you were capable of laying down a hand like TPTK or an overpair, and you weren't going to chase the naked draw for your stack. So, a push by villain likely gets you to lay down a decent portion of your range, and if you do have a set or 99, he has a decent number of outs against your call (up to 12 outs). He probably didn't see the nut straight as likely (your play disguised it pretty well, I'm guessing), but he actually has 9 outs to win and 2 more to a chop, which isn't terrible. Running numbers on cardplayer.com, villain is a 60-40 to 65-35 dog against most of the hands in your likely range, and he has some fold equity in the push, along with a pretty nice amount of cash in the pot already. So yeah, he made a bad read, but his hand was the kind that gave him a decent amount of insurance to bail him out of that situation.
That all being said, I think you played the hand right (too many players won't protect a flopped straight), got the call you wanted, and got unlucky. Poker sucks sometimes ...
Sunglasses guy wasn't that far behind when the money went in:
pokenum -h 9d td - 2c tc - qs qh -- 6c 7d 8c
Holdem Hi: 903 enumerated boards containing 8c 6c 7d
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Td 9d 481 53.27 357 39.53 65 7.20 0.568
Tc 2c 329 36.43 509 56.37 65 7.20 0.400
Qs Qh 28 3.10 871 96.46 4 0.44 0.032
I think it was Puggy that said something like poker is knowing which end of a 60:40 you are on, and getting your money in when you are the favorite. Good job getting the money in, no point in worrying too much about the outcome!
"He's got a much bigger stack than me, maybe $700 to my $300, so he might be thinking of trying to push me off. "
Did you have $300 behind after betting the $120? Or did that bet leave you with aprox $180?
Either way, I have to agree that the play by the villian isn't bad. With your solid image and re-raise, he is reasonable to put you on a made hand. So he thinks all his draws are good and he thinks he has some fold equity on JJ-AA.
My two cents is you both played the hand correctly.
I have to agree with most that said I can see how both guys played it correctly, based on their reads. You were in good shape, but got unlucky - he made a bad read, but got lucky
Where I would caution is your reference to this as a "Miracle Flop" Sorry, to my way of thinking, getting a made straight on the flop never qualifies as a "Miracle" especially when it is two-suited. A made straight is ALWAYS vulnerable to being drawn out on, either becasue your straight can be counterfeited by someone who draws to a higher straight, or having the board fill out a flush or boat. This is especially true because most opponents will rarely put you on a flopped straight, more likely thinking you have something like TP, overpair, or whatever.
A flopped straight is almost always going to be a big pot, and most times you'll walk away with a big pot, but it will also get run down enough that you have to learn to accept the high variance of the situation.
What position were you in before the flop? It looks like from your recap that you were first in the pot and limped, the late position player raised, there was a call from the bug blind and then you called.
Limping with your hand is OK, but I wonder if you had opened the pot for a raise instead of a call if the late position player would have folded. It looked to him like you were weak from your limp and his raise with 10,2s was mostly a bluff.
Thanks for the replies, I think you guys are probably right that the villain had a decent number of outs and just got lucky. I suppose I was frustrated because in that game betting $120 on top of someone else's $50 bet, especially over a young woman who presumeably is not tricky enough to be making a move, was a pretty big bet and seemed a clear sign that I had a biggie. I had $180 or 200 left so I'm not going to fold at that point. And then villain says No I'm going to try to make you lay down that big hand with my big reraise. I mean it felt like he wasn't observing what I was doing.
But I'm not going to overanalyze the hand any more. I think I did what I could and got outrun. Next hand.
Thanks for the input.
Haven't read the other replies yet...I don't think V's play is so bad at all. The range of hands he could reasonably put you on are likely hands he could expect to get you away from by having you covered and being aggressive. Isolating against cute chick for another $50 on his draw isn't too bad a spot to be in.
That was a suck out but you went to strong on your straight!
Huh? You mean he overplayed the nuts by calling an all-in? The only possible criticism is that the OP invested a little too much with a speculative hand OOP.
yea you cant go all in on a straight! 2 many hands are going to kick your butt, sorry I wouldn't do it.
Um ,depending on the skill of that guy, 2-10 suited on that board is not that bad if he puts you on a big pair. I think he was playing to get you off your hand and not even go to showdown. But anyways, sorry to hear the tough beat.
Tightpoker - if you don't play a nut straight very hard, I guess you don't play many big hands. You must be an extremely patient man. Personally I can't wait for royal flushes.
I have another hand that occurred a few days later that I thought I'd include here instead of starting a whole new thread, it's pretty quick.
I played this yesterday in the 2/5 NL cash games at the WSOP in the Rio. It was a very tight aggressive table with a lot of tough players. Average stack was about $1000 with two guys well above that. I sat down with $500 and limped in to a few hands, not hitting much, mostly just observing these guys. I picked up 9d8d on the button and limped in for $15 with 3 other players. The flop was 10d8c8s, which I very much liked. The first player to act thought he'd take down the pot nice and quick with a $40 bet.
As I was thinking of how much to raise him the player immediately to my right, the big stack at the table raised it to $75. That surprised me. I honestly had no idea what to think about that. He had a lot of chips so it was very possible he was making a move. After due consideration I called his bet with the hope of improvement in my hand in the form of a runner runner flush draw or straight possibilities.
The initial raiser mucked quickly and the turn was the Q of h. Big Stack looks at it for a lil bit and bets $200. It didn't take him very long to bet.
A problem I had with this hand is I hadn't been at the table very long and didn't know enough about how these guys played. I should not have gotten involved this early, since it was possible this guy only bet monsters. But as the big stack I assumed he was pushing people around a lot, and I was not going to call away half my stack at this point, and I did have the inside straight draw. So I went all in for $400 on top of his bet.
Obviously at this point I was also hoping that my trips were good.
They were not. He called and flipped over Jx8x for the better kicker. I had ignored all of the signs that this guy was very strong and followed my trips into quite the trap. I knew he was strong but could not lay down my hand. The river was the lovely Ace of Spades and so the kicker issue became irrelevant and we chopped.
I am including this in this thread which started with me whining about flopping a big straight and being run down by a lucky caller, to show that luck can come full circle I suppose. Nice to be the one sucking out on this one.
Last comment, now that I think about it, the thing that really bothered me about Big Stack betting big was there was no flush or straight draw for him to be betting, and he seemed like the type of player that would do that. Which led me to think he had the other 8. And a better kicker. Which he did. And I called anyway, lol. Ah poker.