Trip Trouble

shakinaces

It's fun trying to become less of a nit, but confusing at the same time. Things were so much easier all those years ago when you just had to wait for aces, kings or queens and knew there would always be at least one person wanting to get it all in with you

Keen to hear comments on how I could have played this better / where my thinking is flawed.

Anyway - elect to call pre as I have position and have found a pretty looking hand with multiple draw possibilities. UTG always seems to be play tight and come in with a range so, especially given his position, am thinking he has a premium hand. UTG+1 is a good player and a bit more creative and has shown down all manner of cards so am assuming the lack of a 3b means he has a connector/gap connector sort of hand.

Flop isn't the A23 or 445 sort of board I had my fingers crossed for, but not bad. Elected to call as, if UTG had a big hand they were likely to lead again on turn. Obviously I'd reassess my future bets accordingly if an A or a spade dropped. I thought spades was most likely for UTG+1 but also included 67/56 and even similar hands to mine (34/45/46) which could well end in a chop.

Turn and another barrel, I elected to shove now on the assumption that QQ/KK/AA UTG would call, but may slow if the river flush came down. I'll be honest, I didn't expect a call from UTG+1 here and wasn't sure what hand would be turned over.

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
SB	Small blind		£0.05	£0.05	£9.65
BB	Big blind		£0.10	£0.15	£9.60
	Your hole cards	5 4
UTG	Raise		£0.30	£0.45	£9.55
UTG+1	Call		£0.30	£0.75	£11.85
shakinaces	Call		£0.30	£1.05	£11.05
SB	Fold
BB	Fold
Flop
		4 8 4
UTG	Bet		£0.70	£1.75	£8.85
UTG+1	Call		£0.70	£2.45	£11.15
shakinaces	Call		£0.70	£3.15	£10.35
Turn
		9
UTG	Bet		£2.20	£5.35	£6.65
UTG+1	Call		£2.20	£7.55	£8.95
shakinaces	All-in		£10.35	£17.90	£0.00
UTG	All-in		£6.65	£24.55	£0.00
UTG+1	All-in		£8.95	£33.50	£0.00

gazza127

Depending on what you think UTGs opening range is you could even be 3 betting pre in position.  You have such a nice hand to 3 bet as you shouldnt get carried away with a single pair, however you can still flop massive and rep a much superior hand that the one you have come later streets.  That and you can take the initiative in the hand so when you see resistance to a C bet you can massively narrow villains range.... as opposed to guessing where you are in the hand.  Im not hating the call.  Just think its worth thinking about as an alternative.

I raise flop personally.  A lot of people will view that as a draw.  As soon as you flop the trips id want to be piling the money in and you wouldnt expect flush draws or overpairs to fold.

Don't mind it as played... although I have a sneaky suspiscion one of the villains is on a big draw and the other has flopped or turned a FH.

You ask the question on a blank turn so its hard to see how many hands will call you with worse (unless its a draw) unless you have notes that they get attached to overpairs.

Meh.  I dont think theres anything terribly wrong here.

hhyftrftdr

It was all going in at some point. If you're behind then it's pretty unfortunate. I'm gonna guess someone has A4

Gazza makes a good point about possibly raising this hand pre. Sometimes I'd flat, sometimes I'd raise it. Good to mix it up so it keeps your range nicely balanced.

shakinaces

Thanks for the responses.

I had it nailed for the initial raiser, they had the big pocket pair (QQ IIRC) they were married to and called off to give me a nice pot...

... but my 'oh ****' exclamation at seeing the UTG+1 call was called spot on by Gazza, they'd called the flop with an overpair and hit the FH on the turn.

I think that was my confusion with playing the hand, HU vs UTG I'd feel confident in my play even if they were the one with the turned FH - the majority of time I think he'd have QQ/KK/AA (or JJ/TT) and so long term I'll win more than I lose.

When another player is coming along for the ride and hasn't 3bet pre (which I think I'd expect from this guy if he had a big overpair), there are a lot more hands that could beat me, I think...

That makes me wonder if I should be taking a more passive line and just calling down on turn and (probably) river?