Strange NL4 hand, FAO Pysterman

EvilPingu

Saw this while I was on your table, was totally confused by the 3 bet then folding for the extra £1 on the flop?

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
EvilPingu	Small blind		£0.02	£0.02	£6.19
buddy672	Big blind		£0.04	£0.06	£6.37
	Your hole cards	4 A
Micknick	Fold
cain82	Call		£0.04	£0.10	£1.19
Pysterman	Raise		£0.20	£0.30	£3.10
gavin1961	Call		£0.20	£0.50	£3.85
EvilPingu	Fold
buddy672	Fold
cain82	Call		£0.16	£0.66	£1.03
Flop
		7 K 3
cain82	Bet		£0.66	£1.32	£0.37
Pysterman	Raise		£1.65	£2.97	£1.45
gavin1961	Raise		£2.64	£5.61	£1.21
cain82	All-in		£0.37	£5.98	£0.00
Pysterman	Fold
gavin1961	Unmatched bet		£0.99	£4.99	£2.20
cain82	Show	Q Q
gavin1961	Show	K 9
Turn
		8
River
		5
gavin1961	Win	Pair of Kings	£4.61		£6.81

cleaverjim

Very strange,Even if he has say 44 55 its worth a look imo.

Pysterman

I had pocket Jacks.

In retrospect, the re-raise on the flop was probably a mistake.

The original flop raiser (Cain) was playing short-stacked, so I felt that he didn't need to have the K to be betting here. (In that respect I was correct.)

I was gambling that Gavin wasn't strong enough to call my reraise. I was trying to isolate Cain and take my chances that he did not have the King. I was happy to do this with him only having £1 behind.

However, when Gavin reraised and Cain called, I knew I almost certainly had to be behind, so I didn't want to compound my previous error by spewing more chips. Even for only £1 more I figured I didn't have the correct pot odds to chase a set of Jacks.

How do you think I should have played it? Surely I can't just fold to Cain's flop bet every time. Should I have called and folded to a squeeze play by Gavin?

Dudeskin8

Yep snap fold to his pot donkbet, if he's got worse than a K here type well done in the chatbox.

EvilPingu

I just fold to the donk bet, myself. Can understand the fold now I know you had JJ.

However, if your reads suggest your JJ is beating cain's hand, then I'd prefer a call to re-raising here. If Gavin has the king, he's going to at least call, or maybe shove anyway, if not, he's not going to get involved when there's been a pot bet and a call. So instead of isolating, all you're really doing is putting more money in the pot where you're only getting called by better and folding out worse hands which would've folded anyway.

Fold > Call > Raise IMO.

ballboy

Its tough because of the way the action went preflop

Pysterman was the last aggressor and then he is donk bet at. When Cain bets out, its strange him having a King as he would probably just check this unless his kicker is bad. Initially I would think Cain doesn't have a King so with JJ he is probably ahead, but a raise here is IMO not the worst thing because it gives you the information you seek. You almost want to make it little over a min raise as this gets the info as cheaply as possible. This might seem an expensive option and it can be. Its more preferable in deep stack tournaments. If you have pocket 8s for example and you called a raise and it comes J-7-3 you can't really just fold to one bet, but if you call, the turn bet is going to be bigger and you are none the wiser. With the money you invest in calling the flop and getting a turn card that doesn't give you a set to definitely bust the guy you have to call a larger bet. A reraise on the flop would probably be less than the cost of the call on the flop and any pressure you are exerted to on the turn and you have the information you need, which you have to listen to. In this hand if he calls he has you beat probably, if he shoves with his stack your calling likely (taking the other guy who wins the hand out of it for the minute). If he has a full buyin then you probably are folding if he shoves and if he just calls your shutting down. He likely will check the turn and you might get lucky on the river.

Then afterwards Gavin reraises. I don't like this at all. With top pair poor kicker he should probably be in cheap showdown mode although with the massive raise Preflop and all the callers, the pot is so bloated everyone is going to be all in by the river, so he probs has decided he is going with the hand there. Cain calls and Pysterman has the information that he is beat and gets out of the way

How it should have gone is Cain reraised preflop and then bets out the flop. Its tricky because he doesn't have a full buyin so any reraise is going to be going to showdown. There would be good chance he only has ace high on this flop if he raises preflop then bets the turn. Pysterman may even 3bet preflop if Cain were to have raised and then it would probably be heads up between these two and Cain would win the pot

DOHHHHHHH

Raising to find out where you are is costing far too much.

If your intention is to raise and get it in v the donk bettor, that's ok, but you have to factor in the guy behind when deciding wether or not to go with your hand. 

It's not as bad as I thought it was when I first looked.

The play of both opponents is another example of why trying to be cute @ these limits is pointless (referring to your QQ hand)

Basic abc stuff with solid starting hand selection ftw. 

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