Playing a Drawing Hand In Cash Game -- Part II

First off, the comments to yesterday's post on this hand were IMO really awesome, and opened my eyes to a number of aspects that (1) I hadn't thought of, and (2) I hadn't realized others thought of. Both very enlightening for me to learn about, no doubt. So thanks to everyone for contributing, and I hope you'll do so again today as the hand progresses.

So to remind everyone again of the setup with this hand, I'm playing 1-2 6-max nlh and I'm seated in the cutoff with 86s. UTG raises to $7, and UTG+1 calls the 7. I elected to call as well, and the button came along too then for another $7. Then the small blind repopped it from $7 to $29 to go. The big blind folded and then UTG folded as well. UTG+1 called the raise to $29 for the full amount of his stack and was now allin. And the action is to me, with $77 in the pot and facing calling $22 more to see a flop with three players and possibly another one behind me still to act. With 86s. After much deliberation, I opted to go for the overcall.

The guy after me called the $29 as well, taking us 4-handed to see a flop of Q♣5♣4♥. With the 86 of clubs, I have a flush draw on this flop as well as an inside straight draw with the four 7s in the deck, which together gives me what I think are likely 12 outs to win this pot (one of the 7s is also a club so I can't count that card twice). With $119.20 in the pot, the small blind -- the guy who made the big preflop reraise to begin with -- checks it, and the player to my right is already all-in, so action is to me. I asked not only what you guys would do in that spot, but I was at least as interested in what you thought about the preflop calls from me. And I got a lot of varied responses.

Where to begin....Many of you said you would have folded to the initial $7 bet because of the stack sizes of the two guys already in the pot, one of whom had $20 in front and the other who had $42 at that point. This is a very valid point that I think is one of the best things to come out of yesterday's discussion. You clearly have to pay attention to the stack sizes, because in cases similar to this one the actual right thing to do (call, raise or fold) can change dramatically depending on stack sizes here. So, many of the commenters advised folding to the initial raise because there was very little in the stacks of the two players already calling the big raise. Good thinking, and from the number of responses along these lines I will assume that I did not put enough weight into that option. That said, when I can invest $7 to see a flop in a pot with probably $29 and maybe more in it, I will take my 4-1 odds on that hand with a hand just like 86s. Sure I'd rather it was T9s than 86s, and sure I'd rather it was 76s than 86s, but it's close enough to have some real stacking possibility. And I had played at this table for probably over an hour already, more than enough to have felt confident from previous hands that the button was going to come in, and probably one of the blinds as well. So with a read that it was a good chance at least one if not two more callers would come into this pot, I made that call, and armed with that information (which I did not adequately get across in my original post, so be it), I would make that call again. Interestingly, Peaker listed the people still to act behind me as reasons not to make this initial $7 call, and I counted on them as basically the biggest reasons in favor of the call. Not sure who is right there, because I think we both agreed they might be tempted to play the hand. It's just that, with a drawing hand like 86s, I was hoping they would call, while Peaker I guess would have been more comfortable being on the button so he knew everyone after him would not call. Interesting.

The more interesting question, to me, is the second call before the flop, when it is $22 into a $77 pot, with still one more deep stack to act behind me. Because I called in this spot as well, it is clear that the stack sizes on the right did not prevent me from making the call. It was really the stack sizes on the left, combined with the already $77 in the pot, plus of course the additional $42 coming from the right side of the table, that convinced me to make this call. I don't count the stacks on the right for any more than they really are ($42 more total), but I felt the odds were pretty good that the button, who had already called one late position raise when I called in this hand, would do the same thing again if I called here, making exactly the same kind of "implied odds" move that I was in this spot.

So I was looking at 4 guys in for $29, and three of us (me, the button and the SB) potentially for a couple hundy from each of those guys if I could hit a big hand. Again, I like the reasoning of the fold there, because the stacks at the right are just too small, and I think this was more of just a "go for it" call, which was Eric's comment, for me than one I am trying to say is going to be +EV over time. My instincts tell me that, if I believe the guy behind me will call as well (which I was fairly sure he would, as long as I called first to give him the odds he wanted), then my implied odds are going to be pretty close here since he is deep just like the SB is (plus another $118 from the UTG+1 remaining stack and what's already in the pot at that point). I won't argue with anybody who wants me to fold there, as long as the reasoning for the fold makes sense. And FWIW, if the original raise had been to $29, I'm clearly not calling there. But with me among four guys having already dropped $7 apiece into this pot, that makes calling another $22 a much more attractive option (odds-wise) than just calling $29 straight up into a nothing pot at the time.

One big feeling I leave Wednesday's comments with, other than Don's and the Gnome's thoughts (my blood brothas!!), is that my style in cash games is simply more aggressive than many others. That is a bit of a surprise to me at first, but then I think: should it be? Most of you would say that my tournament game is more aggressive than most other players, no? So why wouldn't my cash game play bear the same relative aggression level to other plays in that arena as well? To me, the more sternly and quickly someone believes the answer to both of these questions is "fold", the less right I think you are. I think both situations require a careful thought process and understanding of the math behind implied odds calculations, and I would say that neither one is an easy decision if you weigh all the factors properly, including again my read that the button was going to call any raise that I called at this point in the hand.

Also, Dr. Zen made the point at the end of the comments that I would say is 100% correct on a very basic level -- whether I'm playing with house money or not because I had already won over half a buyin at that table really should not have any relevance to the decision. Again, I accept if others play that way, and maybe there are some benefits to doing so (maybe a question for another post), but I can assure you the amount of money I had won so far, or even the fact that I was up at that table at all at the time, did not factor in my decision, and almost never does factor for me. My percentage chances of hitting the flop are precisely the same regardless of how I've done at that table so far, and my implied odds are also the same with me up $120 at the time as they are if I were down $120 at the time (assuming I still have everyone at the table covered, like I did here). So IMO that is not a good reason to make the call here.

Now moving on quickly to the action on the flop, when I flopped a flush draw and an inside straight draw to any 7 for a total of 12 outs to likely win the hand. The SB did not bet out on this flop, which several of the commenters picked up on and did not want me to bet out because of that. I felt the exact opposite about his failure to cbet. The pot was already huge, and he's almost going to have to commit the rest of his stack to this hand if he makes any respectable size cbet at all. If he had been really comfortable with his holding right now, I think he is definitely betting out here, and if he's good, it would be for such a large proportion of his remaining stack that it is obvious he will call any attempts to push him out with a reraise. Instead, he opts to check. I like cmitch's comment that AA or KK is probably betting out here and would fit with his $29 reraise before the flop as well, so I don't really put him on that kind of a hand. But I think with QQ you just want to bet out into this pot -- it's certainly what I would do. One of the biggest things I've taken from the few good no-limit books I've read is that you only slow-play when the pot is small. Once there is enough already in the pot, the odds of giving a free card or cards that could beat you for that large pot outweight any reasonable unlikelihood of that happening. At this point with over $119 sitting in there, I think with a strong hand you more or less have to c-bet there. But instead he checked into the huge pot. I just thought this reeked of either AK, a lower pair, or somewhat likely as well in my mind was a weaker holding who had just tried the ol' "raise the limpers" move before the flop with a big raise from $7 to $29, in an attempt to take down some nice chippage without having to see a flop or show his hand. All of these were possibilities, but I definitely gave the guy a little bit of credit for knowing that a slow play here is not really the best move if he had a particularly strong hand like QQ. So I read the small blind's check as weakness, as the move of a guy who reraised preflop because he probably thought he was best with a decently high pocket pair or AK beforre the flop, but now after the flop doesn't know that anymore. I reasoned that with the right size bet, I could maybe get him to lay down here without losing anything more to the flop that he just missed.

Another key factor in my decision of whether to bet or check on the flop was the likelihood of me getting action on later streets, if I checked it now. I thought the preflop reraiser was weak with his check on this flop, and I thought I could maybe bet it now and someone might call me with top pair, second pair, an underpair or overpair in the pocket, etc. But, I was thinking, much as Eric did in one of his comments yesterday, if I do hit my flush on the turn and then I bet it out after checking here, the good players are not going to pay me off in that spot. Since me making that flush (9 outs) is three times as likely as me making the straight (just 3 outs), and the flush is not likely to get me paid off if I check here and then bet the turn with 3 clubs showing, I think that also argues in favor of betting out here. Plus, with 12 outs to win, I actually have a very good chance of hitting my draw anyways even if my bet does get called. I definitely think betting out was the stronger move here. Yes I am basically committing myself to call any reraise-push, but I'm around 45% to win in that scenario anyways, plus I think I have some good fold equity if I size my bet just right. It can't be small, because I don't want anyone thinking I am on a draw and just trying a cheap blocking bet. In fact, the whole point of betting out here is so that people do not put me on the club draw if it hits on the turn.

In the end I settled on this:



$75 into the $119 pot. Now, the one major factor that was pointed out in the comments to me was the fact that one player was already all-in on my right. That means that, to win the $119 already in the main pot, I am going to have to show down a hand. The side pot was only $11 at this point, and in retrospect I do not think betting out was the right move generally speaking into an essentially dry side pot. I do think the bet is the better move at a table where everyone still has some chips and there is at least a chance of no showdown for all the money already in the middle of the table. But into this side pot, I think after reading all the comments from yesterday I would probably check this hand instead of betting it. No reason to risk 75 additional dollars for just the $11 available to me now, when I know I am behind in the hand right now. That is just not good poker by me, and it is because I failed to properly consider the effects of the allin player to my right and the almost dry side pot currently in place among the other three players. Nonetheless, I made this bet in an attempt to draw in some money from my big draw hand and because I read the small blind as weak. The button thought for a few moments and then smooth called my $75 flop bet, bringing the pot up to $161 on the side, and $280 total.

Then comes a big card for me on the turn:



Now what? Even if you agree with my statement above that betting out the $75 was not appropriate on the flop, now that I've made my flush on the turn, what's the move? Should I realistically fear a higher flush here, and check to see what my opponent does? With $280 now in the middle, $161 of which is now in the active side pot, and my stack still covering the $95 left behind for the button, should I just lead out here, assuming my opponent will call off the rest of his stack and lose to me? How sure am I that I am ahead here, and assuming I do believe I'm ahead, how do I go about getting the rest of my opponent's stack in at this point?

I'll get the conclusion to this misplayed hand up for Friday's post, but before them I'd love to know your comments to how the hand has played out so far, whether I should believe I am ahead here, and what you recommend doing in this spot.

Bonus question for today:

Do you lay this down at the cash tables, after a four-way limped pot preflop?



Formulate your answers and then I'll supply my thoughts.









Yes, I laid this down, though only after much thought. In the end I reasoned one of these guys probably had not much, maybe just the high end of the oesd, maybe two pairs or quite possibly AK of diamonds for the flush draw plus two overs. one of them probably had flopped a set of some kind or maybe top two pairs, and the other one (probably one of the last two reraisers) probably had me beat already with the QJ. I reasoned that it's just hard to raise and reraise and re-reraise with this flop unless you're sitting on the nuts, or a draw to a very big hand. So, in the end since I had flopped just the second nuts, and it was a hand that I could not improve in any way from here, that the chances with three raisers ahead of me had to be pretty high that I was already beat, and/or that someone was drawing to a flush and/or someone was drawing to a boat, all of which would also beat my un-improvable hand. So I laid down the second-nuts on this flop without even moving at the pot. Not a huge laydown or anything to me, but certainly one of the bigger hands I've let go without any action from me on the flop at the cash tables.

You wanna know what they had? The big blind, who had led out at this flop originally for the formula $6 bet into the $7.80 pot, folded to the raise and reraise behind him, but both reraisers got all the money into the middle and flipped 'em up. Skip down a bit if you're curious.














Overpair Kings was donking to get allin in this spot IMO, as the likelihood of two pairs, flush or a straight was just too likely from all this action before the flop. But that bastard did flop the nut straight on the same hand that I flopped the second nuts. And if not for the donkey with the Kings re-reraising on the flop there, I woulda probably gone busto on this one. Thank you, donkey.

L O S T

OK Wednesday night's Lost episode was just as awesome as I thought. It took only a few minutes into the show to figure out that Locke's father was going to be the same guy who had effed up Sawyer's family. That fits right in with the rest of the crazy coincidences on this show. I don't have a clue what killing him has to do with anything, nor still do I understand in the least how Locke's father managed to come to the island to begin with.

One thing that was funny about this week's episode was how they kept directly referring to this ridiculous theory that all the Losties are actually already dead, and this is hell, or purgatory or something like that. By making light of that concept, I think and I hope that the writers are telegraphing that they have no plans to be that ghey with the basic premise of the show. That would be good, because I don't need this thing to end with it all being a dream and everyone's really been dead all along. I mean, I liked that show the last time I saw it, when it was called The Sixth Sense. And I liked it even better the first time, when it was called Jacob's Ladder. I don't need Lost going down that road too now, uh uh.

That said, I am liking my "other dimension/parallel universe/other time" theory more and more, with the more this show goes on. The more I watch the Others and how they do their thing, the more I think they might somehow be on this island to help start their own human race or something. That's why they are so desperate to find out what is wrong with the women having children on the island. That they brought Juliette out to the island because they need to figure out how to reproduce so that they can further the human race or something. They just act like that's really what's going on here, like they found this island, it's their new "Eden", and they're here to restart life as we know it, but can't because the pregnant women all die before they give birth.

I also am still sticking with my whole "portal" theory to this other dimension or other time. As I've written about in previous posts, I'm thinking there are likely two portals between the worlds, one of which is likely underwater and is the way the Others travel back and forth. It seems to me that there is another portal as well, which is apparently in the air over the island, and in fact I would bet that that portal was created by the second time Desmond and Locke failed to push the button, when the hatch was destroyed at the end of season 2. That's the portal that the airplane transported through and which caused the initial crash in the pilot of the series, and most likely that air portal is the exact coordinates that Penny apparently gave to the mysterious Naomi when her helicopter seemingly went through it, and then as Naomi described this week, suddenly the clouds cleared and there was this island below, that she had not seen previously.

If anything, I'm wondering if this portal is not to another dimension per se, but to another time here on the same planet. In other words, maybe these portals transport you 100,000 years into the past or something, back in a time when there was an island in this spot even though in the current time there is not. So you go through this portal in the air or under the water, and it transports you to that exact spot but back 100,000 years. And I'm thinking that somehow the Others are using this portal to escape their current time and start up a new race here on the island. Maybe they were even offshoots of the Dharma Project. For all we know, Dharma could be the project to create a new human race here in this other world or past world, whatever it is, and somehow the Others revolted against the rest of the Dharma crew and that is why they are still on the island today, while the other Dharma people seem to be completely gone.

New questions I still have or that popped up as a result of last night's show:

1. Why is Desmond's former babe Penny sending this chica to the portal to get her to this island? What is Penny's connection to all this?

2. What the shimminy phuck are Jack and Juliette talking about at the end when Juliette is all "We should tell them" and Jack is all "No"? Seriously, wtf is that? I'm thinking that the Others somehow have told Jack and Juliette (maybe they told Juilette, and Juliette told Jack) about something that is going to happen on the island, or about some other aspect of the island that we don't know about yet but the Others do. Jack knows it, and it's probably going to boggle our minds when we find out what IT is. But what is it? Who knows.

3. Is that "Richard" guy the real leader of the Others? Are there more people? What about this Jacob guy they have referred to on a couple of occasions? And while we're at it, who was that Isabel character who was playing judge for the Others a few weeks back?

4. Is Juliette working for the Losties, or against the Losties? I really can't fucking tell anymore, and it's driving me crazy. She drives me crazy, and that Jack keeps trusting her drives me even crazier.

5. What up with the dam flight attendant chick again? They're all there working in the fields and we get no info about what the hike they've been doing there all this time?

6. Why again did the Others tell Locke he has to kill his dad in order to move forward with them? I don't buy their explanation they gave him of why, not in the least bit. What is going on with that whole thing? In fact, who the F is Locke and why is he being so mysterious and crazy about all this stuff? Could Locke somehow be a spy for the Others, or better yet, for Dharma?

7. WTF is going on in this show?

Now go over to Goat's blog and read his weekly Lost writeup. Good, good stuff there for the Lost fans.

Don't forget the next BBT event, Al's Riverchasers tournament, goes off tonight at 9pm ET on full tilt. $10 + $1 buyin, password tonight is "riverchasers9". I will most definitely be there, and I will be looking to donate my chips to you!