Should I have folded?

[Bobeasy]

Hey peeps- I’m a new poker player! And very unsure of many of the things I do and/or don’t do at the table. Feel free to be brutally honest with your opinion as I will only take it as you trying to improve my game. So I sat down at a 1/3 game at mgm national harbor and bought in for $300. The first hand I get Ah Ad in early position and raise it to $20(I know that’s large but after a couple of sessions I’ve learned people call $12 and $15 raises with a large range of hands and I didn’t want the whole table to call. So Mp and co call and the rest fold, $64 in pot. Flop comes Qs, 2s, 7s. I bet $50- mp folds and co calls, pot is $164. Turn is 4h. I bet $125 and the co goes all in, I call the extra $105 and he turns over Ks, Js and I’m drawing dead. Did I play this horribly wrong? I’m a new player who ran really bad and now I’m wondering if I ran bad or if I am just really bad. Appreciate any feedback.

[David Wibel]

Other Newbies analysis, and keep in mind this is all 20-20 hindsight stuff from me and in truth I have 0 hours booked live, this is all just from what I’ve read/watched.

Pre Flop: The large raise is a bit suspect but not terrible. If you aren’t consistently betting $20 from early position it keys people in how good of a hand you have. A $10-$12 bet makes it more likely that someone will 3-bet and then you get to 4-bet and get as much in with AA as possible. Also a $10-$12 first bet disguises your range so that it’s harder to put you on a big pair.

Flop: A not a great flop for you. You have an over-pair but two red A’s on a Spade board. If you had the Ace of spades it’s good but I would be a bit afraid here. I think the $50 bet, over 3/4 pot, is a bit big. That sizing makes me think you want to get it in now which you don’t. A single non ace spade means you are drawing dead to a lot of hands that contine. I think something like $35 is better or even, check call. $35 lets you be aggressive if you don’t think your opponents are on a draw. Check call helps save your chips if you want to be more conservative, give it a chance to check around with all those spades.

Turn: From my math you have $230 stack and the pot is $164 so you have little over a pot sized (1.4x) bet any bet over about $50 really commits you to playing the hand at that point the pot is bigger than your stack. The card is essentially a nothing here so the question is to bet or not. Betting doesn’t get you much of anything, especially another 3/4 pot bet. Either you are trying to bluff here, which it’s difficult to be called by worse and the only better you are trying to fold out is a set or 2 pair, which are in your opponent’s range but are they going to be folding those hands (I’m doubting they would fold any flush, even 5s6s or 3s4s)? If the table is so call heavy then trying to bluff doesn’t make much sense. It’s hard to improve your hand here, really only an A on the river makes your hand better and you still probably lose if it’s the Ace of spades.

I think your bad decision was betting the turn. You are unlikely to be called by worse and the board is so wet there are too many ways you loose here. There was a bit of bad luck here with the flop but betting the turn is overlaying your AA. It’s good if the board is unmatched but with 3 spades on the flop it’s too easy for your opponents to have a big hand or have a good chance to beat you on the river.

[Bobeasy]

Thanks for your analysis and helpful insight. Since this was the first hand of a new table I was afraid a $10-$12 raise would get a bunch of calls and not allow me the chance to 3bet. After his call pre flop I thought he may have a pocket pair with a spade or maybe ako with either being a spade. When the turn blanked I figured I was in the lead and most likely needed to fade a spade so checking and giving a free card seemed out of the question. If he had any of the hands above I want to bet and make him pay for the draw since I’m likely not getting paid on the river by a pair. In my mind, I’d be happy to take it down with my turn bet. If he just had 1 spade he’d have outs but I would have more outs since I’d have any non spade or card that didn’t trip him up. Newbie thought process

[David Wibel]

A few things to think over and this is just for your own thoughts. With a big bet, KQo+ is within range but also J10s+ and depending on how wide he is calling a big pre-flop bet maybe even like 9,10s+ and probably all pairs. Unlikely he has something like KK, the top of his expected range is probably KQs since we have blockers to AQ and AK.

I use an odds calculator for the next bit, I don’t have this memorized.

Even against AcKs you are only 63% to win (and even against 1 random spade and any other card are around 60-63% to win), so your bet of $50 in $64 is a bit large. Meanwhile once you do this your opponent is facing a $50 to win $114, just about the right price for a single spade to call. You charge him a big price to call but if you lose you put up a large amount of money. And then if he did flop a flush you have less than 3% to win.

On the turn, the most generous odds I can give with with opponent having 1 spade and any random card that is not paired is you have 80% to win and an 70% to win if he has a pair either in hand or on board. So you are now charging him a good rate if he hasn’t made his flush, however, you are drawing dead to a made flush. So time for some fun math, lets say he has 2 spades 10% of the time, if you bet and he calls you will lose all your money 100% of the time and if he has 1 spade you loose all of your money let’s say 25% of the time(though it may be closer to 23%). So you will lose your $125 turn bet 32.5% of the time with these scenarios and those percentages.

So you risk $125 to win $164 with a 67.5% success rate with the above scenarios. You would be right he he only ever had a single spade but depending on how frequently we put him on any 2 spades you might have seriously over bet in how often you are going to win.

It seems to me like you are betting really big in most of your spots. Try walking it back and making more 1/2 pot and 1/3 pot bets. Remember you have 2 resources, your cards and your chips, relying on either too much will get you in trouble.

[Bobeasy]

Once again, thanks for the reply. I know I’m not good so this information is super helpful. Maybe I’m looking at it wrong but don’t I want to bet when I’m ahead and/or a favorite to win the pot? Pardon my simpleness. So his call pre flop could be with a wide range considering his late position and it’s the first hand so I have limited information on him. After the flop my bet is large because I read that a smaller raise will get more calls and a larger raise will fold out the draws. At this point I’m in ep with 2 people behind me.

When co calls I start going through possible hands again and although I have blockers AQ becomes a possibility with the A of spades. I know have blockers so him having an A is unlikely but isn’t it unlikely to flop a flush as well? Especially since the suited connector high spades seemed to be blocked other than K J and J10 and 9 10. Flop call made me think I had him right where I wanted him, figuring he would raise if he had a flush or hit trips. When the turn blanked I figured I was in the lead and the large bet was defending my hand against any draw or 2 pair suck out.

Normally I don’t bet this big but I think I fell in love with my hand and just thought the odds were in my favor. Could I be drawing dead, of course, but it just didn’t seem likely to me at the time. Maybe in a limped pot or called small raise pre flop I would put my opponent on any 2 spades but he called a large pre flop raise from an EP raiser so that narrowed his hand range down in my mind. The Qs on board blocked hands like QJ and KQ and my aces blocked AK so him having the flush was even less likely in my mind.

Thanks again. I appreciate your valuable information when it comes to the math of the hand.

[Brad Owen]

I definitely don’t think you played this hand poorly. As stated earlier it’s going to set off alarm bells when you raise to $20 in a 1/3 game. With that being said, we have a big hand and want to build a big pot. If people are willing to call 6-7x preflop with wide ranges against our EP raises then good luck to them. The problem is that when we get called preflop and don’t take it down on the flop, we’re in a tough situation playing future streets from out of position. Raising smaller preflop simplifies things.

In bigger games you definitely can’t be raising preflop to 6 or 7x sometimes while not doing it other times because you’ll get 3-bet light when you open for smaller amounts and people will fold every time you bet larger amounts. In 1/3 I think it’s fine because a lot of people either aren’t paying enough attention and/or love to call anyway.

When we open big and go multiway there’s just a really high percentage chance that we’re going to go broke with AA if we’re beat. With 100 bb’s I’m going broke a lot of times with AA anyway but when it’s raised that big preflop it’s more like a 2/5 game so we basically have AA with a 60 bb stack. It’s extremely tough not to lose all of our money when someone outdraws us under these conditions.

The flop is not great. We probably have the best hand but we are out of position and are vulnerable. I personally don’t like the big bet on the flop but can understand your logic of wanting to charge the draws. It’s a somewhat weird bet size because we have a hand we’re betting for value right? The problem is that when we bet that much we’re getting called by a lot of hands that have us essentially dead and are trapping or we’re getting called by hands that have a lot of equity against us. Either way we don’t love it. Hands like low to mid pocket pairs containing a spade might fold for less, which would be the incorrect play against our particular holding. I like betting smaller since it limits our risk while still giving the opponents an opportunity to make a mistake (note: opponents would be making the correct call against us with any hand containing a spade if we make a pot sized bet or less). Another advantage to betting smaller is that it also makes the hand easier to play on future streets. We can check/call or bet/fold non-spade turns. If we get called and a spade comes on the turn then we give up. In summary, this is a tough street because it’s a balancing act between charging strong drawing hands and not inflating the pot for when we are nearly dead or when our opponent binks a later street. We just have to pick our poison.

The turn I like betting smaller too, but again your logic makes sense. Once he raises us we’re getting a great price to call so I can’t fault you at all for sticking around but is he ever really bluffing for $105 more? With a draw he should always flat since there’s no reason for him to think he has any fold equity with a shove.

This is how I would’ve played the hand:

I pretty much always open for the same amount preflop. Given how you said the table plays I’d probably just tighten my range and open a little larger than normal to 4 or 5x anytime I want to get involved. Let’s say I open to $13 and get two callers. I’d bet 1/3 pot on the flop. If spades don’t come then I check-call turn and check-call river. If the turn gets checked back then I’d assume we have the best hand and I’d lead river big to try and make it look like a bluff. Betting small on all streets while folding if we get raised at any point also seems reasonable.

Thanks a lot for sharing the hand. It was really interesting. There’s some chance I’d want to include analysis for this at the end of one of my vlogs. Would that be ok with you?

[Bobeasy]

Hey Brad, appreciate the response. Feel free to use the hand on your vlog if you think it’ll help people. I’m a scrub right now who has played less than 20 hours of poker in a casino and less than that at home games so I’m going to make mistakes, just have to learn from them. I could’ve opened for less and hoped to get raised so I could 3bet. If so, more money would’ve been in the pot and I still likely bet the flop. I just don’t see how I could check and let a 4th spade come. You and the other responder know way more than me so I guess the correct play is to bet less after the flop. Honestly, I hate playing the first hand, I feel like I need a few minutes to get settled in but I couldn’t fold aces so I was really just hoping to announce I have aces with my $20 preflop and watch it fold around.

My $50 bet wasn’t really a value bet, more of a I don’t want to be playing this hand out of position with that flop so you guys fold and let’s move on type of bet. I just thought it was unlikely he would flop a flush and there wasn’t any straight or 2 pair hand possibilities so I bet it. Let’s say I bet $35 and he calls, should I then check the turn? A 4 of hearts or whatever blank it was on the turn would only make me feel better about my hand if I thought I was best after the flop. If I checked the turn and a spade came on the river I’d have an easy fold but I’d prefer to not give the free card if I think I’m ahead. If I was ahead and checked the turn and my opponent rivered a spade I’d be kicking myself for a missed bet.

I guess I could’ve gotten away from it after he raised all in but with $195 in and $105 to call to win $600 it just seemed like I had to call. I’m not good with the numbers yet but in my mind the numbers said I had to call. I’m also aware that as a newbie in the poker world I could possibly stick out so in the back of my mind I didn’t want to get bluffed off my hand just because of a scary flop. It’s probably unlikely someone would bluff in that scenario but I just couldn’t find a fold.

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