Flopped nut flush - how would you have played this?

Titan $2/$4 NL

Hero has $580
Villain has $869

Hero is SB with AsJs
Villain is CO

UTG fold
UTG+1 fold
MP fold
Villain Raise $16
BTN fold
Hero call $14
BB fold

Flop: Ks 5s 3s

Hero checks
Villain bets $32
Hero calls

Turn Qh

Villain bets $100
Hero ?

River 3h

Villain ?
Hero?

Originally Posted by Anaemik

Titan $2/$4 NL

Hero has $580
Villain has $869

Hero is SB with AsJs
Villain is CO

UTG fold
UTG+1 fold
MP fold
Villain Raise $16
BTN fold
Hero call $14
BB fold

Flop: Ks 5s 3s

Hero checks
Villain bets $32
Hero calls

Turn Qh

Villain bets $100
Hero - thinks a while then raises to $300


River 3h

Villain ?
Hero - probably calls a bet or bets into a check

Some more info - villain, also the big stack, has been known to raise with a range of hands, especially when folded round to him. Hero has noticed that over the past 15 minutes, villain may have slowed down a little, but is still raising about 80% of the pots he enters preflop.

Villain has shown down a number of hands he has raised with preflop, including low pairs, JT, and a couple of big pairs, along with the usual AX/2 broadways.

Hero also observed that villain only tended to make pot sized bets when he wanted other players out of the hand, and tended toward half-2/3 pot size bets every other time.

Other info - hero is steaming a little after a hand that occurred just 3 hands prior to this one. Hand went something like - all fold round to hero on the button with AJo, who raises to $16. SB calls $14 and BB calls $12. Flop is Jc7h3d. Hero bets $45. SB folds. BB calls. Turn is 2h. Hero bets $100, BB calls. River is Jh. Hero bets $250, BB calls. BB shows down 5h 3h for flush. Hero is astounded.

I check raise the turn. Not a big raise little more than min, I want a call. All in at the river.

OK, here's what actually happened. I have to add that I think I played this hand pretty horribly, and part of that was due to trying to recoup a large loss from the earlier hand, which left me pretty stunned. Most of the time I would roboplay this hand, check-call, check-raise, push - but I tried to mix up my play to extract as much as possible from villain.

Villain bets $100 on the turn - I smooth call (in retrospect I hate this call. My plan at the time, was to simply push all in on the river. I'm thinking villain has maybe AK/AJ, and I'm wanting him to improve to a straight or 2 pair. I'm also thinking that if I check-raise the turn, it's going to indicate I've hit something pretty big on the flop, and suggest that I do indeed have the flush, but if I make a big move on the river with an all in push, it could look more like I was trying to steal with a busted draw.)

River - I push all in as I'm first to act. I really should have given more credit to the board pair, but I still committed all my chips. Another horrible play here. Villain says"" and quickly calls, showing down a full house, Queens full of threes.


Thinking about this hand, there are definately things I'd do differently, and were I not still steaming from a couple of hands previous, and eager to get all my chips back, I definately would have raised the turn up to about $300-$350. Whether or not that would have been enough to have gotten him off his set, I don't know, and by that point, even with a check from me on the river, he is going to push, and I'm going to have about $200 left with little choice but to call.

The preflop call, and the check-call on the flop I don't mind at all - but I think I really messed this hand up on the turn and river. Even if the outcome were the same, I would have been much happier if I'd played the hand more actively on 4th street.

The more I think about it however, the more I don't totally hate the call on the turn, rather than mildly dislike it, and it's my all in on the river that I think is my total donk play. Looking at both our hands, I'm wondering if there was a way I could have gotten away from this with chips left over, or if there was a way I could have gotten him off the hand which didn't involve heavy raising on the flop.

Then when I look at the hand again, I don't think I played it *that* horribly, and that I just got unlucky. I'm see-sawing with this hand, and the only thing I'm sure of is that my worst play was on 5th street. I could really use some input from you guys.


Your comments would be appreciated.

The river is the only street where you are beaten. You have $232 with a pot of ~$700. You are getting 3 to 1 on your money and you didn't put him on a 3. All my money is going in if it were me.

Originally Posted by Anaemik

Your comments would be appreciated.

There is nothing inherently wrong with your play imo. You can raise the turn, but smooth calling seems fine too. It's kinda weird though that you call and then push the river, makes no real sense when a board pair shows up. On the whole though, just.. bad bad luck..

Anyone likes bet/3-bet flop?

When I flop the nuts I'll bet into it maybe 20% of the time, and obviously I'm hoping for a re-raise, so I can bring the hammer down. I could well have got villain off the hand on the flop, and taken maybe $150 off of him. In hindsight, this is infinitely preferable in this instance to dropping nearly $600 on the hand, but I'm wondering if this is a -EV play in the long run?

I guess what I'm asking myself here is - if I had to replay this hand, would I have made any changes to the way I played it. The more I think about it, the only real difference I'm certain I would have made to my play is on 5th street, where I would probably check, and hope that villain fires out a small "please call me" sized bet. That way I get out of there with chips left if he does have the boat.

The real disappointment about this hand, and I know this is horribly results oriented, is that I had been doing particularly well at a challenge I had set for myself. This challenge completely ignored all sensible rules of bankroll management, and was based upon a $20 deposit on Titan. My aim was to see how far I could take that $20. After a couple of SNG's, a 3rd place finish in an MTT, and some $5/$10 limit, I'd taken that $20 and turned it into $1200 over the course of 4 days. Then after a nasty streak on $2/$4 NL, this $580 represented the majority of my remaining stack after a particularly bad run of suckouts courtesy of as super LAG uberdonk at the table. This one hand would have effectively taken me back up to around my $1200 status quo, instead it relegated back down to around my $20 buyin. I was aware of this risk upon entering the challenge, and if it wasn't for the fact that my original $20 was of no consequence, I certainly wouldn't have been playing so outrageously out of my roll. So although I have effectively lost nothing, it's disheartening, to say the least, to see 4 days worth of work go up in smoke like that.

Still, I guess that's what you get for not observing one of the primary rules of sensible poker play.

The dwarfmen challenge. Yep, its always going to go bust if you play long enough. The trick is when to decide you have gone far enough and get out.

Lol yeah. Ironically I was going to cash out today and then thought "well, maybe just a quick spell of no limit".........

I think I'll have that engraved upon my tombstone.

I like your line here. It's not standard, but I think it's great to mix things up. If he'd had a hand like AK, your line totally reps a busted draw, in addition to being just plain weird, and could have extracted a lot of $$ from villain.

Thanks. I thought at the time it was a pretty crafty play (which obviously backfired) but i did question it in retrospect. Under the majority of other conditions it may well have worked and brought home the money. I'm always looking for the most +EV play available though, and I'm curious to how you think this would pan out as a long term strategy, over check-raising the turn, for example.

When I made my original post I didnt realize that the board had paired on the river. But how are you not going broke on this hand. Unless if you are going to play scared all the way to the river. First I think the correct play is to raise the turn. And if you raise the turn and he puts you all in are your going to fold? No way. Ok you don't raise the turn and you check to him on the river. Are you folding to an all in? Man thats got to be a tough lay down. I can see doing it in a tournament when if you call its over. But in a cash game I think its a tough fold. Not saying you cant make the lay down but you got to know your opponent well. I will say the one part of the hand I don't like at all. Is calling the raise with AJ. Your just asking to get hurt. But that played had no part in this hand.

Oh and me personaly I wouldnt play 400 NL with less than 7000 in my BR. But thats me. Good Luck!

"Oh and me personaly I wouldnt play 400 NL with less than 7000 in my BR. But thats me. Good Luck!"

Trust me, under normal circumstances, nor would I. I'm not the strictest adherer to common bankroll sense, but I do at least usually keep about 250 BB available for limit, and about 1000 BB available for NL. As I mentioned earlier, this was more a challenge/experiment than anything else. But what you say makes complete sense.

With regard to your post previous to that comment, I agree fully with your reasoning behind the various options I had for this hand, and I kind of conclude that I was going broke regardless of the sequence of play.

To address your remark about my original call, a couple of points that I ought to mention - I forgot to mention that this was a 6 handed table, and that the raiser was perfectly capable of pumping up an unraised pot with anything from T9 upward. AJ was probably in the upper range of hands that I would have normally put him on, given that he riased about 80% of pots that he entered, and I really didn't see the harm in entering a pot with this hand. That's not to say that I'm a big fan of AJ, as it's usually a recipe for BIG trouble. But given the opponent, I felt the call was justified.

Flop:Call/raise is fine.

Turnush.Charge sets full price to fill up.

River:Pray.

After reading the post, I had put him on QQ because of his weak bet on flop + strong bet on turn + you posting this hand when the board pairs and you have the nut flush (which usually beans he boated). If I was in your shoes, I would not have put him on QQ so easily, obviously.

I like a 3 bet on the flop. If he calls, you have stacked yourself against him on the turn when a Q falls.

The problem with slowplaying this flop is that if a 4th spade comes, you're not going to get paid off. To get paid off, hope he has either KK or QQ on turn. Push pre-river.

Originally Posted by Anaemik

I guess what I'm asking myself here is - if I had to replay this hand, would I have made any changes to the way I played it. The more I think about it, the only real difference I'm certain I would have made to my play is on 5th street, where I would probably check, and hope that villain fires out a small "please call me" sized bet. That way I get out of there with chips left if he does have the boat.

The real disappointment about this hand, and I know this is horribly results oriented, is that I had been doing particularly well at a challenge I had set for myself. This challenge completely ignored all sensible rules of bankroll management, and was based upon a $20 deposit on Titan. My aim was to see how far I could take that $20. After a couple of SNG's, a 3rd place finish in an MTT, and some $5/$10 limit, I'd taken that $20 and turned it into $1200 over the course of 4 days. Then after a nasty streak on $2/$4 NL, this $580 represented the majority of my remaining stack after a particularly bad run of suckouts courtesy of as super LAG uberdonk at the table. This one hand would have effectively taken me back up to around my $1200 status quo, instead it relegated back down to around my $20 buyin. I was aware of this risk upon entering the challenge, and if it wasn't for the fact that my original $20 was of no consequence, I certainly wouldn't have been playing so outrageously out of my roll. So although I have effectively lost nothing, it's disheartening, to say the least, to see 4 days worth of work go up in smoke like that.

Still, I guess that's what you get for not observing one of the primary rules of sensible poker play.

That's.. sorta.. a relief. Nice story. Maybe next time work with increments? Like, at $200, cash out $50, at $600, cash out $150 etc?

"After reading the post, I had put him on QQ because of his weak bet on flop + strong bet on turn "

I think on both streets they were pretty much pot sized bets.
By the flop, there was his original $16 bet, plus my $16 call, plus the $4 blind, which makes $36. He then bets $32, which is close enough to pot sized for my purposes. I then call this, which means there is now $36 +$32 +$32=$100 in the pot, which is what he bet on the turn.

Your read was bang on, and to be honest, I think one of my main faults in this hand was not thinking enough about what he had, and worrying to much about how to get the max out of my assumed nut hand. The actual time span between me seeing the board pair land on the river and me lumping all my chips in was approximately 1 second. If I had actually stopped and thought the play through a little more and tried to put him on a range of hands, it ought to have been obvious that there was at least a reasonable chance he had filled up here. I guess another way of putting this is that my problem lies in a lack of dynamic analysis of the hand, and failure to detach myself from the knowledge that I was holding a lock hand for 2 streets. Failure to properly re-evaluate this hand on the river hurt me here. And even if I couldn't have gotten away from this hand in this instance, if I keep this up in the long run I'm losing money. Thanks for indirectly helping me to spot a new leak in my game.

Unless you are Mike McD you do not sit down with your entire bankroll at one table.

Man.....1200????????That's like a third of my BR.It took me 2 years to build just 1200 and then another 6-8 monthes to grind out to 3K.Man.............................sigh......

I've already explained the rationale behind this.

For reference, I have a Noble account with $2700 in it that I use to play $5/$10 limit. I never up my game to $10/$20 and if I ever drop down to under $1800, I move down to $3/$6.

I took just $20 from that $2700 as a CHALLENGE to myself to see how quickly it was possible to convert it into a meaningful sum. My potential goal was to see how long, by taking a large risk, it would take to match my Noble bankroll that it took me 6 months to grind out. If you think that's a foolhardy excerise, then suit yourself, that's your perogative. But it's my choice to make and I see no reason why you ought to feel compelled to judge me on performing this kind of experiment. It was simply an educational challenge, which happens to have nothing to do with the way I played the hand that this thread was set up to discuss.

You have a right to your disdain, but why not do the polite thing and keep it to yourself?

Ah I see... I hadn't noticed the flop bet was still a pot sized bet. But look at it: What hands is he betting pot sized bets with on the turn? I can only think of KK and QQ = Push turn. Good luck to you next time on him not boating.

Positive variance: Lastnight I flopped the nut flush and villain flopped the K high flush. Didn't slowplay (4-bet) and got it all in on the flop because every turn and river card could be scary ones. Hopefully this happens next time for ya!

"What hands is he betting pot sized bets with on the turn? I can only think of KK and QQ = Push turn"

This is exactly my problem for this hand - I didn't spend enough time worrying about putting him on a range as soon as I saw the flop come down - my sole thought was "extract extract extract". I had decided that repping a broken draw on the river was the way to go with it. Harsh lesson learned here, and I got what was coming to me.

Out of curiousity, how often are you folding 2nd set to a re-raise on the turn with that board?

Although I'd also add to his range AK, AQ and any 2 spades.

i lead the flop, or at least check raise

Originally Posted by Anaemik

... to be honest, I think one of my main faults in this hand was not thinking enough about what he had, and worrying to much about how to get the max out of my assumed nut hand. The actual time span between me seeing the board pair land on the river and me lumping all my chips in was approximately 1 second. If I had actually stopped and thought the play through a little more and tried to put him on a range of hands, it ought to have been obvious that there was at least a reasonable chance he had filled up here. I guess another way of putting this is that my problem lies in a lack of dynamic analysis of the hand, and failure to detach myself from the knowledge that I was holding a lock hand for 2 streets. Failure to properly re-evaluate this hand on the river hurt me here. And even if I couldn't have gotten away from this hand in this instance, if I keep this up in the long run I'm losing money. Thanks for indirectly helping me to spot a new leak in my game.

Well, you have just outlined my biggest leak. Almost every large pot I lose is for the very reason you mentioned. I look to extract as much as possible with the nuts not even bothering to think that there could be something bigger (however outlandish) to take me stack.

Thanks for the post.

Originally Posted by Anaemik

Out of curiousity, how often are you folding 2nd set to a re-raise on the turn with that board?

Guessing 25-40% of the time.

You'd need to consider: Does this player play scared? Does this player play strong postflop? Does he bluff a lot? Do I have ANY reads on this guy?
I seldom have reads so I fold middle set seldomly.

you might want to raise the turn there - At least the Villain (not even knowing his cards) is very interested in this pot - If you put him on best possible hand it is top set. If he has top set and you have NUT flush, he has 10 outs to make boat (3K's, 3 5's, 3 3's and 1 Q for quads) - that means you are roughly 4:1 favorite (he has 10 outs, only river left is ABOUT 10x2 for 20% to hit paired board - just using rough 4x2 rule) - Basically its like you taking AA's against KK's for all the money preflop - You would do that everytime right? I think you played it perfect - If you bet at the nut flop 20%, that is a good amount of mixing up - I like the slow play here - You are way ahead, Villain is aggro - this is a good spot for you....Just got unlucky -

Also, that is a really good idea about the $20 challenge - Did you have a goal in mind? Or did you just want to see what you could get it up to with no thought of cashing it? Maybe next time say if you get it to $500 cash it and do it again...? I think that is excellent practice though - and you got up there in 4 days? WOW _ you are definitely doing something right -

Just a little more info on my "$20 challenge" (I believe there has been a similar Dwarfman challenge on here somewhere?) - curiousity got the better of me and I wanted to see what I could make out of a small stake that I didn't have any real financial or emotional investment in. My goal was to see how long it would take me to accumulate the $2700 roll I have in my other online account. Now, I preface all this by saying I play a high risk game with this money, and have tried it 3 times prior to this one, each time busting out around $100. But, if you are interested, here's the story of how my $20 became $1200, then became $0, in 4 days:

This was all played on Titan poker (part of the ipoker network, along with Noble)

Day 1:

- Deposit $20
- Played $5+$0.50 6 seater turbo SNG's until I reached about $50
- Played a $5 MTT FO - placed 3rd for $177


Day 2

- With around $220, I had about 55 BB's at $2/$4, so played 6 max limit until I hit $300
- Once I hit $300, I moved up to $3/$6 limit and brought my balance up to about $550 after a real hot run of cards. Add to this that, on Noble/Titan, limit up to $5/$10 is a total fishfest. I was using Poker Sherlock to help me monitor the stats of the competitors, and basically I was just picking my spots with guys who entered more than around 45% of flops, but didn't show much post-flop strength.
- Played a couple of $50+$7 6 seater SNG's. Placed 3rd in my first one (money back) and 1st in my second ($150). This gives me around $700

Day 3

- With $700, I move to $5/$10 limit 6 max. Many games are played 4 or 5 handed, and I'm looking for the tables full of donkeys (which are pretty easy to find). I'm entering about 22-24% of pots and being very aggressive post flop, trusting on my tablemates to call down their gutshots and bottom pairs to the river. The occasional suckout notwithstanding, this brought me up to $1200 by session end.

Day 4

- With $1200, I hit the $2/$4 no-limit tables. I should have listened to my gut and not bothered doing this, because I know that my NL ring game is much weaker than both my limit ring game and my NL tourny game (not that either are perfect, but NL ring is definately the weakest of the 3).Found a LAG table with a view to playing tighter than the table average, but prepared to call down some of the super loose players with 2nd/3rd best hand. Played a few marginals with the 2 uberdonks at the table, and was up about $75 for the 1st hour. Then came the inevitable cold-decking. Sat tight waiting for my big hands, and any opportunities where I found myself with position. Was playing AA-TT, AK and AQ up front, and was opening up to 99-22, AJs,ATs KQs, KJs, QJs and JTs with position. Made 2 bad judgement calls where I called down with 2nd pair, when I hadd a read on opp that suggested he was betting with air and dreams (my bad). Had a monstrous suckout put on me with TPTK on a 0 draw board to a runner runner baby flush who called down with rags and hit, which left me a little off kilter, followed by the hand which is the subject of this thread.

I was left with about $40 which I tilted away at $0.25/$0.50


Whilst on the surface it seemed like a futile and pointless excercise, now I've had a couple days to reflect upon it, I've learned some pretty valuable things about my game, and I've identified some areas that I really need to improve on (besides the painfully obvious bankroll management). So all in all, not being results oriented for a moment, whilst this was a short term disaster, I'm of the mind that my $20 has bought me some long-term insight into my game may have cost me more $$$ down the line.

The main lesson seems to be that you should play limit..

lol - hard to argue with that.

I really think you should consider adhering to that lesson btw. I really got the impression you found a way to find the limit fish and exploit them. There's no need to be good at everything. If I could find a niche where I could make good money, then I'd stay there forever.

You basically made $1200 in a couple days in limit games right? No doubt this is an upswing, but this probably means your "average" is pretty high regardless - if you keep doing what you did in this experiment.

I think you're onto something. The thing with my game is that it's still far from watertight, and I'll always make 1 or 2 substantial mistakes per session. The difference between the limit games and no limit games is, in NL, one mistake can cost me my entire stack - in limit, I have a buffer that protects me from myself, so to speak. I think my limit game is OK for the levels I play at - I'd describe it more as a diamond in the rough (if I'm being generous to myself), and still needs a lot of polishing before it becomes a true thing of beauty, whereas my NL game is still pretty much a lump of coal that needs a lot of time and energy exerted onto it before it even has the potential to be a gem (I know - I'm pushing the analogy to its limits here).

Whilst I will remain playing mainly LHE ring and SNG's (which I also fare pretty good at), I'd like to sharpen up my NL game to the point where I can at least play at some profitable limits. I've got a long way to go with that, but this place is really helping, so thatnks for your advice.