How bad?

My efforts at 10NL are still resulting in disaster. After just 500 hands I'm down almost three buy-ins.
It's not the end of the world by any means, but I can sense that it's becoming a problem mentally.

This hand came at the end of a session where I had clawed back some early losses. I finally hit a good hand and as you'll see it went pear shaped.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ Hero (8 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

MP1 ($30.10)
MP2 ($15.43)
CO ($7.15)
Button ($14.80)
SB ($8.89)
Hero ($10.70)
UTG ($11.67)
UTG+1 ($0)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 7, 7. SB posts a blind of $0.05.
2 folds, MP2 calls $0.10, 2 folds, SB (poster) completes, Hero checks.

Flop: ($0.30) 7, 8, K (4 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, MP2 bets $0.35, SB folds, Hero calls $0.35.

Should I raise here? If he has got a king I don't want him to put me on trips or TPTK if he's TPWK.
There doesn't seem to be much risk here with slowplaying. I'm 98% to win at this point but how much will he be willing to part with now?

Turn: ($1) K (3 players)
Hero checks, MP2 bets $0.88, Hero calls $0.88.

That seems like a money card. If we eliminate KK (hardly likeky given pf action) then unless it's K7 or K8 I'm good.
Is now the time to raise? He's probably hit trips now; can I get it all in straight away?
He's 15% to win, a significant improvement. Should I make him pay to see the river, or take the risk and get one more big bet off him before I hit him with a raise?

River: ($2.76) 8 (3 players)
Hero checks, MP2 bets $1.94, Hero calls $1.94.

And of course it's horrid to hit the 8. But better than a 2 (when I would have got de-stacked).
Why did I call here? I have no excuse. I was just so gutted I think I just called out of some desperate hope he was bluffing.
Real donk stuff.

Final Pot: $6.64
Hero has 7d 7s (full house, sevens full of kings).
UTG+1 doesn't show.
MP2 has Kh 2h (full house, kings full of eights).
Outcome: MP2 wins $6.64.

Raise the turn to around 3x his bet. You're too deepstacked to open push-raise there. Hopefully he 3bets you all in, or you can 4bet all in from there.

The river call is terrible, but you know that already.

My advice is to take a couple of seconds before clicking the button to think through what you are doing, and why.

I'm perfectly fine with the flat call on the flop given the pot size and the way people entered the pot. The turn is a great place to raise because if he doesn't have a K he'll put you on a K and fold or weaken. Not what we want, but if you flat call he'll probably not put more money in the pot without the King anyways so here's your chance to make him pay if he does have the king.

Tough river. It happens, but I don't think you played it horribly by any means and I can understand your call though I can't say I would've done it. Depends on what I know about the player. But I might.

Why should he put you on TPTK when you haven`t raised preflop? That doesn`t make sense. Flop isnt that bad, even though I`d bet it out, there are draws out there after all. And I`d certainly raise the turn. At 10NL people call quite a lot I would think (never played 10NL actually, only 25 and up) so he will probably call you down with the king. And what do you beat that you think he can have on river?
I think you`re playing too passively, slowplaying isn`t that good, it both fails to let draws pay even though there were none in this case, and it also fails to build a pot. Be aggressive! It`s fun and it`s a winning strategy!

You can very conceivably see a loose player make a river bet here with A hi thinking (More like praying) that either you'll fold or you'll call and either split the pot with K's and 8's Ace kicker or "who knows maybe he'll [YOU] call for info or with a lower PKT pair than 8's (not including 7's) to either show his unluckiness or because he's dumb!" THAT LAST PART IS VERY UNLIKELY. But if you see enough hands you'll realize that it is very conceivable. And it's something to put into your equation. Even a player who is normally decent, but thinks you're awful might make this bet here assuming you'll fold. Or a player might make this bet with a worse hand because he/she wants to "fire three bullets!" because that's a noble thing to do and by golly if he gets called the player is just gonna be like "OK now I have a table image to work with!" As in he might be making a bluff he knows PROBABLY won't work but he rationalizes it in his own way.

With all that said I think you should NORMALLY BE FOLDING HERE. But there's a shitload of things to consider.

As for "Why should he put you on TPTK when you haven`t raised preflop? That doesn`t make sense. " if you've never seen an MP player limp with AK then you haven't played enough poker.Something being unusual is a porr reason to write it off as something that doesn't need to enter your mind.

Originally Posted by ekillian

As for "Why should he put you on TPTK when you haven`t raised preflop? That doesn`t make sense. " if you've never seen an MP player limp with AK then you haven't played enough poker.Something being unusual is a porr reason to write it off as something that doesn't need to enter your mind.

Especially since there had bene so many folds. It's quite possible someone might limp wanting more value for their AK than the blinds.

But actually I should have said TPAK, because Any Kicker is good against K2.

Thanks for the input guys. I guess I'm going to have to make more bets for value. Although I'm trying to tell myself if I only lose 15% of these pots then that's fine.
After 10000 hands I'll look back on this and laaaaaaugh

2 folds, MP2 calls $0.10, 2 folds, SB (poster) completes, Hero checks

Should I raise here? If he has got a king I don't want him to put me on trips or TPTK if he's TPWK.

I have seen MP limp with AK, but it doesn't happen very often, maybe it happens a lot at 10NL? But I was assuming not. And in either case, I was not talking about MP having AK, but Hero. He is saying that MP might put him on TPTK if MP has top pair with a worse kicker, and my point was just that it's unlikely that MP would do that since he would probably think Hero has something else as Hero only checked on the BB preflop.

Any player can have any given hand at any time apart from the cards you see, but in my opinion you have to use the info you have to determine what his likely range is. In this situation I would not put AK in Hero's range, neither in MPs. In unraised pots I don't worry about other players having AK, aces and kings etc. unless they're very clearly telling it to me by their play, if they do have it, too bad for me and I rebuy

"likely range" is a beautiful phrase. Sure it's fine to say that AK would be unlikely for either of them, but I'm just saying you can't be anywhere near sure that the hands aren't there unless you know the player really well.

(And if it's a player who you know really well who KNOWS you knw him and he's good then LOOK OUT! lol Know what I mean though?

And it's also a usefull phrase, but if you don't like it don't use it As with everything in poker it depends on a lot of things though, but I blieve that at most tables you can be pretty sure that players are not holding AK in an unraised pot in a situation like this. How "near" you can be is impossible to discuss though

I'd raise over him on the flop only if I haven't already taken some stacks with a c/r before.. in that case people know I mean it and I'm getting folds often. So imho it's preference. Usually I'll wait for the turn, like you did. But on the turn you really need to check/raise man! Especially with such a godly turn card for you.. he's not gonna be laying down a hand that just improved. Never

About the river.. you really need to fold here imho. But it's very understandable you called. I call here so often too, simply because I'm cursing the river card and I don't want to lay down my beautiful flopped set. I only manage to lay something like this down if I prepare myself for it beforehand.