B+M 1-2 No Limit Hand - three questions
I've recently made the switch from live limit to no-limit, and while I've gotten a ton better, there are still hands like this that frustate me and give me pause:
I had been playing at this 100max 1-2 NL game for a few hours, and I'd developed a very tight-aggressive table image (well, i was playing tight aggressive), but the table shifted to being really passive for a bit as a couple new players came in. UTG+1 I was dealt Ad-3d. At this point my stack is about $185. Normally, I throw this hand away unless I'm on button, but there are been so few raises, and those raises had been from weak players, that I decided a limp would probably be worth it. Sure enough, there seven limpers.
Flop comes: 10d-2d-6d, so I've flopped the nut flush. The big blind, who had overbet a lot of hands (though not from out of position) and was quite loose, bet out $10. He started the hand with about $130. I decide to call the $10 to see if anyone else wants to come along, or if I can catch a raiser. Everyone else folds.
Turn comes: 7c. BB bets out $20. This is the point where I don't really know what to do. My best guess is that he's got a 10, possibly two pair, and at worst a set. In my base case scenario, he might have a flush draw, but I didn't get that vibe (a few hands earlier he had check-raised the flop with a flush draw, bet out the turn, and then was called on the river after he lost, and he doesn't seem to want to do it again). My problem is that I know he knows I'm pretty tight, and he damn sure knows that I'm not smooth calling $10 with several players behind me with nothing. I end up calling the $20 and raising another $25. This is obviously a value bet that I really want him to call.
He thinks for a minute and calls. Now I'm 90% positive he's got either two pair, a flush draw, or a set, and I still doubt its a flush draw. Sure enough, the river comes a 7d, and he goes all-in for his last $53 or so, I think to myself "fuck me" and call.
Here are my questions:
1. The flop call-was it correct? I actually like it because the table wasn't astute enough to know that the nut flush was about the only hand I would just call with in that situation. There were a couple folks who had been aggressive post-flop earlier without much. Plus, I'm really playing the guy UTG, because I have no guarantees that anyone else is going play, and it seemed silly to scare him off with such a good hand. In addition, I'll admit that I'd been at the table a lot with very, very mediocre cards and struggling to get paid with the hands I had. I felt like I was playing my cards well, but this was a situation I felt I could milk.
2. The turn raise. This is where I can't figure out if I made the right move. When I raised $25 on the turn, I knew I making a fairly obvious min-raise, but I was still giving him 4-1 odds to call (the pot after my raise was $99). If he's got a set, he's still not getting the express odds to call, but it's still a bet that I knew was going to get called by anything halfway decent. But I don't think he has a set. If I thought he was that strong, I probably would have raised $60 or pushed, expecting a call and not wanting a fourth diamond on the river to keep me from being paid. I'm working to get some more chips in the pot. Again, he thinks for a bit, and calls.
3. The river. He goes all-in when the board pairs and puts the fourth diamond out there. I say "fuck" outloud and stare at him for a bit. Now I'm getting better than 3.5-1 for my money on a crying call. I'm pretty positive he filled up, there's no reason for him to think that he can bluff me, but then again I've seen much stranger things. Moreover, there was a four flush out there, making it less likely that he's bluffing but more likely that he might have been on a flush draw afterall. I finally decide that I don't really know, I'm getting 3.5-1 on my money, and I make the call. I will confess that this call on the river is probably a weakness in my NL, and I can tell it comes directly from limit, where folding on the river with a good hand is a deadly sin. Not the case in NL--but was it still the right move here?
HAND RESULTS BELOW--DON'T READ IF IT AFFECTS POSTING:
******he shows down 7s-6h and takes down the pot with a running full-house. in the end, are there serious gaps of poker reasoning here, or strategy, that could be applied given my reads? Or is this just a hand that was played fairly well to a bad result?********
