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If you actually thought he had QJ then I think that you did make a big mistake by pushing on the flop.
The way you played this hand very clearly defines your hand as a set, but your analysis here doesn't really awknowledge the other hands he could possibly have had that might have the raise seem like a good idea to him. He might have AQ, AJ, and flush draw, including the hand you're most afraid of (besides a higher set of course), K-T of spades. With K-T of spade--he's calling the all-in bet profitably. With A-Q, A-J, or QJ, you have a possibility to make a lot of money here if you just call his raise.
Let's assume that he has QJ. You bet out $4, he raises to $12, and you call. If you're 100% positive that he's got top two pair, you're going to get a big bet here. Imagine you're him. He might put you on AQ, AA, KK, or a flush draw, or a straight draw. The bottom line is--there's a wide range of hands here that he can beat, and in his mind, he'd be an absolute fool to not to bet out here and give you a free card. So he's got to bet at least $22-27 and you can raise all-in and have him pretty close to pot committed.
If he has a flush draw, then you have a decision to make. You can either push all-in like you did and make him surrender his $14 in the hand and kick himself for raising himself out of the pot, or call, and if a scare card doesn't come out you can bet 3/4 to 100% of the pot to force him to make a mistake on the call.
One thing I don't like about pushing with the hand on the flop in this situation is that in 50NL I don't find to many people that will make this big of a raise semi-bluffing. The way you play the hand--it's completely obvious that you have a set to any kind of a thinking player, and so you're only going to get called by a straight flush draw (a little better than a coin flip for you and a profitable long run call for him), a higher set (obviously a profitable call for him), and then if he's a donk maybe hands like AQ or QJ. In this case, in order for him to make a CONCEPTUALLY correct move to bet out for value on his hand he has to think is good (the likliehood that he's ahead right now given your range of hands at this point dictates that he bets for value and push out draws), he has to make an ACTUAL mistake because he's badly beaten in the hand. This, my friend, is where profit comes from. You make it pretty easy for him to avoid making a big mistake on the flop by defining your hand so starkly.
On the other hand, it's a ridiculously coordinated board and there are a lot of cards on the turn could beat you if he's a on a decent draw, so I'm not saying it's necessarily a mistake to push on the flop, only that it was flawed reasoning if you thought he had top two. Another option here is to call the flop raise and then, if a non-scare card comes out (or even if it does) bet out abour 75-100% of the pot so he makes another mistake in the hand by calling (especially given your stack sizes, since he will in no way have the implied odds at that point to push his draw).
I could work this mathematically if I had some sense of the probabilities that villain here is raising with a draw, but I don't think it would add much more light to this than I have.
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Operation Pay College Tuiton (40K)
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Originally Posted by kmind
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