Badly played or bad luck?

[potdragn]

I was doing well at 25 NL, so I decided to try 50NL. Initially i liked what i saw, felt comfortable there, but took some bad beats and just bad luck.

i want to know if anyone thinks i could have somehow saved myself 50 here:

I was dealt AA in dealer position. first to act raises to $1. 3rd to act raises to $2. when it gets to me, I raise to $5 total. Everyone folds but the guy who raised to $2.

Flop is rainbow 10 6 3.

I bet 10, he thinks, calls. At this point i put him on AK or a lower pair.

turn is a 9. I bet 20. he calls.

river is another 10, he puts me all in for like my last $2. of course i call and he flips over 66 for the house.

was there anything i could do in this situation, or am i just losing all my chips here? should i have suspected a set when he called on the flop?

[slickslack]

Sets are difficult to detect.

Aces are difficult to lay down.

These two facts will both win and lose a lot of money for you over time. You got unlucky this time, but the benefit is that you get to take this experience to the next hand.

I would have re-evaluated on the turn after he called the flop bet, but then, calls still just make me nervous in general. I play the lower limits where people will call you to the river and then fold, leaving you scratching your head wondering what the hell they could have *possibly* had to keep calling like that.

Anyway, as for the hand I would have probably checked the turn because the first thing that came to mind reading your post was "this little #*&@$ has a set of tens.." I would have never guessed a set of sixes from his re-raise, but I guess it does make sense if he was trying to buy the button. Still, that's a hefty raise to be calling with 66, hoping to for a set.. I really can't see it being profitable long-term.

s.

[Aplomado]

i want to know if anyone thinks i could have somehow saved myself 50 here

Fold the flop.

[Kiriath]

I got a few ideas.

reraise bigger preflop, to like 8 or so. if he calls that u can safely pay off hes set knowing that u will win in the long run.

besides that, based on hes preflop play u gotta put him on a pp or ak, based on ur preflop play he gotta put u on a high pp. So when he coldcalls ur big flop bet, u gotta put him on a set. Unless u got a read saying moron, in both cases id just check the turn then call whatever he bets on the river.

[renegaderob1]

I can't see how his calling the 10BB bet is +EV? Or is this some advanced shark move I am unaware of?

[Demiparadigm]

Mathematically it is correct to call a raise with a pocket pair if you expect the pot to be more than 24 times the size of the initial bet post flop, when you hit your set.
I won't go into the specific math, but a lot of NL players use a "10x" rule where if both your and the raiser's stacks are more than 10x the size of the raise, you can call with a pp strictly for set value.
So to answer the question on calling with 66 preflop, he was calling $3 (he already had $2 invested) into a $9 pot, giving him 3 to 1 immediate odds, with the possibily of winning a $80 pot, giving him a very slim correct call, based on implied odds.

[renegaderob1]

Never thought of the implied odds like that. Cool, thanks

[Demiparadigm]

Never thought of the implied odds like that. Cool, thanks

An interesting corollary to this concept is "reverse implied odds"
In that, against a solid player it may be correct to fold a hand like AKo here, since he is representing a monster.
When you hit your hand with AK after you have "defined" your hand with the reraise, You will either win the minimum or lose the maximum.
Let's say an ace flops. If your opponent has KK or QQ, you will not win much, but if he has AA, you will lose a lot.
This is even more pronounced when you hit your K. Hands that can not beat AK will not pay you off, but you will pay off AA and KK.

Since it is sometimes correct to fold AKo here, It should be obvious that it is almost always correct to fold AJ,KQ and other offsuit broadway cards.
The situation is slightly different with suited cards however, since they too have the ability to make a monster hand. You do not have the same "implied" odds however, since a flush is much easier to spot than a set.

[renegaderob1]

Although I hadn't defined it quite like that, this theory I have thought about

I almost always fold my AK (even suited) against tight/solid players who reraise me prf unless I have a read/tell that tells me he doesn't have AA or KK.

[Rondavu]

Now you know why it's important NOT to over represent AK in a cash game. Your winning pots dry up.

As for the hand you lost with AA, as others have already mentioned, it was correct for him to call with 66, and especially if he believed you had AA. So you get a ten high flop and after you get called for $10 postflop, you gotta put him on something...

The hands you're ahead of are a pair of tens, JJ, QQ, KK. You can eliminate KK and possibly QQ because they might have bullied your AA preflop. That leaves JJ KT AT QT JT. Which of these will he reraise to 4xBB on the early raiser preflop? The first three are all possible. More likely JJ or AT.

So the way the hand played out, there was no chance to escape, because you couldn't put him on a hand that was ahead of you. That's the beauty of flopping a set on a pair of aces. As the person with the set, you don't want any coordination on the board, because you want the high pocket to remain confident through all streets and continue to drain itself.

He played it beautifully postflop, just calling you down passive. People usually get excited with a set on any flop and go way over the top of you. This guy fried you like chicken.

That's why good players make money. They play their hands just right like an old recipe.

[johnny_fish]

Mathematically it is correct to call a raise with a pocket pair if you expect the pot to be more than 24 times the size of the initial bet post flop, when you hit your set.
I won't go into the specific math,

Please do! I'm very interested in that 24x figure..

[Greedo017]

tough to get away from this one especially out of position, but his calling your flop bet is a pretty strong sign he out flopped you, though i'd for sure be thinking tens not sixes. I'm probably losing my money here most of the time.

And he did have odds to call. think of it this way, he's going to flop a set 1 in 8 times. your 3 dollar raise made it so he needed to make a total of 3*8 or 24 bucks to make it a good call. Including his initial 2 dollar raise, for a total of 5, he needed to make 40 bucks to make up for his bet plus his call of your raise, which he did. though, its a long term losing move, he's not going to destack the other person often enough.

[Lukie]

I was doing well at 25 NL, so I decided to try 50NL. Initially i liked what i saw, felt comfortable there, but took some bad beats and just bad luck.

i want to know if anyone thinks i could have somehow saved myself 50 here:

I was dealt AA in dealer position. first to act raises to $1. 3rd to act raises to $2. when it gets to me, I raise to $5 total. Everyone folds but the guy who raised to $2.

Flop is rainbow 10 6 3.

I bet 10, he thinks, calls. At this point i put him on AK or a lower pair.

turn is a 9. I bet 20. he calls.

river is another 10, he puts me all in for like my last $2. of course i call and he flips over 66 for the house.

was there anything i could do in this situation, or am i just losing all my chips here? should i have suspected a set when he called on the flop?

Either you weren't OTB or you left out crucial parts of this hand history.. in either case.. it's very hard to give you advice on this hand.

[bencathers]

Too many people play A10 just like this.... re-raise pre-flop to 9. Then you know you are against a PP, unless you are convinced he will play ANY pp for 9...and u fold the flop

[Checkways]

Here's a trick if you're playing against good players. At 50NL you should probably just keep playing like you did this one. But at the higher limits, once you've repped a big pocket pair and they STILL call you on the flop, then you must suspect a set if there's no draw.

So check the turn. Some of the people here will tell you that I'm smoking crack. But if you reraise preflop, flop has no draw, and they call your pot sized bet, then it's MUCH more likely that they have a set than a hand that you can beat.

The chance of being up against another overpair is small after they call the flop because normally they will RAISE on the flop to see where they stand.

This is what checking the turn does for you - it shows weakness. Many times they will make only a moderate bet on the river to draw you in giving you a much cheaper showdown.

Now here's the beauty of it. If they check the river PUSH ALL IN. It not only looks like a bluff, but you know they don't have a set or a big hand. No one check raises weakness.

But again, at lower limits this does not apply as much.

[potdragn]

Either you weren't OTB or you left out crucial parts of this hand history.. in either case.. it's very hard to give you advice on this hand.

Yeh, i forgot to mention he checked to me. thanks for the advice guys.

[Demiparadigm]

Here's a trick if you're playing against good players. At 50NL you should probably just keep playing like you did this one. But at the higher limits, once you've repped a big pocket pair and they STILL call you on the flop, then you must suspect a set if there's no draw.

So check the turn. Some of the people here will tell you that I'm smoking crack. But if you reraise preflop, flop has no draw, and they call your pot sized bet, then it's MUCH more likely that they have a set than a hand that you can beat.

The chance of being up against another overpair is small after they call the flop because normally they will RAISE on the flop to see where they stand.

This is what checking the turn does for you - it shows weakness. Many times they will make only a moderate bet on the river to draw you in giving you a much cheaper showdown.

Now here's the beauty of it. If they check the river PUSH ALL IN. It not only looks like a bluff, but you know they don't have a set or a big hand. No one check raises weakness.

But again, at lower limits this does not apply as much.

Sexy