This is a hand I played recently where I made some unusual and likely poor plays.

Main opponent is the BB. An older Caucasian woman. Too lose and passive preflop, but she played her made hands aggressively post flop. She is definitely not afraid to raise strong hands on the big streets.

This game has mostly been passive with a couple of other players that raised preflop. Most pots were going multi-way.

I have 4h 4d UTG and limp. 4 players limp and then the button raises. The SB calls 2, BB calls, I call and so does eryone else.

I thought this game was loose enough to limp 44 UTG. I think this hand is easier to play OOP than most. Flop a set or fold.

Flop: Ac 7c 4c (15 SB after rake)

SB check, BB bets, ...

At this point all I can think is BB has the flopped flush. Maybe she has A7 or something, but so far she has played straight forward, so I think she has a strong hand. I've flopped a set, but think I'm behind most of BB donking range. I just call.

It folds around to the button, who shakes his head and folds. SB calls.

Turn: [Ac 7c 4c] 4s (9 BB)

SB checks, BB bets without hesitation, and I hesitate and just call, SB folds.

Obviously I have the best hand now. I debated raising here, but i'm pretty sure BB is betting most of her range on the river, so I decide to wait till the river to raise. Also I was hoping to get SB to call. He did a lot of calling, but folded in this case.

Turn: [Ac 7c 4c 4s] Qc (11 BB)

BB bets, I raised, BB 3 bets, I 4 bet and she just calls.

I assume that given the way I played other streets, my river play was fine. Go ahead and flame away for limping 44 UTG, not raising the flop, and not raising the turn.

I don't like open limps, but if you are going to do it, do it in a 6-12 game with 44.

You should just fastplay this. Lots of people are betting that board with an AxXs or even just KsX. And at any rate, it's 6-12. Fastplay everything.

Stay away from fancy play syndrome. Even if it's right to delay a street sometimes against good opponents in 40-80, there's zero reason to do it in a mass multi-way 2-bet pot in a 6-12 game.

Nh imo .

Raise the streets

You got really lucky that the river didn't kill your action. +1 to whoever the second poster was (lawdude?) - you get XcYc and AoXc and KcXo here a fair amount and you only get 4 bets from Kc. You may even get chec/folds from small flushes.

Preflop is okay if 4 limpers behind was typical. Raise flop, as played raise turn, as played you must go to the craps table and make a sacrifice to Gamblor The High God of Action Rivers.

ETA: I think a 10% tithe would be appropriate.

For gods sake raise the turn..

Normally with a flop set, I would try to check raise the flop. In this case with all clubs flop I'm thinking that donking the flop might be a better play, since there is a chance this will check through.

When the BB donked, that totally threw me off. I'd only played with her for an 2 hours or so, but I never seen her bet draws, only good made hands. All I could think was she had the flush and I needed to pair the board.

As it turned out my read that she had a strong made hand was correct, but I had far fewer outs than I thought. In fact I only had one out, the card that came on the turn.

I agree I should have raised the turn. Might have even gotten more bets out of her if I did. I was freaked by last time I flopped quad kings. I had raised preflop with KK and the flop had two kings. I bet the flop and everyone folded. They probably just put me on AK or KQ and folded. There checking the flop might have been better, but this is a totally different situation. Raising the turn would look like a flush. Other flushes would call down, maybe re-raise if they have the nut flush, although with the board paired on the turn, players are usually cautious.

Raise the flop, raise the turn, crazy go nuts.

She had the pocket rockets, didn't raise preflop, and then donked her set? It's like backwards poker... no wonder the god of poker karma spited her on the turn.

Pre: Seems fine.

Flop: Raise to protect your hand and for value. Villain can easily have an ace or the Kc. It's a big win if you get a hand like KxJc to fold and you win the pot because of it.

Turn: RAISE! Jam the pot. You are going to win. You want the pot to be big.

River: Good

Fold pre. Even if this play preflop is worth like $2 of EV, it's better long term to learn to look down at 44 and fold it UTG. As it turns out, you have your perfect action, so I guess we move on.

Raise flop. You can't immediately put her on the flush, and even if she has it, you're live as hell. Plus, people behind you have all sorts of crap that's crushed by your hand that can call 2 cold. They aren't folding an Ace to 2 cold on the flop. They aren't folding the J. They aren't folding 65s. Hell, they may not fold 86. Make it expensive, though you should enter calldown mode if BB 3 bets.

Raise turn immediately. Both opponents are likely dead, SB can easily have a big club and call 2 cold on the turn drawing stone dead. Plus, BB can easily put you on a turned trip 4's if she can't hand read.

As played, I like the river at least. You got wicked lucky she's a terrible hand reader and spewed at you. She was way more likely to do it on the turn, with the bonus of the small blind calling bets while stone dead.

The times to raise to "protect your hand" are few and far between. We raise for value. It has the additional benefit of occasionally making hands that could beat us fold, but live hands to bottom set won't be doing a lot of folding on this flop. So we charge them.

I hardly think she spewed with her Aces full or sevens full. I guess you would have put OP squarely on quads after a single raise? The reasonable thing for her to put him on is the flush.

Very backward thinking.

This isn't so important at 6/12 FL, but if you ever want to play legitimate mid-stakes and win, you need to fix this mentality now.

This statement is incredibly important: Most of the time we bet a flop outside of massively multiway situations, we don't have anything and want folds. Even if we have a hand like AK on 332 against 2 opponents (so we feel pretty good that we've the best hand a lot), we want our opponent to fold his 96s or whatever cheeseball thing he cold called a raise with. He's be getting the right price to draw against us, especially if he has a backdoor flush draw. So even though we're value betting, we'd prefer the fold.

So why is this relevant? Because clearly when you go for trappy, backwards lines and start fastplaying when you don't have it and slowplaying when you do, observant players are going to make your life hell. If you're betting whiffs on the flop in the hope of taking it down, you never will because your bet will not have enough meat on it (in the form of value). And if you're trapping when you have it, opponents will adjust by making some surprisingly nitty plays in spots where you'd normally get way more bets (ex: I open 65s CO, TAGfish 3 bets BTN, I call; AJ5tt check check, turn 5 check bet call, river 2 check bet call, I lose to AA). If you observe high stakes games, you'd notice that most of the better players in the game are fastplaying the majority of the time, especially OOP.

Additionally, board texture is important. Having KK on KK4r is actually a slowplay candidate, simply because you have the deck so completely crushed that no one can really have anything. But having 44 on A74ccc-4 is a whole different ballgame: now there's top pair + club, 77, AA, flushes, naked Kc; essentially a whole host of hands that can shovel money in against you drawing thin to dead. Plus, if you're up against, say, AxJc and 86cc, a river club could even kill your action, and having the Jc check call the river would be an absolute disaster given how much $ those hands would put in on the turn. Or for cliff notes: there's merit to slowplaying the over-quads because you just have the deck crushed, but bottom quads can and should be fastplayed almost always (and until you find good situations to slowplay them, default to "always").

To be fair, from our POV, it's way more likely she has the flush than an overfull (which is what's really important here), though yes, 77 didn't spew here.

The point to make to OP is that we need to be putting in action on the streets where hands are most likely to jam it in there as well. IOW, the nut flush / 2nd nut flush is at least somewhat likely to 3 bet the turn, but is never 3 betting a blank river (plus we risk a ton of action killing cards).

I agree OP should have raised the turn. I can see how he wanted to keep in the 3rd player, but there is a chance the 3rd player would have called anyway, and the value is usually in charging the BB more.

However, I don't think his call on the flop is bad if he legitimately had the read that her donk was very strong.

I don't think you would have. You pretty much get 5 BB turn+river no matter what line you take. At 6/12, 4-betting is super strong and she's not going to 5-bet aces full much less sevens full.

But against her whole range you would have gotten more bets more of the time.

IOW? What's IOW?

In Other Words

This is right conceptually, but I do want to emphasize to OP that in low stakes limit games, you probably shouldn't even slowplay this. People have such wide calling ranges that you are unlikely to ever see everyone fold.

In a no limit game, raising the flop with the KK on that board may only get action from one hand, 44. So you slowplay because you have a complete lock on the board. But that's just not true in 6-12 limit.

Yes, lawdude is right OP. In multiway spots, just don't worry about slowplaying yet, until you can analyze at game speed when to do it (and these times will be few and far between as you generally want to raise multiway whenever you have reason to believe you're taking the best of it).

Plus, since everyone waits until the turn or river at this stake to start raising their monsters, you might see some surprising action from people


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I think that if the game is passive enough to limp preflop, then the game is likely to be passive enough to raise preflop with this hand and many other good drawing hands like J9s.

If the game isn't so passive, then I'd just fold preflop.