2/5 No Limit at the Borgata. Mostly solid players. All but one or two players have 100BB or more, some much more. I have 120BB (~$600). I have been seen splashing around a little bit, but certainly nothing that should suggest I'd be willing to stack off with nothing.

I get 99 UTG and raise to 15, a small raise (standard is 20 or 25, but not considering position). I get five callers. The flop is 9-high, giving me top set, but is also three spades. I'm first to act and lead out for 100, roughly a PSB. Everyone folds except one guy in late position, definitely a solid player who I can assume is more experienced than I.

The turn is a blank and the pot is just under 300. I bet 200 and my opponent reraises me all in. He has me covered; I have another 300 left. The pot is 1000.

Do I put him on the nut flush here? It seems to me that a nut flush draw (with just an ace of spades), as well as a lesser flush and an underset to mine, would all want to raise me on the flop. Am I wrong? What else is call-raising here? Would anyone but a maniac (which this player is not) attempt a bluff here?

Do I have a clear fold here, despite the 3:10 pot odds?

Also, could my prior action have been better? Should I have bet less, particularly on the turn? In hindsight I wish I'd have bet 150-160 on the turn, enough to charge for a draw, with the intention of folding if a fourth spade came on the river. Should I have bet slightly less on the flop? Less money in the pot would certainly make it easier for me to get away from this hand.

What say ye?

I hope this helps

Board: 9s 5s 2s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 34.444% 34.44% 00.00% 1023 0.00 { 99 }
Hand 1: 65.556% 65.56% 00.00% 1947 0.00 { AsJs }

You need to figure out why you did what you did through each street in regards to both choice of action and bet sizing. Then you need to have contingency plans for all possible reactions to your action.

Ask yourself why you opened UTG, what you hope to gain from doing so, why did you open for less than the 'norm' of the table, why bet within the 'norms' of the table in the first place, what was your plan if raised, so on and so forth...

Rinse and repeat for each street.

As you get better at the game your interrogation of your own actions will broaden as well. You will question more things and have more variables to answer too...

edit to add- In the future, don't add a stupid poll like this as it will only garner negative feedback and deter others from respecting your play as well as you from respecting your game.

Thanks for replying.

The bet came on the turn, where it's more like 23%/77%, so I can't call for pot odds alone... or am I totally misunderstanding you?

You are misunderstanding me.

Take a few moments to think about why you did what you did on EVERY street (this includes bet sizing for the times you bet). You need to understand your motives of your actions (as well as the repercussions). What you are trying to accomplish. What you trying to represent. Why you are trying to accomplish and represent those things. So on and so on ad infinite...(this is where the list gets longer as your abilities grow)

From your post I gather that you are a novice player just from the way you put your thoughts on paper. You seem to have poor fundamentals and lack some technical aspects of the game that are just essential to improving and winning. The first step in this improvement aspect is to take a moment and think about why you did what you did. Understand what you goals are and learn how to execute them.

Once you have achieved this, you will see that your inquiry is misplaced/misguided and your turn query is not really in fact the problem in this hand but rather just a problem.

Thanks for your thoughtful post, jlocdog. Your points made me realize a great deal about the way I played this hand. I'll detail it here.

I raised preflop hoping to get a lot of callers and flop a set. Because I was UTG, I did not expect the $15 to be seen as suspicious. I played AK this way, and some players have also raised a small amount from EP. I had no premium hands otherwise and so was not seen opening from UTG.

I didn't expect to be reraised light, given the above, yet the $15 was cheap, exactly as I wanted, and I got 5 callers -- perfect! Then I flopped my set, top set at that.

It's clear now that I became way too attached to my hand here. I downplayed the possibility that I was facing a made flush, focusing instead on possibilities like just the A, a one pair putting me on the A or even a bottom two pair that could have called $15 into $60+ putting me on an overpair.

However I wish otherwise, though, I don't see how I could have played this hand differently. If reraised on the flop, I would have gone all in. I just don't see how I could not, given the possibility of an A flush draw or non-flush hand fearing same plus and my 33% chance of boating up. I would have to stack off to a flush here, no?

I didn't get reraised, though. On the turn, I still think I had to bet strong again. Once reraised, I'm forced to conclude that I have to lay it down, and that I was destined to lose the first $300 on the turn and river, thanks in no small part to my position. Would you agree?

At the same time, if my opponent does indeed have the flush, he would seem to have saved me half my stack by waiting until the turn to raise, no?

Er, sorry about all the out of order posts. The misunderstanding query was meant in response to Desination ... anyway, you're definitely right about the stupid poll. Your followup kind of addresses that question, anyway. If you get a chance to look at my reply to you above, I would be quite interested to know whether you think my analysis improved or I really need to go back to the drawing board. Thanks again for taking the time to reply and follow up, I really appreciate it.

8ballJunkie,

Well done. You obviously took some time to gather your thoughts and put them on paper. From this I can only assume/hope you now see the benefits about critically thinking about a hand. This is not to say your don't have some error in your thinking/logic but you are now approaching the game from the proper direction.

Preflop I think you have many options and depending upon the dynamic of the table I can see any route you choose to be a good one as long as it is accompanied by sound logic. As is, you present a fine argument for raising and for raising in that amount. It is good to distinguish the two because they play distinct roles in present and future endeavors within the hand. You need to have a believable/credible story and any inconsistency can ruin this story and thus lose the pot.

The question why should be asked with everything however because their is never one absolute answer. We need to explore other options or lines that we may take that may also be profitable. This includes thinking about raising more, limping to fold to a raise, limping to call a raise, limping to reraise, and open folding. There is a time and a place for everyone of these actions. From your description and motive I have no problem with the route you chose. I only mention the above so not to forget these options are also viable (and sometimes better). Think dynamically.

Often times players do well to think about the above but forget to prepare for the future. They think a raise could be good because their hand has value but then forget to take into account what flops they like, dislike, can manipulate, bluff, bet for value, get attached/pot stuck, etc... To really scrutinize whether or not your preflop play is the best one, you need to asses your opponents skill set and their weaknesses. You need to understand how to best get their money. Do they stack off light? Will they chase draws disregarding pot odds? Are their starting hand requirement tight/loose? You also be cognizant of what you actually do know in this hand. This includes stack sizes, and their ratios to each other and the escalating pot, position and how to use/manipulate it, thresholds of yourself and your opponents in regards to volitility, variance and tilt, etc... These questions and more will allow you to understand how far you should take a hand and what you should expect to do on certain flops.

As played I would understand that given my stack size here, I am willing to commit all of my chips if I flop a set...any set. Once I come to this realization I start to look at how I want to get all my money in the middle. What flops I prefer and how my opponents would react with the range of hands I asses them (given their image and position) on a multitude of ones. Monotones, 2tnes, 3 to a straight boards, dry boards... Here is where you balance your equity in the hand vs your opponents perceived equity. This is done by first giving your opponent a range of hands that he could have taken the line he took to get to where you are in the hand. So what hands would he call your UTG $15 raise that wouldn't reraise or fold to it. Then what hands are now going to call if I bet? Which ones will raise me? Which will fold? Once I decide which hands to put in which category I can make my decision. I ideally want to take a line that will give me the biggest equity advantage. Put another way, I want to put myself in a situation where he will call the maximum with the least amount of chance to win. And now I can use the concept of exploitation by putting the maximum amount of pressure on my opponents weaknesses. So for instance if he will call with any draw for any amount I will just go all in here. If he is tighter and will fold top pair type hands on monotone boards then I will still make a solid bet (because I don't forget my immediate goals in this hand) but recognize that I may be able to bluff this opponent later in the session if a monotone board flops. And as always, etc etc...

As played with your flop lead, I like it and hope your intentions would be to reraise all in if raised. Since you decided you are never folding this strong of a hand for this amount of money (atleast I hope you decided that), you would want to get the money in when your equity is highest. If behind you have 2 cards to hit a 7 and then 10 outer (if turn blanks) and if ahead you get max value on your hand (all his chips in the middle drawing at non proper odds).

As played my bet would be based on my opponents propensity to play made hands vs draws. Again though I am willing to lose my money if he in fact does have the flush and I don't improve but I do not want to be putting money in ever when I am drawing dead (this includes paying people off on the river as a form of drawn dead). So I would structure my turn line around making sure that all the money goes in on this street so as to not have to put chips inn drawing dead on the river (possibly). It seems you have succeeded in this goal.

What I found funny was that your follow up post was well done (in regards to thinking about the hand in more detail) except for the very end where you question pot odds in this situation. You miss the point of why you played the hand the way you did in the first place. You lost sight of your motives and goals. This hand is not a question about whether or not to call the raise on the turn at all. It is about figuring out if preflop and the flop were correct given all you know about the table, yourself, and your relationship to the table and understanding hand ranges for your opponents and how equity really works/plays a role in decision making. Only then will you learn the term 'results oriented' and the understanding of not being.