We're not talking about a savant. Judging from how he played the hand and the fact that he defended every step of the way afterward, I'd say he should be folding A7o preflop.

I think this is a fold pre, especially in a straddled pot. You are never going to make enough to justify it, and you are going to lose a lot (or at least some) often. When you flop AA7 or A77 or 777 or AAA, who is going to pay you off?

Heck, OP's friend flopped about as good as OP's friend could hope and FOLDED. If you are the player who completes w/ A7o, please lead flop and get it in. Or, c/r flop and gii. This is about as good as you could hope for.

the only real "HORRIBAD" play here would be the min 4-bet on the flop in combination with folding to the shove. It was a classic beginner move of basically raising small to "find out where he was at" vs a random 2/5 player on a limped pot.


there is a lot of group thought bias I think in this thread combined with results oriented thinking. Just b/c completing getting 10-1 is bad play for one player doesn't mean it's right for someone else. ANL is completely right it depends on how good hero is and how well he plays postflop and how that compares to how well the opponents are to play postflop..

just because he played one hand bad that Op already said was an anomaly and he normally crushes the game it isn't "proof" of why he should just muck to begin with. I'm sure the player in question does fine longterm here completing with any two if he has a significant postflop skill advantage post with high sprs behind. I'm sure theres aton of hands where he makes good reads, or stacks fish overplaying their hand etc etc, but those hands will not be posted. Here we also have group think in combination with heindsight bias and results oriented thinking. Nobody plays everyhand perfectly. Lets say he took this same line with.... 55 or something for whatever reason and got spewy. Is this anomaly now a reason to conclude and tell a winning player who is a backer at higher stakes that he should just muck 55 preflop here omg terribad, this is why you don't play this hand etc etc. No obv not. If you hate having to make difficult disicions and are frequently payoff wizards when you flop top pair in a limped pot with a7 off, then YES completing is an atrocious long term mistake. However it's not the case for player in question and continuing to focus on preflop here just seems totally ******ed.

Clearly as played to this point and having not lead flop given action and random button 3betting, This is almost always a flatcall and check soul read/own almost all turns. stacks are awkward such that 4b folding is horrible. If you can't stack off vs the range he will continue with when you 4bet you call to let him barrel and not find a fold when he is overplaying whatever a10-ak he limped in with. if he cannot fistpump call the shove on the flop 4betting is the tremendous mistake "IN THIS HAND" Nobody plays perfectly on a day in day out basis, but it's how he does longterm here, and pointing out this specific posflop misplay for justification on how "horribad" his complete was is bad logic.

classic example of the biased unclear logic I was just discussing. This hand is an outlier hand as far as representing Hero's longterm profitability completing here. if he stacks someone 300bbs deep in a limped pot here, the hand never gets posted and you never see the hand and it never gets posted so just assuming this hand is proof of how lolbad his complete was is bad thinking. I hope you understand that.

This is something different that a lot of poker players post on a regular basis.

It's VERY hard for a player to post a hand that they won, and think that they played well. Because why would they even post it?

As a result, as a community, we have to try and take the hand apart, draw specific conclusions about it, help them out, but then ALSO generalize it into what we can think about their game as a whole. And try to give advice on how they can improve the entirety of their game.

So sure, if hero won the hand he might not post it. But just because the hero won the hand does not mean that he played it well...

Some kid buys in full to a 1/2 game. There's a $4 straddle.
8 people call the straddle. A bad reg shoves for $300. Kid calls with 77. Flops a set, and beats the AA of reg. Kid never posts the hand, and he moves on. 3 weeks later, same kid buy in full to a 1/2 game. There's a $4 straddle, 8 people call. Same bad reg makes it $65. Kid calls with 77. Flop comes 7AK. Kid bets, reg shoves, kid snaps, and loses to AA. Kid posts the hand. When we explain the errors of his ways, hopefully it will help him to not make the mistake that he made in hand 2 AND hand 1. ducy?

Ya but he defended the play afterward. If it's an outlier, he'd know it. This wasn't an outlier. It was his standard play. I'd call this a bad preflop complete no matter what happened.

What makes you believe this is an outlier hand? Let's just assume that hero is profiting in the long term. That doesn't necessarily mean that when he completes in the SB with hands such as A7 he is profiting in those situations. It could be a leak. Every hand should be looked at in a vacuum.

ffsks, the outlier is the poor play here post not the complete.


im not saying that it isn't a leak ffsks. I'm saying that you don't know that it is. The outlier is him playing a hand this poorly. It's simple reading comprehension.

Obv after he defends his limp it's clear he has gotten away with completing very wide for along time and still winning. Therefore it should be fairly obvious that we shouldn't point to the the way this hand played out ... then conclude

hey look, he prob sucks, he flopped this and couldn't even play it right that just proves how bad his complete is and blah blah blah.... or talking about all the rios is meaningless conclusions. You could be right maybe by accident but be thinking about it all wrong.

if he was typically playing that poorly and paying off with marginal holdings when he shouldn't etc etc and in combination with calling a lot with those hands preflop, he simply would not be in the game or have been bust in two weeks, not winning over a large sample. Should be fairly obviouse. If it's a leak it's a small leak and discussing it to deaths end wether he should call 5 bucks or not is not where the focus should be when we are talking about deep postflop play. the only vacume information you have is the current action street by street. He completed get over it. If it is a leak then his postflop play must usually be quite decent to have compensated not spewing chips in bad spots. I'ts possible its a small leak that of course adds up over time. It's probably fine from the sb to complete normally, but yes if he completed to the straddle with no read on the straddler then it's bad. But that information wasn't provided. But BY FAR the worst mistakes are postflop and too think it's meaningless to analyse the postflop spot here is probably holding back your game. even if your personal range is a lot tighter you can apply similar strength holdings relative to the board and action and gain something.

The whole popular "shouldn't be in this spot" therefore it's worthless discussing doesn't always hold bearing. The reality if your honest im sure everyone gets themselves in spots that maybe they shouldn't be in sometimes. What's important is developing a strong mental game to be in an optimal mindset to avoid doing this. But it's also very important to be able to adjust to situations that present themselves and realize your relative hand strength when we are not playing a+ poker.

I think our edge over the rest of the table would have to be pretty massive for the limp here to be +EV.

Doesnt villian have a bunch of big aces in his shoving range here? I think he limps alot of them in hopes of the straddler raising so he can r/r. So I think flop is a definate call.

I think were facing a bigger ace tons more often than a set

But I still fold pre.

Fold pre unless everyone is just God awful. C/r is terrible on this board. Folding is worse. Just lead.

[QUOTE=iraisetoomuch;41344004]This is something different that a lot of poker players post on a regular basis.

It's VERY hard for a player to post a hand that they won, and think that they played well. Because why would they even post it?

Yea well I don't really understand that mentality. I agree that that assumption your making probably holds some truth on the whole but again you are making an assumption.

but wethor you win or lose a hand holds no bearing on wethor you played the hand well or not. a lot of the better posters do indeed post hands they won, just look at some of the pawhme hands. They would post the hand for a variety of reasons

-thought the spot was very interesting spot or difficult decision and that it can be applied to other similar spots. Or made a tough decision and happened to be good, but then questioned it later wethor he was good enough to call that flop shove with aa vs that players whole range.


-likes their ego stroked and/or to show off how awesome they are

-got made a semi-bluff and happened to either get called and river their hand then questions if they indeed.. should be making this play if they had enough fold equity an so posts the hand

where in a rare spot that doesn't come up very often so wanted some second opinions b/c it is a deep game.

etc etc...



in reality you can learn just as much from your winning hands as your losing hands, sometimes more if your mind is open too it.



As a result, as a community, we have to try and take the hand apart, draw specific conclusions about it, help them out, but then ALSO generalize it into what we can think about their game as a whole. And try to give advice on how they can improve the entirety of their game.

Right so if the poster posted either of those ridiculous sample hans you provided which barely resemble this example in any way such responses would be warrented. We should also be less judgmental and have some reading comprehension that the friend clearly respects his game and that he is a winning player so maybe we should be less apt to critizise what we believe to be a one bet mistake. it's not like it read, "Help what do I do here I constantly am unsure in these spots" or "Anyone get away from this cooler"

I mean like yea if your actually trying to help him im pretty sure he would not be receptive to lol fold pre, see you suck couldn't even play this right type responses. At least have the curtosy to provide some logical reasons to back it up? this is why hands discussed street by street and pahwmes generally tend to be more beneficial threads because people cannot be results oriented
-for example he could say complete here? then later talk about how to play these kinds of hands optimally in multiway pots when we are sb or bb or post up until the botton raises flop and ask what's the best play here vs his range.

to which the reply is fold pre idiot... ok whatever..


So sure, if hero won the hand he might not post it. But just because the hero won the hand does not mean that he played it well...

ok?? so in other words just because hero lost the hand doesn't mean he played it bad? I'm not really sure what the point is here. The sky is blue, clouds are white.

Some kid buys in full to a 1/2 game. There's a $4 straddle.
8 people call the straddle. A bad reg shoves for $300. Kid calls with 77. Flops a set, and beats the AA of reg. Kid never posts the hand, and he moves on. 3 weeks later, same kid buy in full to a 1/2 game. There's a $4 straddle, 8 people call. Same bad reg makes it $65. Kid calls with 77. Flop comes 7AK. Kid bets, reg shoves, kid snaps, and loses to AA. Kid posts the hand. When we explain the errors of his ways, hopefully it will help him to not make the mistake that he made in hand 2 AND hand 1. ducy?[/QUOTE]

yea because the player and the preflop misplays are exactly on the same scale here. Now I see why ty for pointing that out.

Unless you suck at postflop poker, the call preflop is probably not a huge mistake. In my opinion too much attention is being paid to this part of the hand.

On the flop it's a pretty crappy spot but I would probably just call to keep worse hands in. The 3-bet is just folding out every hand we beat and not really doing much else. As others have said, leading is best here.

But he basically broke even.

badreg makes it 65 ugh, badreg is ugh ugh dealer deals me 77s yea, I call... flop comes ak7, my setssss got ballllzzz baby, ugh all in ugh ugh player turns up aces.

Lol, yeah I thought that was pretty bad too.

It's so bad that it's good lol.

You guys are too good for me I'll go back to reading and not posting

Well, the last bit was just Oz making a joke about the LaTB rap song they got going on in the commercial breaks, none of that was directed at you.

I forgot about that song... I just tried googling it... Anyone know what its called or who its by?

If this was not a straddled pot would we be never completing with A7 off for a half bet more when getting 6-1 on a call not to mention implied odds? How is a straddled pot any different? Not sure on stack sizes, but especially if we are deep. I think a fold pre doesnt make any sense. Yes a fold pre from EP but from SB when getting odds I just can't see any good rational for this.

The bigger mistake IMO is post flop. In unraised pots (which include straddled pots) where noone has taken control preflop - I like to lead on a flop like this. Then the hand may have played on differently. Also, like previous posts mentioned, our decisions moving forward are also dependent on reads, but in general I don't think we are folding this hand after flopping top two on such a dry board. Most players play bad enough in 2/5 that folding top two is usually a mistake unless we are against super nits who only play the nuts. When flopping huge, never slow play and get that money into the pot ASAP and build a pot.

100% Fold Pre...

Lead flop for sure...

As played... I don't think I find the fold if I have no other info than what was provided...

Check raising this flop is bad enough to be considered atrocious.

Hate the c/r as well and hate r/f as well. Would call as played. Seems like there is a better way than to put $275 in the pot only to fold. It's either a fold right there or a raise/call and I dunno if I can fold. I'd lead flop all day though.

Pre is fine imo.

I don't know I mean.. the straddler stabs the flop.. and the player raising from the button here, it kind of feels like he can have some big aces here a decent portion of the time, looking for the straddler to raise pre but he didn't, and maybe it is even correct for him to raise this bet the the straddler player. So I would feel really quite ok about calling here and giving those hands the most rope I can to continue. Seems like the 4bet is particularly bad vs a random bcs sometimes they end up bluffing us by accident; because they just overvalue a worse hand than we have and thinks it's the nutz, and if he's competent and had a big ace we are losing our customer and probably not putting much more in the pot period.

why is checking the flop so horrible here, that almost everyone leads instead?
are we that worried about a 9 handed checkthrough holding top two on a super dry board.