My god, this is going to be complex. Long post, so skip it if you think atmosphere and backgrounds make no difference on how to play a hand...

First, background: I am a reg at this casino, and all but one player at the table knows me and has played with me before. They see me as solid, usually tight, friendly, and chatty. As for me, I am a solid hand reader who tends to play ABC TAG postflop, but a bit loose preflop, as an adjustment to the game. I'm not crazy, but I've definitely added SCs and lower PPs to my range. I can happily dump my air and feel no overwhelming need to c-bet every flop, etc.

The NL games at this particular casino tend to play bigger than others in the area, due to the buy-ins. For the 2/3 game, the buy-in is 100-500, and most of the players in this game are experienced enough to know to buy in for at least 100BB. Game plays like the 2/5 games at neighboring casinos. Much of the play in these games has been influenced by one noteworthy reg (lets call him Vinnie) who CRUSHES these tables, mainly by limping behind with marginal holdings and making huge hands, or calling big pre-flop raises with SCs and the like with the sole purpose of cracking big pocket pairs, and finally relying on his amazing human/body language observation skills to help him read players (he's a former cop who i swear, is the most eerily observant human being i've ever met). This leads to unskilled players trying to play "tricky", which of course leads them into trouble. I try to avoid this trap, though i admittedly find myself doing it from time to time. I call this TTBLV: Trying To Be Like Vinnie.

The casino is in the process of developing a high limit poker room, to try to break into hosting a big game in north san diego county, and as 2/3 was the largest game running, we were the training ground for some of the dealers on proper procedures for running the board multiple times last night. Keep this in mind...

Now the hand (which i botched entirely):

Heroine (CO): $525 behind, I had bought in for $300 about an hour before and had recently stacked a shortie when he shoved into my KK with JT on a J-high board. We ran it twice and I scooped, ldo. Shamefully, I must admit a slight feeling of TTBLV in this hand...
Villain 1 (UTG): ~$160 behind. Very weak player who gets married to overpairs and has trouble seeing danger on coordinated boards. One of the aforementioned who likes to try to play "tricky". TTBLV.
Villain 2(MP): ~600 behind, has been at the table about as long as I have. VERY solid semi-reg who is currently the only player at the table that I am actively trying to avoid tangling with.
Villain 3(BTN): $700 behind. another reg who demonstrates a level 2 understanding of the game, but plays WAY too many hands and can get super spewy towards the end of his sessions, and I rarely see him cash out chips. Also TTBLV
Villain 4 (BB): ~$1600 behind. This is an unknown player. I hadn't seen him before, and he had played a few non-eventful hands since i sat down at the table. I don't know how he got the stack he was nursing, but at first he struck me as a nit. looked VERY tired...perhaps had been playing all night...

Preflop action:
V1 (UTG) minraises to $6. This screams "monster PP" to me based on my knowledge of this villain. V2 (MP) calls, MP+1 calls, Heroine(CO) sees 78 and I call. V3 (BTN) also calls, as do SB and V4. This limpfest (essentially) was a foregone conclusion when UTG minraised. Pot is $37 after rake.

V3 leans over to me and says sarcastically, "nice minraise under the gun to build the pot for his aces or kings". This may not have been proper etiquette, and i "shushed" him, but it basically was the same thing I was thinking at the time.

By the time it gets to me in the cutoff, I feel like my odds are so good to call that i can't really pass it up, especially with a middle SC. Should I have repopped it here? Fold pre? Stop playing poker forever? I know...stop TTBLV

Anyway, the flop:

J79

SB checks, V4 donkbets $15, V1 calls $15, V2 calls $15, MP +1 folds, heroine ???

I am now wondering if my initial read on V1 as having a big PP is correct. Am also baffled by donkbet of less than half pot by V4 in the BB, as well as V2's call behind the initial raiser. Admittedly, donkbets by random live low limit players always seem to confuse me. For some it means they have the nuts, others a weak made hand, others, a bad attempt at a semi-bluff. I have never ever seen any of them actively donkbetting to induce a raise. way too high level for them, i fear.

OK, next step: I call the $15, V3 folds, SB folds. Pot is now $97 heading to the turn. Is my call here horrible spew? Would raising be worse? Should my cards have been mucked so fast I'm almost acting out of turn?

Turn: 2
BB checks, UTG SHOVES for $139. V2 folds, Heroine ??

I now have a gutshot, a flush draw, and a pair, facing a somewhat large overbet. This reconfirms my suspicions that V1 has an overpair to the board, I still have V4 to act behind with his ~$1600 stack, and I'm left feeling that my major mistake here was not having a PLAN for the hand from the minute I looked at my cards preflop. *bangs head on felt* shouldn't I have seen this coming?

Oh, and go ahead and add into this mix of fun the fact that we could run the river twice if it came down to me heads up with V1. I honestly have NO idea how this effects odds and outs calculations. Could I consider a "double river" to follow the same rules as if there were still two cards to go? This was, of course, a lot to try to process in the midst of the hand, especially with all the wannabe HSP and PAD players at the table going "you can run it twice, you know!" in my ear...lol

After a brief foray online, it's good to be back, though I was really starting to win online when yesterday happened =/ Anyway, I'm prepared for all the harsh words you can throw at me...believe me, I spent most of the drive home last night trying to decide how to play this hand better.

Preflop is absolutely fine.

Fold on the flop. You're drawing to a gutshot which makes you the low end of the straight where you'll end up losing heaps to KQ. Hitting two pair is no good and really the only card you'd be happy to see is a 7.

As played fold river. You still have the huge stack to act behind and you don't know how many of your outs are good.

It's also important to realize that running it twice doesn't really change the math of the hand, just lowers the variance and essentially gets you closer to your true equity in the hand. You can't look at it as having two cards to come since you don't scoop the pot if you only hit the hand once.

LMFAO " hey man shhh, he raised utg... he has aces or kings.. " dumbest ****ing thing i've ever heard..

In my opinion, when you make this call preflop in a multiway pot, this is not the flop you're looking for. It's going to be hard to get action if your hand improves, and if you do, you will have to worry that you are still behind. This has got to be a fold on the flop, then again on the turn when you're getting bad odds out of relative position.

Preflop is fine. You get to see a cheap flop with huge implied odds.

On the flop, I muck this. You've only invested $6. Bottom pair, with a gut shot. 8/10 is already there and is going to trap / valuetown the rest of the table. If an 8 comes, bottom two pair is crushed by anyone holding a T (AT, KT, QT is the nuts then, JT, T9, T8, T7 etc..). If another 7 comes, 99 who set mined is now luving life as is JJ who didn't repop pre. And any better 7 (A7, K7, Q7) has us out kicked, J7 and 9-7 filled up, and 10-7 we're almost flipping with. As mentioned a 10 gives KQ the nuts straight, Q8 a better straight, and anyone with a Q is probably sticking around.

On turn pot is (97+139 = ) 236 and you have 21 invested. Calling 139 to win 236 is 1:1.6 and assuming UTG has OP (QQ, KK, AA) you have any diamond (9), any 7 (2), any 8 (3) and any 10 (4) to win. 9+2+3+4 = 18 outs at best ~ 36% to win. You will win 1 out 3 times theoretically. Break even is 1:2 on pot odds. Playing to break even isn't a great strategy. As played, fold turn shove and pick a better spot.

I think I know this Vinnie guy. Had no idea he was an ex-cop. Playing at Pala?

yeah gw, this was at Pala. So funny, after this hand people were all saying "omg, Vinnie would have..." (fill in the blank). It amazes me how one person can so affect the play of the other fishy regs in a small room like this.

It;s like they all wear WWVD bracelets and play their hands constantly asking themselves, "what would Vinnie do?" I try my hardest to avoid this mindset, but when you see him consistently cashing out 2k from the 2/3 game, it's hard to not try to emulate him.

anyway...I folded after taking a bit of time thinking about the math. Glad that my preflop play was ok, And I can admit to myself that the flop call was a poor decision.

I am more concerned about my lack of a plan, as I find myself falling into this "fly by night" play style a lot more than I want to. I see potential draws and think "oh, that's a cheap bet, i can see one more card, then when my hand improves (or doesn't) and i'm facing some kind of decision, i realize i totally didn't plan this right at ALL.

I know i should be thinking ahead, asking myself things like "if I do call here and pick up more outs, what do i do if he shoves on me? what if he check raises? what if he just check calls?" Anyone have any good ways to practice this type of thinking?

Any time I ever look at my hole cards, I'm always thinking about what I want to see on the flop. Every hand. Not just with speculative hands like suited or connected cards, but any two cards. With any two cards, there's always a good flop for them. I fold when it's too unlikely that I'll see that flop, or when it's too likely that I could see the flop I want and still lose. But I practice this with every hand, even the ones that I automatically fold. Maybe that would help you too?

Yes. I think half of his "success" is his rule by reputation. WWVD? I love it.

I think pf is fine but probably find a fold otf. Like everyone has said you don't have any outs to a nut hand and while calling a small bet in hopes of catching running diamonds isn't horrible the fact that the pot is pretty bloated even when you do pick up the diamond draw ott you'll often be facing a large bet with only 1 card to come where you're unsure of your equity as you could easily be up against Jxdd. Fwiw running it twice really doesn't change anything in terms of EV but does reduce variance, more importantly paying attention to how your opponents adjust to being able to run it twice "like they do on tv" will help you overall. Mostly they will probably play any draw more aggressively because they think running multiple turns and rivers will give them a better chance at winning.