Hi all, this is my first post on here even though I've been reading a few posts on here for the past few months and I must say I felt like they have improved my game .

So last night I opted to go down to the casino and play a bit of cash (which has proven more profitable for me recently compared to online lol). I was going to play the £1/£2 table but the tables were full and a £1/£1 was just opening so I decided to sit on that instead. I sat down with £100 and within a few hours had built it up to about £250 & all seemed to be going well.

Anyway, one hand I was on the button and was dealt Aces. First 2 players fold, then it gets raised to £4, there are 4 callers before it reaches me. I raise to £16 and everybody folds but 1 who decides to call.

Flop comes 424 rainbow. The guy bets out about half of the pot at £25, I reraise to £65 & he then shoves. (Now, I'm putting him on a big pocket pair with the board being dry, probably QQ / KK, as it's highly unlikely that he would come along preflop with A4). I call and turn is a 7 and river a J. He turns his hand over to show 22!

I didn't know what to make of this, TBH I was in shock, that he called me preflop with 22 & so asked him why he did. His reply was "Because I put you on a big pocket pair".. Then I was in even more shock with his reply! Surely that's a reason not to call??

Now did I play this correctly? Should I have raised it bigger preflop maybe? Maybe a check-raise postflop, which may have put him off shoving? Or was I just unlucky to have played this hand with such a fish lol!?

If he didnt hit his 2 you would have never made this post and would have shipped a 32$ pot(16$your own money)-rake.

Instead he hits a 2 and knows he can stack you off if he trips up, hes just taking those odds i guess out of 3 cards to try and double up. Rarely does he call/raise any other flop, so his play is -ev in the long run. Most likely your raise could have been a little higher, he still might have called. I would push it to 20 next time If you have players like this at the table(your sensing).

Ha, probably. Though I have been thinking of posting on here for a while, just wasn't sure about what/when.

I realise it was a badbeat, but was just wondering if it was because of my play, & if so how I could play it better next time, etc. I think I was more shocked the fact that he played 22 lol.. Ah well, live and learn

Your preflop 3bet was too small, IMO. I would typically do 3x the original raise + all the other callers, so in this case (3 * $4) + $4 + $4 + $4 + $4 = $28. Plus perhaps even more since there are so many callers and thus the likelihood of one person calling our raise is increased.

You put a very small $16 raise into a pot that is already $20, therefore offering a rather enticing 3:1 for the first caller.

And if villain had the same stack you did, then he needed to call $12 to potentially win $270 (i.e. the pot plus the rest of your stack), so implied odds of 22.5x, which is a super easy call, especially against someone who will stack off with an overpair.

FWIW, even if villain did make a mistake (he didn't), you should never call him out on it at the table. Just tap the table and say "nice hand".

how much was his shove for?

Ah, this makes sense. I hadn't thought of it like this. How would you have played it differently? Would you overbet the pot preflop? Not have called the shove, etc?

It was just short of £60, £58 I think it was.

I would have raised more preflop thanks to all the dead money in the pot; at least to $30. Hopefully someone thinks I'm "squeezing" and plays back at me.

As played, we're playing 250 BBs deep (if I've read things right). That's fairly deep. I usually go out of my way to not stack off with a hand as little as one pair when I'm 100 BBs deep. When I'm 250 BBs deep, it's not even an option that crosses my mind. I just don't do it; steal from me all the pots you wish. So if I did raise the flop, it would be with intentions of folding to a reraise. Otherwise, I might simply call down reasonable bets right from the get go, but even that might get to committing stacks and I might just have to fold to a big turn bet even though I've underrepped my hand on the flop.

GcluelessNLnoobG

What you have said makes alot of sense. I'll defintely put it into practice next time .