My biggest recent loss, $200, at the B 1/2 table in Vegas went as follows; just checking to see if I misplayed this, or just got a bad beat.

I'm at seat 10, villian at seat 6. She's a mid twenties vegas local hottie who did a lot of fancy chip-flipping. Prior to this hand she played relatively tight, and competently. I also play uber-tight. We both had about $200 in chips in front of us. Preflop we both limped in, button was seat 2, so I had position on her. most others folded preflop.

Flop: JJJ

I had AK

She slowplays and checks, I raise to $65, she calls, everyone else except seat 2 fishy tourist folds. Hmm ok. I put her and the guy in seat 2 on high pairs or other high premium hands like AQ AK QQ or whatever.

Turn comes K

So the board is now: JJJK
and me with AK

Bingo I made my boat, Js full of Ks. I shove all in with remaining chips (I thought at best she might have Kx, eg KQ or KT). Seat 2 folds. She insta-calls. Heads up with the Vegas hottie.

She flips over the J for quads. F*ck me. Ok I busted out with a full house, beat by quads.

Did I play it right, or should I have played it differently? I thought it was pretty much by the book, but that was my biggest single loss in poker so far, this $200 losing JJJKK to JJJJ. She apologized for having quads then ran off to celebrate with her b-friend. grrr. lol. Felt like I got hustled by a slow-playing mechanic there to pick on fishy tourists like me. Yep that's what happened. But I thought I played the hand right, given table texture and the cards. Where'd I screw up?

thx...

RAISE PRE

why did you bet 65 dollars into 6 dollar pot with ace high? and after she calls 65 bucks on the flop how on earth are you putting her on KT?

this is going to sound harsh but either you need to get some common sense are you shouldnt play poker. its not good for your budget.

This ..

Plus this ...

Who would call 10x the pot on that board? Answer someone with a jack.

You essentially guaranteed two outcomes
If nobody had the jack - win small pot.
If someone had the jack (or maybe pocket pair) - lose a large pot.

Larger PF and much much smaller bet on the flop.

Try looking at it in reverse. You have AK and a nit raises YOU 10x the pot on board of JJJ what do you do?

No offense but what book?
Slowplaying AK?
Then falling in love with your hand on a horrible flop?
The betting so massively you could only be called by a hand that beat you?

If we put here range on any pair and Jt+ she held you were a 4:1 underdog. The king falling on turn was just luck (turns out bad luck for you) even if you won the hand (she held a pair) long term it would be hugely negative EV. After the king fell I would have played it they way you did however your had already set yourself up for failing w/ PF and Flop plays.

Lastly it is interesting that on the flop you included AK in her range. She calls your massive bet and then on the turn once K shows up you put upper end of her range at KQ. What happened to AK or AA? Honestly it sounds like results oriented thinking. You "made" her range what you needed it to be to justify the shove. Because she called a 10x pot bet all hands that could beat and chop vanished..... AK, AA, AJ, Jxs (all of them aren't kely but JTs+ is).

This x 1000

I understand you're tight, but dont be tight passive. Raise with your strong pre-flop hands.

What was the other card (not the Jack)? If she was straightforward/tight and her other card was less than a 7 (probably even less than a 9) she was folding to most raises.

Also, don't bet 65 dollars into a 6 dollar pot... I'd say for 99% of players, don't do it EVER.

This is what I'm curious about.

ok thanks, I guess I misplayed it; I was thinking with AK nobody would've likely had anything better than that, so I overbet the hand. after sitting there for an hour+ getting mostly rags, finally having something higher to work with, in a board that didn't look like there were any flush/straight draws, I went in too high. or i could be mis-remembering it and she bet 65 and i called... either way it sounds like I just overplayed it - thanks for the heads-up on the play. I guess I still have a lot to learn.

The only time I've lost a lot has been to villian nut hands like this (with a near-nut hand myself), usually I play very tight from position and bet high (or, rarely slowplay and c-bet into turn/river) when I have the nuts, so that's when I've made the most; also looks like that's when I lose the most, is playing almost-nuts to villian nut hands, so I guess I should keep my bets low (and not call high raises/re-raises) unless I absolutely have the nuts, to avoid losing large pots.

I guess I still have a lot to learn; thanks for the comments, I've saved this thread, will remember what you've all said, makes sense. I scewed up and it cost me. Still, its hard to beat JJJKK with pretty much anything (except pocket J or AAs), so that's why I bet high, because there were only 1-2 hands that would beat the boat.

Good point kit re results thinking and misreading possible hands/villian range to justify shove, agree... I'll remember to not do that type of thinking in the future. "Evolution of a fish continues"... . Lots to learn.

No, you played this hand absolutely horribly.

1) There's no reason you should think a tight competent player is going to limp in early position with a hand like QQ or AK. She would have raised. Therefore you should instantly put her on weak hands. But tight competent players dont really limp much, so the fact she did probably means shes really not that tight nor competent. Regardless, if the pot is limped to you, YOU ****ING RAISE AK son. Got it? Your goal here isnt to flop TPTK and value bet 3 streets in a limped pot. Who the hell is going to pay you off when an ace or a king hits if they dont have it? Maybe some huge donkey sure, but that same donkey would call a preflop raise anyway .

2) It gets checked to you so the pot is like $8 or something, AND YOU BET $65? W.T.F.?! Surely this must be a miscommunication. Assuming that you did bet this amount, I guess you were hoping to bluff out all worse hands? Anyway, SOMEONE CALLED.

3) You hit your card, sorta. But you shove allin putting them on the exact same hand? If someone has KT or KQ you are splitting you realize this right? So if nothing worse is going to call you, why the hell are you jamming it in? If anything you basically have the nuts here, so just check and see what they do on the turn. Ordinarily you are probably going broke with jacks full in a spot like this, but certainly not the way you played it.

A more standard line would have been limp limp, you raise, they call. Flop JJJ, they check, you check behind, turn K, they check again so you finally bet, or maybe they lead into you and you just call, river x, they lead again and you call. If they ship you probably still call since clearly people are going to ship Kx on a JJJK board just like you did. And if you're lucky they might be some idiot with 77 shipping it because they just dont know what to do on a JJJK2 board.

You dont need to have a royal flush every time you get allin. You just need to put someone on a reasonable hand that THEY would think is the nuts, and hope you're ahead of that. If you flop 33 on a 368 board dont be afraid to get it allin. It's incredibly rare that they have a higher set, and from their perspective if they have 2 pair or big overpair like JJ+, they think they have the best hand and are trying to push you out. The only times you should really be worried about someone having the nuts is either 4 to a straight or 4 to a flush board.

Lets say you hold 79 and the board runs out 89TJ3. Well someone probably has the queen. Or you have 55 and the board comes down 3459K. Someone probably has the A. In these very obvious spots be concerned. Everything else, be reasonable and understand people mistake a lot of worse hands for the nuts.

You may want to read some books on showdown theory.

Betting for value doesn't simply mean bet larger the better hand you have.
Betting for value means betting when you likely have the best hand AND an inferior hand will call.
If you have a good hand but size your bet such that only a better hand will call then you aren't betting for value.

You got the first part right, correctly identified that very few hands could beat you and then did the exact opposite of what you should do.

If very few hands can beat you then you must bet LESS to ensure worse hands will call.

By betting so high you ensured that ONLY hands superior to yours are likely to call you. You pushed out all the inferior hands who might call but be behind. Notice I used work likely it is possible someone with an inferior hand would still call but your oversized bet was a mistake and you could only come out ahead if someone else made an even larger mistake.

Worse the best was so large that you prevented your villain from making a mistake. Had you bet smaller she may have raised and that may have helped you define her range better and determine that you were beat. Since your bet was optimally sized for her there was no opportunity for her to make a mistake.

Simply put poker is a game where you make money when your opponents make mistakes.
By betting so large you eliminated 2 sources of mistakes.
a) inferior hands folded. The bet was so large the call was easy
b) superior hands called. The bet was so large there was no need to risk a raise.


You can't win at poker if you setup scenarios where you opponents can't (or likely won't) make mistakes.

Load up on $0.02 (Big Blinds) online full ring cash games and learn some. When you can beat $0.05 you'll probably beat $200 (=100BB's) live with little trouble.

If you could see your opponents cards you would never make any mistakes. Well your goal is to try and see their cards. So lets pretend for a second you were cheating and knew that the girl from MP had a hand like AT. If you knew she had this, would you overbet to $65? Of course not, because you know she'll just fold, and you already have her beat so you dont need her to fold. Now lets pretend she has 55, and the turn comes down a King. Would you go allin? Of course not, because you know she probably wont call that.

This should be your mindset with every hand you enter. You actually PUT THEM ON A HAND, and then think what is the best way to get money from them. By betting $65 all you did was guarantee a worse hand folds (this means a hand you already beat) and that better hands call (quads). I'm going to discount the theory that you were trying to fold out worse boats because there is no reasonable expectation that you could have made her fold an underboat on the flop, and you should never try to do this.

Limping in pre is awful. Raise.

Every pocket pair is better than AK on that flop. And they're not folding (this is called "Zeebo's theorem").

hey thanks everyone - notes taken; you guys make a lot of sense; I appreciate it. right d&t about betting for value and capitalizing on mistakes by other players, those are exactly the things to get better at, vs misplaying near-nut hands with wrong bet sizing.

your point is right on the money, about "By betting so high you ensured that ONLY hands superior to yours are likely to call you."..

also the guy to the right of me confided (after she left) that he'd seen her eyes look excited when the flop came JJJ, which I missed, the physical tell, which is why he folded out early... so I missed the physical tell as well. now I try and not look at my cards immediately, but rather keep my eyes on other players as they look at Their cards, to see if there's any reaction tells.

i guess one way to improve is, in addition to asking for comments from you guys, which are outstanding (thanks), keep a log of specific major mistakes and wins, with "what i did right vs wrong", and use that to plug leaks in future play. (like, I should've raised pre instead of limping w/strong hand). evolution of a fish continues...

i lol'd

Dont worry so much about a tell like this. You were probably going to lose all your money here no matter what, it's just the way you went about it. Currently you are destined to lose many MORE pots which are completely avoidable if you alter your play.

ok I'll alter my play, working on it... at least I did win a 30-person tournament at the luxor during that trip, so I'm not a total fish... but I do have a lot to learn about cash game play... good to hear all the comments, thx guys. working on small-ball TAG approach for cash games, 'kill phil/kill everyone' agg play style for tourneys

+1.

It has all been said Raise Pre.

$65 into a $8 pot??

Maybe you need to read some books and brush up on your poker

OP weren't you thinking about moving to vegas and going pro in another thread?

Pre, flop and turn. No river to play, so you dodged a bullet there.

classic beginner thread 5stars

I don't know what poker book you are reading that tells you to limp AK then bet 10x the pot on JJJ board with just ace high, but i suggest you burn it ASAP.

Either way you were going broke on this hand no matter what so don't feel bad, but the way in which you donated was a bit amusing.