Hi everybody,

Got an opportunity to play HORSE yesterday for the first time in a while, I mostly just played tight in everything, but felt like these two O8 hands were the worst situations I got myself in. I'll post the other one in another thread.

HH1 -- five hands in, so more or less readless, although I believe the preflop 3-bettor had already 3-bet once so he seems a bit LAGgy to me in general.

Hero has AAKT three diamonds in the BB. UTG (25-30yo kid) raises, UTG+1 (LAGgy V, about 45) 3-bets, folds to me, I just call?, UTG calls.

Flop (9.33SB): J97

I bet intending to 3-bet if raised...? UTG calls, UTG+1 raises, I 3-bet, UTG folds, UTG+1 caps, I call.

Turn (9.16BB): J97 [3]

I check, UTG+1 bets, I call.

River (11.16BB): J97 3 [8]

I check, UTG+1 bets, I fold?

I bolded the three main decision points I'm not sure about -- is preflop a 4-bet? Is flop terrible? And is folding the river in a pot this big for one bet bad? Thanks.

Preflop: You have no low potential. Flat is correct.

Flop: Bet, call. Bad reraise.

Turn. Check Call.

River, low gets there, check call. You are probably beat, but folding this river after putting so many bets in is big mistake. Plus you have a ten blocker.

+1

So on the flop in this hand, my thinking was a LHE concept -- I'm trying to blow out the guy to my left, because if he has any equity here, I want to try to capture it for myself. Does this thinking just not apply at all to O8?

Hand 1, i prefer raise preflop, and check flop as played.. mix between xc and xr.

Call river as played.

To try to get heads up how about a CR on the flop? Seems a little cheaper and more effective. Would cry call river I suppose cuz wtf does he have?

I don't know why you're leading on this flop. You have an overpair, a gutshot straight draw, and a backdoor flush draw. That's not a lot. It's enough to call one bet, but I wouldn't mind if the action checked through.

Meantime, UTG+1 is telling you that he likes this flop a lot. He is not doing this with an A234 type of hand. If he flopped a straight or a set or two pair, he's been ahead of you the whole way. If he flopped a pair + gutshot + backdoor low draw, the river just made him two pair or a straight. If he flopped a pair + wrap straight draw (something like TJQK), the river just made him a straight. Those are all the hands he could reasonably like on this flop. So unless you have reason to believe he was making a move, you're definitely beat here on the river and should just fold.

By the way, laggy players raise and reraise preflop with non-premium hands—which means he could easily have cards that hit this flop hard. I wouldn't be surprised to see him turn over something like JJ42 or J94A.

Results:

Not bad thinking, but the right time to do this was to cap preflop.