Ok….before I show the hand that I need advice on, I need to give some background.
After my ‘understanding variance’ post, I ignored my advice. On Saturday night I played like a donkey and had a shocker. One thing that I said in that post is to understand when a bad run is due to variance. Well on Saturday night I played 560 hands and lost 5 buyins…not due to variance but due to playing like a donk. I did have one cooler (set v straight) but essentially 3 and a half buyins of loss was due to playing like a donkey. Twice I went all in with overpairs (9 9 and 10 10) against players who had reraised me only to find they had higher overpairs. My only defense is that both players were hyperaggressive and I didn’t believe their reraises.
So on Sunday I analysed the session and was embarrassed by it. I started another session and felt confident working my way up to being 1 buyin ahead.
Now this hand here is NOT the hand I need advice on. It is a bad beat hand. I usually try to avoid showing bad beats, but the reason is that this happened immediately before the hand I would like to show.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $0.10 BB (5 handed)
MP ($9.90)
Button ($5.75)
SB ($32.25)
Hero ($14.75)
UTG ($11.20)
Preflop: Hero is BB with 
, 
.
UTG calls $0.10, MP raises to $0.4, 1 fold, SB calls $0.35, Hero calls $0.30, UTG calls $0.30.
Flop: ($1.60) 
, 
, 
(4 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, MP bets $0.6, SB folds, Hero calls $0.60, UTG folds.
Turn: ($2.80) 
(2 players)
Hero bets $1.2, MP raises to $3, Hero raises to $13.75, MP calls $5.90 (All-In).
River: ($20.60) 
(2 players, 1 all-in)
Final Pot: $20.60
Results in white below:
Hero has Jd Qd (straight, ace high).
MP has Ad Tc (full house, tens full of aces).
Outcome: MP wins $20.60.
So I flopped the nuts, still had nuts after turn and he hit a 4 outer. We both played the hand fine..I don’t complain about these hands……its a cooler and they happen.
OK, here we go…NEXT HAND:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $0.10 BB (6 handed)
Button ($10.65)
Hero ($10.10)
BB ($12.10)
UTG ($1.60)
MP ($10.30)
CO ($11.15)
Preflop: Hero is SB with 
, .
1 fold, MP raises to $0.4, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.35, 1 fold.
Flop: ($0.90) , 
, 
(2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $0.7, Hero calls $0.70.
Turn: ($2.30) 
(2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $2, Hero raises to $5, MP raises to $9.2, Hero calls $4 (All-In).
River: ($20.30) 
(2 players, 1 all-in)
Final Pot: $20.30
Results in white below:
Hero has Qc Qd (three of a kind, queens).
MP has 4d 3d (flush, ace high).
Outcome: MP wins $20.49.
So I had QQ on a scary scary flop and played passively pre and post flop. I guess I should raise preflop but I hate playing in the SB…he may have folded (I didn’t know anything about how he plays). The turn gave me a set (unfortunately! as he had flopped a flush. I check-raised then called his all in. My thinking was that there were plenty of hands that I am beating here…I am only losing to a flopped flush and 10 J, and I figured that if I was behind I had plenty of outs with the nut flush draw and any card that will pair the board. As it turned out, he had flopped a flush and I missed my 16 outs.
Any thoughts?
I don’t think raising PF would’ve made much difference. You know how these guys love to play suited cards.
I don’t think you played it wrong, sometimes you just can’t hit and that hurts.
by the way i think you had 17 outs and it’s pretty much an instacall after he re-raised your turn raise.
The thing I find is that it’s real hard to get guys to lay down their hands and thus bad players tend to suckout much more than good players who know when to fold a good hand so just chalk it up to bad luck.
The key, as always, is not to be results oriented but decision oriented. Both times you made the right play based on odds and outs so don’t sweat it. Before you know it, you’ll be hitting those hands soon enough.
Cheers…..I appreciate your comments. I was thinking along the lines of what you said but it is good to hear it from someone else.