Hand of the Night

Holding hands for the Hand of the Day

This hand is not all that interesting, other than the fact that my opponent stacks off 200+BB.  A little preface for the hand: the site that I'm on offers a forced ante hand randomly.  I'm not sure of the odds of a forced ante, but in the event it's a "bomb pot," every ponies up a BB and we automatically see a flop... i.e. no pre flop action.

This hand comes to you from a $0.25/$0.50 table - where I'm pleased to announce that I'm playing nearly 100% of my time.

$4.00 in the pot (8 players * $0.50 per).  Flop is 4hQsQd.  I'm in the SB with 55, and first to act.  I check & it checks to the HJ who bets half pot, $2.  He's now sitting on $53.02.  BTN calls with $114.77 behind, and I flat leaving me with $123.16.  I've seen these players bet the 4 often enough to know I should see a turn card without much thought.

I'm sure you know where this is going: 5d on the turn, completing my totally hidden 5's full of queens.  Board reads 4hQsQd5d  Now, I'm not sure if either them have anything whatsoever, and I'm okay with letting a free card go if they both have air.  However, I'm going to find out pretty quickly if one of them have a Q, because I expect a continued bet - particularly because there's a 2 flush board out there, and there's also a straight draw with the 4 5.  To my delight, the HJ bets $6.50 - for sure repping the Q, and the fat stack BTN comes along for $6.50.  Now I'm faced with a dilemma; I want to stack the 200BB guy.  If I have any shot of doing that, I need to juice the pot now, or hope to get it in on the river.  If I juice the pot now, though, I can set up an easier river shove, rather than a jagged over bet on the riv or a check/raise.  With $23 in the middle prior to my call, I go roughly pot, raising to $24.  They both come along.

$82 in the pot and $90.77 effective (I have more than the BTN, so we're playing for his $90.77 stack).  River is 7s, completing a weird backdoor straight, but otherwise not providing much fear to any naked Q.  I didn't feel comfortable at the time (retrospectively, I probably should have opened shoved, so I missed out on another $15 in profit) so I led the river for $75.  Both players snap call and I scoop probably my largest pot yet on this site: $257.52.

HJ shows KdQh and BTN shows QcJs for the case Queen....  NH fellas!

If you sign up for ClubsPoker, you can view the hand rather than relying on my mediocre retelling.  Use the referral link provided if you're able to do so.

The hand in question is linked here.

Edit: Funny how 24 hours and additional thought allow a change in perspective.  In the above, I kinda of call myself out retrospectively for not open shoving the river - and there is a part of me that still feels it's an appropriate action.  However, we sometimes apply a "how would I act if the shoe were on the other foot?" strategy to our opponents - which is somewhat what I did in the actual hand.  You can approach life, and poker for that matter, as a "do unto others" / "what would I do in that situation" and be a very good person.  The reality is this, though: I think you will become a MUCH BETTER person if you approach life with a "do unto others as others would wish done to them" / "what would I do *IF I WAS THAT PERSON*".

Okay - we're into philosophy a bit here.  What do I mean by that?  It's easy to project yourself onto others... you know yourself better than anyone else - your preferences, what you find insulting, etc.  The challenge is knowing your opponent / fellow man.  What do you know about your opponent?  The golden rule (Do unto others) does not apply universally.  In fact, when dealing with interpersonal resolution, it almost never applies!

For example (totally made up, but go with me):  When I'm upset, I want to be hugged and patted on the back - told it's going to be okay.  My wife (much to my chagrin) hates to be touched.  I know how to soothe her by treating her differently than I would myself  in the reverse situation.  It's a small, but reasonable example.  I'm going to stop waxing philosophically here, and get back to the poker.... sorry for the segue.

Going back to our hand above: Will he/she react differently than you?  You have bits of information that say otherwise.  For example, my check / raise turn would set off total alarms in my head if I were my opponent.  In reality, both opponents snap called the c/r turn.  My read on the situation in the actual hand was spot on that my opponents were going to call a large riv bet - just my sizing may have not been large enough; I underestimated their tolerance for calling a riv bet because I would have 85% found the fold button --- ESPECIALLY for the guy on the BTN when the guy on the HJ snaps off for his stack...  If I'm him, I have to think there's a better Q out there, if not a boat!  There's a but; BUT I'M NOT MY OPPONENT!

I need to put myself into my opponent's head space and see that my opponent is unconcerned with other Queens, only considering the strength of my own hand, which is likely what he was doing.  My opponent looks down on his 2 cards and says, "I have trips.  This is a very very strong hand."  Maybe my opponent says, "There is one other Q out there, but I have a good Q."  I would say (if I were him, after the full reveal knowing he has QJ), "There are 2 other hands in play here; they are random hands on a paired board.  Let's work backwards from my hand: QJ.  By the river, the obvious hands that beat me are 44, 55, Q4, Q5, Q7 (somewhat discountable because of the c/r turn), and then the better kicked Queens, KQ, AQ.  For good measure, there's hands that my opponent thinks are good but are not good: AA, KK, JJ (?) which I should consider, but I know my opponent (i.e. me with c/r turn) is a competent player who is not likely to stack off 150BB+ on a bluff / non-nutty hand."  To continue on my analysis vs. his, all of the Qx hands are absolutely possible, but mildly unlikely because there's only one remaining Q in the deck.  They're MILDLY unlikely, but very much in play!

All of the hand analysis from my end would *LIKELY* lead me to a fold if I were him.  Good thing I'm not him!  :-)