The trouble with trouble hands
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The game was $500 Max NL Nevada-style, that is with 3 and 5 blinds. I was staying overnight at the Oasis in Mesquite on my annual forage to go flyfishing in Montana (if you ever stop here do order the classic combo pizza in the sports bar – it’s some of the best pizza I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a lot). They just called the game so I didn’t have any kind of info on any of my opponents.
This is a wonderful deep-stack game structure, and only a couple other players besides myself bought in for the full $500. Unfortunately I tangled with one of them right out the gate. Sitting on the button with QJ and just one middle-position caller, I raised to $15 in order to take control of the hand. Hopefully I would pick up a small pot on the flop with a standard continuation bet of around 75% of the pot, my standard procedure.
But the big blind, who also bought in for the max, had other ideas. He raised it to $30, which is kind of a small reraise but not uncommon, and the caller mucked. That left me with (what I thought at the time was) an automatic call.
The flop came Q74 rainbow. He bet $20 – a tiny bet for a $68 pot, so it really looked like either a weak continuation bet or bait for a trap. I just called.
The turn brought a deuce for a board of Q742 with two clubs and he bet $50, still kind of a small bet for a $108 pot. I raised it to $150 and he called immediately. On the river an off-suit 8 fell, he checked and I checked behind him. He turned over AQ and took the pot.
That night I had trouble sleeping and it was this hand that I kept replaying over and over in my mind. I’m at the point where in order to improve my game, this is the situation I have to deal with better. Where did I make a mistake that I can stop making in the future, and prevent this from happening again?
I like to think that I am good at dealing with trouble hands. I won’t play them for a cold raise or a substantial reraise preflop. I won’t play them from early or early-middle position at all in a full ring game. I am very cautious with them if I do get action and flop a pair. But I am still an aggressive player (because that’s where the money is), and if I’m not driving I usually don’t want to go. You simply have to bet in this game, and your bet can’t look weak.
The first possible place I made the mistake was playing the hand in the first place when a middle position caller came in. I really can’t fault this, because trouble hands play well when you have both power and position in short-handed situations like this one figured to be. (By power I am referring to being the aggressor, last raiser before the flop.)
Next item on the list: Should I have called the preflop raise? There was $53 in the pot at that point and it was only $15 more to me, plus I had position. Seemed like a lot of money to give up for just a little bit more to see the flop. Backing down like this may not be the first thing I want to do in a new game. But the problem of course is what happens when I flop a pair and he keeps firing.
And that’s exactly what happened. But he bet so damn small it just looked weak. What would I have done if he bet more? Well for $75 I probably would have thrown the hand away. For $50 it would have been a tougher decision: I can see myself raising to $100, then him calling and checking the turn. Then what? A $200 bet would have been in order by conventional logic, but in this spot I just couldn’t do it – maybe I would have bet another $100 and checked behind him on the river. Or maybe I would have checked behind him on the turn and called his river bet, which would have been at least $100. Either way, I lose more than I lost the way I played it (I lost $200 total on the hand).
Should I have raised the flop bet? I probably would have made it $75. If he reraised I could have folded and problem solved, but this guy would have called and checked the turn. Then if I bet $150 and check behind him on the river I lose $255 total. If I check the turn and call his river bet, the best-case scenario is I lose about the same as I lost the way I played it. (Yes, I would be forced to call any reasonable river bet after showing weakness by checking the turn.)
What about just calling the Turn? Pretty weak way to play, just inviting an ace or king to hit and at that juncture the pot would be getting too big to screw up. The $20 call on the flop was a cheap way to see the turn with a vulnerable hand, and the pot was still small enough to get away from at that point. Also, it’s often a good idea to keep the pot small with shaky top-pair holdings. After the call on the flop however, I couldn’t see just calling $50 more on the turn and letting those overcards hit. But what if I did? His river bet surely would have been at least $100, losing me the same amount that I did lose, or more.
Folding that small of a bet on the turn is of course out of the question when holding top pair.
In conclusion, the only way I see escaping this early tragedy is by folding for the small reraise preflop. After all, what flop outside a miracle am I hoping to hit? The odds of flopping either queens and jacks or trips are 48-1 and 78-1 against, respectively. Flopping a straight is a similar miracle. And you see what trouble one-pair hands without the best kicker are.
Trouble hands are just too much trouble. You need to be the last preflop aggressor in order to play them, and even then you are usually regretting the situation when you flop a pair and get action on the flop. In No Limit it’s best to give up top-pair without the best kicker when you run into resistance, unless you are trapping a maniac.
Bio:
Andrew Kasch is the author of the popular ebook “How to Shake the Online Poker Money Tree” available at www.onlinepokerincome.com .
