PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00+$0.10 Tournament, 125/250 Blinds 25 Ante (9 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com



saw flop

Hero (MP2) (t6835)
MP3 (t10891)
CO (t5675)
Button (t2341)
SB (t10170)
BB (t5996)
UTG (t1180)
UTG+1 (t2375)
MP1 (t9705)

Hero's M: 11.39



Preflop: Hero is MP2 with A, J
2 folds, MP1 calls t250, Hero calls t250, 1 fold, CO raises to t500, 3 folds, MP1 calls t250, Hero calls t250

Flop: (t2100) 10, 7, 9 (3 players)
MP1 bets t250, Hero is glad he's on the Internet so the other players don't see him having an orgasm

Do I raise? Or do I hope CO will come along (or raise himself) if I smooth call? Also, MP1 betting out doesn't suggest a huge amount of strength (otherwise he'd be planning to c/r the CO), so do I risk losing him?

I'd flat call the flop for sure. For all you know, villains could have AK or KK with a club. I'm definitely flatting here with hopes that CO will come over the top.

I'd probably smooth call in this spot, the turn is where I would be looking to make a raise if we still have both along for the ride.

I did smooth call, and the other villain came along (but, sadly, did not raise). Then the nuts gut nuttier:

Flop: (t2100) 10, 7, 9 (3 players)
MP1 bets t250, Hero calls t250, CO calls t250

Turn: (t2850) 8 (3 players)
MP1 bets t2000, Hero...?

Sure illustrates another advantage to being in position against two opponents. When chasing a draw, it's nice to know your call closes out the action; OTOH when you've already got the nuts it'd be helpful for the CO to have a chance to call before I raise.

Also, this is greedy but I wished I could magically give my Ac to one of the villains! LOL

I'd flat again at this point. Any raise at this point pushes any sane person off the pot seeing as you hold the A and the J. Extra chips now are a bonus so hopefully he spews them off on the river or somebody holds the 6.

QFT

Okay, so far it looks like I played it the same as you guys advise:

Turn: (t2850) 8 (3 players)
MP1 bets t2000, Hero calls t2000, 1 fold

River: (t6850) 7 (2 players)
MP1 bets t1000, Hero raises to...?

How much of a raise gets paid off here? Or would a shove look weaker?

It's hard to say really because I guess it's dependent on the villain. I'm not too sure any raise will get called here so I think I might just tank shove. Min raise looks far too strong here. You could do a raise to 2500 here too but I think a shove looks like the weakest play of all.

Depends on villian, I would just push as this probably looks the weakest of all the raises possible.

Pretty sure we're missing value preflop. AJs > MP1 open limpers range.

I'm also not a huge advocate of just flatting the flop. I think we're going to be missing value in the long run since we can't expect the preflop raiser to raise the flop that often. Now we find ourselves on the river struggling to get the stacks in when there are tons of hands that would've got it in against us on the flop.

Straights, smaller flushes, sets, overpairs, two pairs, combidraws will all want to get it in on this flop. Pretty much all these hands hate a 4th club. Even if they just have a naked Kc a lot of the time they will overcall when we raise the flop. Getting value by getting our stack in needs to be our main concern and flatting bets that are 12.5% of the pot on the flop is not the way to do it.

Glad to hear a different perspective on the flop--this was one of the main things I was wondering about when posting the hand. (As played, what did you think about the turn call, and what do you think the river raise should be?)

I don't like the idea of raising preflop though. Over time I've been strongly convinced by various poker authors that when I'm not the first to enter the pot, and I have a hand like AQs or AJs, it's better to just call and see what the flop brings. It's not just the raise itself--once I raise, I can get reraised; or even if I don't, being the preflop raiser means I need to c-bet much of the time. So it's just an awful lot of chips to invest when I may totally miss the flop, and/or may be dominated if an A comes but no clubs.

I think shoving the turn or river is fine. If we flat the turn we should definitely shove the river. He's going to be laid decent odds to call and we'll have managed to get our stack in. There's a chapter in No Limit Hold'em: Theory And Practice that talks about playing the nuts on the river and thinking in terms of EV that's worth a read and applicable to this thread.

Back to preflop. It's not like we have less than 20 BBs. We have enough room in our stack to open for a small raise and fold to a 3-bet. We give ourselves the opportunity to take down the pot preflop and if we are called it's really not a bad result. We're going to take a flop in position, against someone who is most likely loose-passive and we're going to be 3:2 favorite over his range. Yes, we're going to have to c-bet the flop when we whiff sometimes, but the act of c-betting itself will be +EV and we can choose to check back the flop in order to keep the pot small if we want. Even if we get raised on the flop, we're not pot stuck after raising and c-betting.

All good points.

Results:

River: (t6850) 7 (2 players)
MP1 bets t1000, Hero raises to t2500, MP1 calls t1500

Total pot: t11850

Results:
MP1 had 10, Q (flush, Queen high).
Hero had A, J (straight flush, Jack high).
Outcome: Hero won t11850

And I of course wondered if I could have gotten more!

ETA: What do we think about the way villain played this?