Lately I've been frustrated by a lot of second best.

Example.

$.50/ $1 NL

Have Ac Jh in position 7 and everyone folded. I have $150

Raise it to $3

Small Blind with $400 calls the bet.

Flop Kd Qs 10d

I've just flopped the nut str8. Yeah.

He checks and I put out a feeler bet of $2. He raises me to $6. I show the strength by re-raising to $15 and he calls.

Turn is a brick 8c. He checks. Pot is about $37 and I bet $25. He Calls.

River 9d. He bets $35. I call. Shows AQd loser again.



About 20 hands later I raise with 77 and get a call.

Flop 7s 8s 10h

Short and long of it, I hit a set of 7's and the opponent hit a set of 8's


What to do? Help.

Dont beat ureself up[ about it - u played it fine!

1st hand is ok - my feeler bet would be around 5/6 (roughyl pot), but then on the turn, I think u have to bet at least the pot. If u pick it up there, ure happy, if not, youve made him pay over the odds for his draw, so ure happy in the longrun. On the river, the call is fine - he'd make the saem play with a set, AK, A10, any jack, and a few other hands u beat. u cant give him credit for the flush - he played it like AQ, you were just unlucky they were in

2nd hand, again, no problems - u hit ur set, and most of the time thats gonna be the best hand - we all have to pay off a higher set once in a while - hed play it the same with an over pair, 2 pair, maybe the OESD with flush draw too...I take it yu went bust here?

Infuture, a your reads on villain would help, but your play in both of these was fine anyway - c'est la vie (or le poker)

The set over set is going to happen sometimes, I wouldn't have went broke with it. Lots of hands that can beat you here.

He didnt have the nuts - the flush hit, and his opponent had it.

I like the call to catch a bluff, but raising here is criminal, i think...

Second hand: Set over set happens so rarely, you really can't "predict"it. You hit a set of sevens, and were just unlucky to run into a larger set. With all the draws on that flop, I also go broke here. I don't know the play or the players, but I assume J9 or 69 is unlikely. Therefore, you are defending against straight draws and flush draws and hoping to catch top pair/overpair/two pair to pay you off nicely.


First Hand: You played it well. Your bet on the turn gave him the wrong price to call with a flush draw. Hence, his call was a mistake and you just got unlucky. Personally, I play this hand almost exactly like you played it.

The only recommended adjustment is to increase your bet sizes on the flop. I would have put the "feeler bet" at between 1/2 and 2/3 pot (somewhere between $3 to $4 is fine). I also would have increased the size of the flop reraise. You raised $9 to $15-to-go. He therefore had to call $9 to win $36. That is 3-to-1 odds and is a good price for him to stick around once he factors the implied odds (you bet and reraised him, hence you like your hand -- you are likely to pay him off if he hits his flush, and you have enough chips remaining to make the price to call worthwhile).

About the turn bet: Here, you bet the perfect amount. In my experience, people with nut flush draws will call often call pot-sized bets here (at least they do so all the time at the 1/2 games I like to devour...) Their calls are incorrect and make you money in the long run, but you have to expect the flush draws to frequently stick around.

If, however, you don't want to let them stick around (i.e you're happy with the pot as is...), you can certainly overbet/move in on the turn here to try to price out any draws. Since you have the nuts on the turn, at worst you are up against A:diamond: J:diamond:, in which case he is frerolling against you.

The problem with the overbet/all-in on the turn, is that it isn't foolproof. The opponent may be more likely to think you're bluffing, or may not put you on the flopped straight. If he only puts you on the king then he would have between 6 and 9 extra outs (two queens and 4 jacks, and possibly the three more aces if you have something like KT) hence he may feel that he still has the outs to call here.

For example, just last Friday, I was playing 1/2 NLHE (live):

Villian A: $50, first to act on flop
Me: $350 (middle position)
Villian B had $300. and was last to act.

I have [b]99

Villian B raises $15-to-go pre-flop and A and I both call.

Flop: 9 5 3 (Pot $45)
(I had flopped top set)
Villian A moves all-in and I move in on top to protect against the flush draw. Villian B thinks for a long time and finally calls, showing Q Q .

Here villian B saw two all-ins and knew the hand would go to showdown. he had an overpair and the third nut flush draw, but still decided to call $285 to win $650 with no remaining pot odds. He had to know that I had a made hand (I had been playing tight so far, had only showed down big hands) and knew he was up againse a set or flush, but still chose to call. I understand this play with the nut flush draw, but ... third nut?

For the curious, the outcome is listed below in "invisible ink", just highlight this post or click quote to read it:

Outcome: Villian A had 66 with no flush draw. The turn was a 7 of clubs and the river was a ten of hearts, and I rake in the pot

Cheers,

Merby

can't really tell what happened with hand 2 and assume you were too short to get away from it. It happens.

Hand 1 is fine. I play it close to the same. I also don't think it's a bad idea to overbet the flop here to start building. If your opponent has an under pair, he's likely to fold, but if he called with two big cards, he's likely caught a good piece of this and will call a larger bet.

Hand 1 is not fine. Do not smooth call with the nuts on the river. :wall:

I would bet more than 2$ on the flop. That weak lead after a pre-flop raise is so donkish and it makes me sick to even read about it. :wall:

We need a little bit more info to judge hand 2.

He didn't have the nuts on the first hand. The other guy did so why would he raise? :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall:

and set over set, there's nothing you can do. Just move on.

I agree that the flop bet needs to be larger. If the pot is $7, I would say a $5 bet is going to accomplish what you want. However, I think the original poster means that he bets $2, Villain raises $4 to 6$, and the original poster re-raises to $15. The re-raise is actually a $9 dollar raise to Villain making a $24 pot, laying Villain 8-to-3 odds. I think the raise needs to be a considerably larger, probably somewhere around rasing the $6 bet to $24 or so. That would make Villain have to call $18 with a pot of $39, so he would have somewhere around 2.2-to-1. A raise to $24 also makes our turn play easier. If Villain calls, we now have a pot of $54. I think Villain is hard pressed to call the turn with second pair, a gutshot, and a flush draw if we fire $45 after we have shown so much strength on the flop. The $45 bet leaves Hero with under $80 behind, laying somewhere around 3.4-1 in implied odds. If that is too good of a price, pushing in on a blank turn is another decent option. Stronger play on the flop makes this hand play much simpler and makes our decisions easier while forcing the hard decisions on Villain. If we bet harder into the pot on the flop and then put in a substantial re-raise to Villain's flop raise, our turn push is even easier and any thinking opponent is priced out of chasing.

I don't get why this is such a hard thing for people to pick up on. It happens all the time. People's reading comprehension is pretty bad.

Hand 1 bet the flop harder initially. Other then that nothing you can do.

Hand 2...bad beat forum.

Shit, my bad. I thought it was a rainbow flop.