Played this hand on a small site, with no cap heads up on the betting.

(jjdylan is dealt 9s 9d.)

Pre-flop:
UTG calls, hero raises, 2 folds, sb calls (all in), UTG 3bets, hero calls.

The flop comes
As 4c 9h.

UTG bets $1.
Hero calls for $1.

The turn comes 4h.

UTG bets $2.
Heroraises $2.
UTG raises $2.
Hero raises $2.
UTG raises $2.
Hero raises $2.
UTG raises $2.
Hero raises $2.
UTG raises $2.
Hero calls for $2.

The river comes 2d.

UTG bets $2.
Hero raises $2.
UTG raises $2.
Hero calls for $2.



Really im only worried about AA, how hard do you push this when only one realistic hand beats you?

Even though only one realistic hand beats you I would probably slow down sooner because from the way he played preflop AA looks most likely. Raising on the flop might be better just for information and value instead of slowplaying with a hand that has 1 out against a very possible hand for the opponent.

Given the LRR preflop, you severely overplayed the turn. How can you raise that river with so many bets going in on the turn!?

i guess i should add in that villian here is a maniac. So while even maniacs get AA too, i really dont believe he has it.

The river raise looks pretty bad i guess, but i really thought i had the best hand here, i just didnt want to keep raising till we were all in with it.

I dont know, ive never played in a game with no cap before, so this is uncharted territory for me.

lol, adding a read after people reply is awful

However, if he's a maniac, why isn't he raising first in? Has he LRR'd before? The limp raise from a maniac screams strength, unless you've seen him do it before.

yeah yeah, i know...i suck at posting, lol.


he was a really strange maniac....he'd never be the first one to raise, in early position hed limp every hand but if someone raised the pot before him, he'd reraise every time. if he got raised back, hed keep doing it till it was capped. This was especially apparent when he was in the blinds or on the button and constantly 3betting anyone who opened the pot.

After the flop he'd be betting and raising, but would usually back down into call mode if the other person kept up the agression. So in this hand im pretty sure he has a hand, but im pretty sure its not AA. With that said, im not SO sure that im willing to raise untill we're all in....so like i said, how far should i be willing to go without the absolute nuts?

You realize that 44 also beats you, right? With the third nuts, I think you've got to slow down eventually, but how deep are the stacks?

If you think that this guy is worth going 10 bets with, you probably should just go for your whole stack (assuming you dont have much more than 25 bets in front of you).

Do you really see there being much of a difference between someone 9 betting and 15 betting with AK / A4?

hahaha, so you just re-raise the hell out of the turn then?

go with your reads man but I'm thinking he has you beat after the 5th re-raise. it makes sense for him to hold 44 as well as AA.

Basically, in a case like this, you should keep going until you think it's more likely that villain has you beat than that he doesn't.

If villain is trying to read you hand at all, he should be able to put you on either 99 or AA when you 4-bet the turn, or at worst when you 6-bet, since those are the only hands you could reasonably have that wouldn't be worried about the 4. So if I felt he was at least trying to put me on a hand, I would stop either after he 5-bets or at most after he 7-bets.

But if you think villain is purely playing his own hand, well, A4 is the best hand villain could have that you beat, and there's 6 ways he could have A4, and only 4 ways he could have AA or 44. So in that case you should try to guess how many bets you think he would go with A4, and stop when you get beyond that point. (This is assuming that you think he's at least as likely to limp-reraise A4 preflop as he is AA or 44.) Your guess would have to be based on your instincts regarding his postflop play.

Stopping on the turn and raising the river actually makes some sense to me, once you reach the point where you think villain would still be pushing A4 but nothing worse, just to make sure the river isn't another A or 4.

In probably the best hand I ever played (at least, it was the most profitable LHE hand I ever played), I went for about 20 bets on the turn in a live 3/6 game until my opponent was all-in with QQ on a QJ7T board, because I was 99% sure on the flop that villain had a made hand and not a draw. (By the time we got 20 bets in, I was maybe down to 70% sure, so I would've stopped after another 10 bets or so, had we had the chips).

If i thought someone was dumb enough to go 20 bets with less than QQ on that board, i cant see 10 more changing anything.

Anything past 6 with less than a straight and he's pretty much braindead... unless he saw you acting as erratic as you would have had to have seen him act to make it 20 bets with top set.

http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/poker-foru...c=38317&hl=

I guess it was "only" about 15 bets on the turn before he was all-in.

But at the table, I remember that every time he made another reraise on the turn, it put more doubt into my mind as to whether my read on the flop had been correct. (When the turn card first showed up, I had almost no doubt that I was still ahead, and I was almost certain villain had JJ). But every bet put a little more doubt in my mind, and I was less sure of myself. Of course, once we were down to only a few bets each, it didn't matter, as anyboday who's going to go ten or more bets for 4/5's of his chips is probably willing to put them all-in.

But if we'd have each had 100 BB's in front of us, I'm sure that eventually I would have felt less than 50% sure that I was winning, which is in principle where I should slow down. (At some point I'd decide that his willingness to put in, I don't know, $200 on the turn (when I could easily have AK or QQ) would have been enough information for me to second-guess my flop read and decide I was no longer better than even-money to have the best hand, in my mind).

I guess technically I should bet until I'm only about 35% confident that I'm ahead, since I was still 23% to win if he had what I felt was the most likely hand he could have that would beat me (AK), while he was only 2% to win if he had what I felt was the most likely hand he was behind with (JJ).
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Sorry for my long-windedness, but I thought this was an interesting topic that doesn't get much discussion; when you have a non-nut hand, but you are not sure about villain's competence, villain keeps reraising, and there's no cap on raises, how should you determine how far to go until you slow down?

Of course, this is an extremely rare situation (I only recall playing one other hand that was kind of like this situation; I think I was playing 4/8 and I was OOP w/ J9 against one opponent on a board of JT9J. My opponent had 4-bet the flop, which had convinced me that I was beat (almost certainly by a straight, possibly by JT or a set), and I was going to c/f the turn UI. But, when I filled up the turn, I c/r'd, and my opponent 3-bet, and then he 5-bet. I was starting to wonder at that point, but I still thought he probably had the straight, so I 6-bet, and he just called, so then I was 99% sure I had him. And then the river was a T, and he groaned, called my bet, and mucked.

So I didn't have to make the decision that hand, but if he had 7-bet I'd have had a decision to make (I remember thinking at the time that I might just have called the 7-bet, since I thought had made it pretty clear that I could beat any straight with my 6-bet, and really, with my 4-bet). But in this case, I felt my opponent was reasonably competent, and that at some point, he'd recognize that I was probably full.

But, if you get in these rare situations against incompetent players who appear to be only playing their own hand, stopping too early can be a very costly decision, so I think it's worth at least being aware of these situations.