Overzealous push

I suck. Given the preflop action, I should have just raised $80-$100. All night long I had the best hand on the flop only to see the turn and river destroy me so I got anxious here. Since he folded, he must have had Jacks (which after I asked him he confirmed). His line on the flop is either a monster hoping to get raised or JJ/AK or AKd hoping to get a cheap turn card. I could just call here too but that seems lame. What do you think?
***** Hand History for Game 4452113581 *****
0/0 Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) - Tue Jun 06 02:25:25 EDT 2006
Table Table 107578 (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 6
Seat 1: DirtyPoor ( $193.65)
Seat 2: mmmoose ( $380.81)
Seat 3: Hero ( $275.72)
Seat 4: jasonfox99 ( $409.88)
Seat 5: JJirish ( $215.75)
Seat 6: KovnerS ( $200)
JJirish posts small blind (1)
KovnerS posts big blind (2)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Kd, Kc ]
DirtyPoor folds.
mmmoose raises (4) to 4
Hero raises (14) to 14
JJirish folds.
KovnerS folds.
mmmoose raises (20) to 24
Hero raises (66) to 80
mmmoose calls (56)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ Qd, 8c, 3d ]
mmmoose bets (20)
Hero raises (195.72) to 195.72

Push is OK. It's only a pot-sized raise. But given that cheesy little blocking bet he threw out, a raise to $80 might be better as far as encouraging some action. This guy seems like a nimrod - how is he still in this hand after you 4-bet pre-flop?

I have no idea but the only hands I beat are the least likely holdings. I got sort of lucky here.

I push preflop after he re-raises my re-raise. The pot is large enough.

That queen on the flop would scare the shit out of me with him donking into me like that after I repped a big pair preflop.

nh

I'd just call his reraise of your reraise.

Originally Posted by dsaxton

I'd just call his reraise of your reraise.

I'm not sure that's the best approach against a guy who just min-raised twice. What hand range do you put him on after that, and why do you think calling is better than 4-betting?

Originally Posted by dalecooper

Originally Posted by dsaxton

I'd just call his reraise of your reraise.

I'm not sure that's the best approach against a guy who just min-raised twice. What hand range do you put him on after that, and why do you think calling is better than 4-betting?

I rarely ever will reraise somebody after they reraise me, with any hand. Especially with QQ-KK. When you put in that reraise after somebody reraises you, you might as well flip your cards over. And with QQ-KK, that raise pretty much folds hands like JJ-TT and QQ if you have KK and leaves only hands that are beating you staying in the hand. So I like to just call a reraise with pretty much every hand unless the pot is multiway in which case I probably will reraise again to isolate.

In this hand I think r8ed was very lucky. I'd put his range on QQ-AA, and that flop sucks really since the only hand we really beat preflop that would reraise again was QQ, and the flop is Q high. JJ played this horribly obviously.

Originally Posted by aislephive

I rarely ever will reraise somebody after they reraise me, with any hand. Especially with QQ-KK. When you put in that reraise after somebody reraises you, you might as well flip your cards over. And with QQ-KK, that raise pretty much folds hands like JJ-TT and QQ if you have KK and leaves only hands that are beating you staying in the hand.

I agree with all of this against a thinking player. My argument is that anybody who min-raises twice pre-flop is probably not a thinking player, and we should be looking to get more of his money in before he misses the flop and gets scared off because his AK failed to pair or his QQ-TT sees an overcard or two on the board.

As I mentioned - I got extremely lucky here. In hindsight I should just call him down without raising once I reached the flop. The only hands that play this way preflop are AA/KK/QQ and possibly, yet remotely AK. JJ should be just calling my initial raise and then check/folding on the flop.

Originally Posted by dalecooper

Originally Posted by dsaxton

I'd just call his reraise of your reraise.

I'm not sure that's the best approach against a guy who just min-raised twice. What hand range do you put him on after that, and why do you think calling is better than 4-betting?

If you aren't folding, your objective should be to maximize against all the hands that you beat. Reraising again, and telling him you have at least K-K, doesn't do this. It's better to just call and allow him to overplay a smaller pocket pair.

I might even again just call a bet (depending in part on the size of the bet) on many flops, and then push the turn.

but stupid people play poker sometimes, so it's not always AA/KK/QQ here


You got almost 1/3 of your stack in there preflop....If a queen hits and he has a set, so be it. If he has AA here, so be it. I don't mind how you played it.

Just calling down is bad for so many reasons. What if an Ace hits? What about anything else and all of the sudden he jacks it in on *you* because you're playing so weak? OMG now you fold the best hand!

Originally Posted by Ultimate George

but stupid people play poker sometimes, so it's not always AA/KK/QQ here


You got almost 1/3 of your stack in there preflop....If a queen hits and he has a set, so be it. If he has AA here, so be it. I don't mind how you played it.

Just calling down is bad for so many reasons. What if an Ace hits? What about anything else and all of the sudden he jacks it in on *you* because you're playing so weak? OMG now you fold the best hand!

If an ace hits, you probably won't get much more action, but you still almost certainly have the best hand, and you have position. If he shows a lot of strength on an A high flop, oh well, you got unlucky. It's worth risking getting a little unlucky in favor of greatly increasing your chances of stacking someone with J-J or Q-Q.

You seem to be suggesting that you should reraise preflop just to avoid making decisions postflop. Poker is about making money, not avoiding any risk of having to make a decision. If the latter were the case, the right play would just be to move all-in preflop with any hand you decide to play (if it would even make sense to play poker).

Originally Posted by dsaxton

If you aren't folding, your objective should be to maximize against all the hands that you beat. Reraising again, and telling him you have at least K-K, doesn't do this.

Generally no, but against this guy, as played, the announcement was explicit - "I HAVE A BIGGER PAIR" - and he called anyway, and then donked off another $20 on the flop on top of it. I maintain that his two pre-flop min-raises suggested early in the hand that he was capable of being this much of a donk. And donks are the best targets for pre-flop re-raises, because they don't understand the message you're sending.

Originally Posted by Ultimate George

but stupid people play poker sometimes, so it's not always AA/KK/QQ here


You got almost 1/3 of your stack in there preflop....If a queen hits and he has a set, so be it. If he has AA here, so be it. I don't mind how you played it.

Just calling down is bad for so many reasons. What if an Ace hits? What about anything else and all of the sudden he jacks it in on *you* because you're playing so weak? OMG now you fold the best hand!

I would venture to say that min-reraise is QQ+ 90 % of the time, and the other 10 percent something like AK/JJ/TT. Why show so much strength preflop? As I and dsaxton have said it normally folds out JJ/QQ and pretty much leaves only AA to call your preflop reraise. Often times people overplay QQ to death anyways, but that's still pretty thin. When the flop comes Q high if you get any resistance on the flop after the action preflop you can be sure you're dead. QQ/AA now beat us, AK/JJ is scared to death and they're pretty much done with the hand. I guess you hope he has AKd or AQ?

By just calling preflop you allow hands like TT-QQ to go broke to you since they figure if you had AA/KK you would have reraised them (which is exactly why you just call). Now you're going broke either way to AA, but you might as well maximize value from hands you beat and putting in a fourth raise screams KK+. If you just call and the flop comes A high you could call one bet and fold to another barrell. Do you think TT-QQ is going to fire twice on an ace high flop after being called? No way. Occasionally TT-QQ will flop a set and stack you, but the difference is more than made up when the flop comes 7 high and they can't get away from their overpair. Or they could flop a set on an ace high flop and you will lose the minimum.

Preflop I was trying to induce him to push as I'm only behind one hand and I dominate all others. My goal with AA/KK preflop is to get lots of money in. Reasoning:
a) Make them get their money in before having a chance to think things through.
b) Make the pot big enough that they will want to fight for it post flop.

I'm always raising here vs a small bet and people left to act after me. If the bet was higher and I was on the button or the blinds then I call. I didn't anticipate him coming back at me preflop. I did think about calling that one but I figured I would narrow down HIS hand by reraising. By him just calling - I'm 90% sure he doesn't have AA. AA would push because they know I'm not laying down my hand preflop. Folding was an option if that happened. That leaves AK and QQ in non-bizarro world. An Ace or a Queen on the flop sucks. I ran into the Queen. At this point of the night after a million drawouts and suckouts I said f()ck it and pushed hoping for a King. Every KK I got faced an Ace on the flop the past two nights. A Queen was refreshing.

What aislephive explains is spot on in my opinion. I should have logged of an hour before this hand even came up as I was not mentally there. I didn't start playing until late and I had a horrible run up to this hand. I was allin preflop twice before this hand against a tilting shortstack that kept pushing. My 99 lost to his K6o, then I reloaded and lost a full buyin to him again when I had AK vs. his A7. I butchered this hand and luckily came out alive.