So happy... so very happy

[dalecooper]

***** Hand History for Game 2215347780 *****
$50 NL Hold'em - Thursday, June 16, 10:11:07 EDT 2005
Table Table 36744 (6 max) (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 1: SynthXP ( $48.5 )
Seat 3: thefarol ( $66 )
Seat 6: stressball10 ( $116 )
Seat 4: NeoSlayer ( $108.5 )
Seat 2: vincent5944 ( $50.9 )
SynthXP posts small blind [$0.25].
vincent5944 posts big blind [$0.5].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to stressball10 [ Kc Ah ]
NeoSlayer raises [$1].
stressball10 raises [$2].
SynthXP folds.
vincent5944 folds.
NeoSlayer calls [$1].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4s, 5s, Th ]
NeoSlayer checks.
stressball10 bets [$3].
NeoSlayer calls [$3].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5h ]
NeoSlayer checks.
stressball10 bets [$3].
NeoSlayer calls [$3].
** Dealing River ** [ 2c ]
NeoSlayer bets [$12].
**************long pause while stressball thinks this shit over
stressball10 calls [$12].
NeoSlayer shows [ As, Js ] a pair of fives.
stressball10 shows [ Kc, Ah ] a pair of fives.
stressball10 wins $38.75 from the main pot with a pair of fives with king kicker.
NeoSlayer has left the table.

[Les_Worm]

I am not a NL specialist so excuse me if I am incorrect. But it seems to me like this hand was played poorly preflop, on the turn and on the river. The minraise preflop seem pointless to me. What are you trying to accomplish with this? On the turn you are giving him odds to draw to his flush and its almost begging him for the call. I think you need to bet more like $10-$12 and punish him for a draw if that is what you put him on. I don't like the river call w/ A high here. Sure you had the best hand but you will need one hell of a read to call.

[dalecooper]

I min-raised pre-flop to get a little more money in with the best hand, and discourage the blinds from playing... i.e. to get heads up with the other guy, knowing I probably had a better hand than he did, and that I had position on him. Mission accomplished. If he had raised 3xBB initially I may have just called him there rather than re-raising. I'm comfortable playing AK heads up, with position.

The bet on the turn was something I throw out a lot when I'm unsure where I stand. I call it the autopilot bet - like I'm betting the same amount throughout the hand without thinking about it. Reason being, it saves me money if I have misread him and he has a real hand. He *could* have a flush draw here, but if he has AT or a set he might play it the same way, and I don't want to bet the pot only to have him call me again or even come back over the top of me. It's a cheap feeler bet for a hand that I'm not very comfortable with. He flat-called again despite the weak bet, telling me he was probably drawing. My first priority here is not to make him pay to draw - if I knew for sure I was ahead, I would bet bigger. It's arguable that I should bet larger or check behind here, but I think betting at least the same as on the flop gives me more information (which was about to come in handy).

On the river I disagree with you completely, and that's why I posted this in the first place. It stank of busted flush draw, and my call was a good one. I would never call a large bet like that with an unimproved AK unless I had a rock-solid read that he was bluffing. The weak $3 turn bet actually gave me the information I needed to take another $12 from this guy. I wouldn't have been happy if that last card had been a jack and he made that same bet, because I probably would have called - but that's only three cards I really need to worry about. If he catches a spade, I simply fold.

[Les_Worm]

How confident were you here that he didn't have something like TT and was just waiting until the river to put his chip in?

[dalecooper]

Pretty confident. I'd say I was about 90% sure, after I thought it over. TT was the only hand I was worried about but I thought he would have bet out or check-raised by at least the turn if that was what he had. Not so much because that's how you "should" play the hand, but because that's how nearly everyone at that level plays it. It's rare to get slowplayed all the way to the river unless someone has quads or a straight flush. Usually if he had tens he would check-raise the flop, or flat call the flop and check-raise the turn.

[SmackinYaUp]

I trust your poker abilities 100% but just make sure you are being totally honest with yourself that this is a good call and not a lucky call. I can even see someone with a weak pair trying to push you off your hand after your weak bets. It does look like a busted draw, but how often is this going to work out in your favor with A high? I'm not judging your play at all, because hand reading is a great ability to have, and I've seen some great players make plays like this as well.

[dalecooper]

I trust your poker abilities 100% but just make sure you are being totally honest with yourself that this is a good call and not a lucky call.

I almost never call river bets with an unimproved AK, so I am happy to say that it wasn't just luck. I think I had sufficient information to make this call.

I can even see someone with a weak pair trying to push you off your hand after your weak bets.

That was my only worry, but I concluded he probably would have done that on the turn if he was going to. My flop bet was fine... only the turn bet was weak relative to the pot, which is when he should raise if he thinks he has me beat. There are bad players who wouldn't raise there, but I had played with this guy long enough to give him at least a little more respect than that.

Flat-calling the flop and especially the turn, then betting out strong on the river, doesn't smell like a weak pair to me. His bet gave me approximately 9:4 on my call - I was definitely confident that I was winning that hand often enough to make that a good call. I need to win less than 1/3 of the time to warrant calling there, and I was a lot more confident than that.

It does look like a busted draw, but how often is this going to work out in your favor with A high?

See above. I am comfortable saying that I would win this hand at least 50% of the time based on only the board and the betting, which is more than enough to make the call a good one.