Flopped top two, does my play appear correct?

[strawman]

I was on a little streak and most of my raises were being folded around so I decided to min-raise from the cut off and get one caller. How does my play look from there?

Texas Hold'em $0.25-$0.25 NL (real money), hand #373,940,259
Table Chihuahua, 16 Apr 2006 11:19 PM
Seat 1: houston x ($28 in chips)
Seat 2: wildace42 ($37.45 in chips)
Seat 3: GeneralCHA0S ($25.25 in chips)
Seat 6: alfil [JH,QS] ($45.90 in chips)
Seat 7: fistname ($31.85 in chips)
Seat 8: FeltFiend ($3.65 in chips)
Seat 9: nihonjin ($15.60 in chips)
Seat 10: alexdesignz ($11.60 in chips)

ANTES/BLINDS
FeltFiend posts blind ($0.15), nihonjin posts blind ($0.25).

PRE-FLOP
alexdesignz folds, houston x folds, wildace42 folds, GeneralCHA0S folds, alfil bets $0.50, fistname folds, FeltFiend folds, nihonjin calls $0.25.

FLOP [board cards QH,3H,JD ]
nihonjin checks, alfil bets $0.50, nihonjin calls $0.50.

TURN [board cards QH,3H,JD,KC ]
nihonjin bets $2, alfil bets $9, nihonjin calls $7.

RIVER [board cards QH,3H,JD,KC,6H ]
nihonjin checks, alfil bets $6, nihonjin calls $5.60 and is all-in.

[finky]

Pre-flop: Don't min raise, but I'm sure you know that...

Flop: Bet it harder, thats an action flop with lots of draws and 2nd best hands to make money from. Even an overbet is likely to get called as, coupled with your PF min-raise, it looks so fishy.

Turn: That could be trouble, KJ/KQ/AT just drew out on you and now he's waking up, I'd just call and re-evaluate the river.

River: Now any 2 hearts beat you, given stack sizes it's unlikley the villian will fold 1 pair at this point but if it was any deeper I'd definatly check this behind.


I think the biggest problem with this hand is that you only really started to build the pot on the turn and river when you could no longer be as confident about your hand.

[Monty9]

Howdy,

Finky got it right.

Don't min raise with anything less than AA and even then it's questionable. Flopped two pair always scare me.

Here's my rule of thumb... this is just me, nothing here to back it up.

I never play flopped 2 pairs SLOW... bet it hard and take the pot down
If you get a call watch out for the draws on the board. It might only be someone over calling TPTK but as with your hand the K and the hearts opened up a lot of hands.

Now if you complete 2 pair on the turn or river BINGO ... these usually always pay off for me. These I feel comfortable about and will often raise into aciton with them.

Just MHO

[xX zorrito Xx]

honestly i don't even agree with raising with Q J period... not even suited...

it's a strong drawing hand but anything that calls you before the flop is already beating you...

personally i just limp or call a 2.5XBB raise with it if i have position... otherwise i'd toss it...

i would've bet the shit outta this flop because if he called a bet before the flop he clearly has cards that hit or that could out draw you... personally i would overbet the pot...

[strawman]

Pre-flop: Don't min raise, but I'm sure you know that...

Actually what I'm really starting to learn is bad pre-flop decisions lead to bad flop decisions which lead to bad turn decisions. My reasoning for the min-raise here is that my last few raises have only been picking up blinds or blinds and a limper or two; so having it folded around to me in the cut-off I'm either going to raise or fold and looking down at a drawing hand with only the BSB ahead of me I thought a min-raise would get me enough action to justify slightly suspicious behaviour with QJo. I placed myself into a situation where I wanted to maintain my image that if I'm first in I raise while not pushing too much with a slightly marginal hand.

Flop: Bet it harder, thats an action flop with lots of draws and 2nd best hands to make money from. Even an overbet is likely to get called as, coupled with your PF min-raise, it looks so fishy.

Not being content to win blinds anymore with strong raises, why would I change my mindset now that I've flopped top two? My play this hand is looking more like the love child of greed and too cute. There was definately a quote I recollected from this board which I think Fnord mentioned in a post that two pair is not a liscense to print money, so everytime I hit two pair that little bell rings. Time to get the wax out of my ears.

Turn: That could be trouble, KJ/KQ/AT just drew out on you and now he's waking up, I'd just call and re-evaluate the river.

Funny thing is I thought he hit a Kx and was over playing it. For most of the session villian was playing very loose passive and after he called my first reaction was, "does he have nine, 10? No. If I had that I would have bet into the flop. Did he hit the gutshot with A-10? Would he really do this? I probably would have folded." I wasn't too worried about KJ or KQ since I had two of them and two were on the board but I really thought he had a Kx and I was going to charge him to out draw me. Really bad read on my part.

River: Now any 2 hearts beat you, given stack sizes it's unlikley the villian will fold 1 pair at this point but if it was any deeper I'd definatly check this behind.

By this point I've already dug my own grave so now I decided to lay in it.

I think the biggest problem with this hand is that you only really started to build the pot on the turn and river when you could no longer be as confident about your hand.

Agreed, not exactly the place one wants to build a pot. But I think the problem started earlier and was manifest throughout the hand.

[Renton]

Raise bigger preflop and bet bigger on flop. Just because your preflop raises are getting too much respect is no reason to raise smaller. Just raise MORE OFTEN. At a tight table, open up your range tremendously in the last three positions. I am talking any suited Ace rag, suited King rag, any two connecting cards higher than 78, and any two suited connecting cards higher than 34. You will get them pissed and playing back at you with even worse garbage in no time.