Biggish early hand at Euro's - thoughts please?

[AMRN]

Appreciate views on a hand I played at Luton on Saturday please - I"m thinking I got myself in a hole needlessley, and thought my way into trouble... but would appreciate feedback.

Table is a ******* of a starting table with a who"s who of 3 APAT champions, 5 players from the Euro Team champs, and a recent $100k online winner. There were three players I didn"t know, and that I was happier playing pots with, although two were on my left and had position on me - this made my button highly valuable.

I was up to 18k early on, and matey on my left was down to around 8k. We"d clashed in a pot recently, and I had been able to move him off a huge hand on the flop. Since then he seemed a little tilty, and called every raise I made simply cos he wanted to play in hands with me (and I was happy with that!).

So the hand in question - blinds are 100/200 and the table folds round to my button and I open for 550 with jd . Matey snap calls in the SB - BB folds.

Flop is   ::   pot is 1300

Matey leads for 500 - I take this to be either a feeler bet, or a stopper bet if he has a small bit of the flop. I certainly don"t think he"s value betting here, given that I had a really LAG image and he must know that I"m going to c-bet - therefore he is likely to check a strong hand almost all of the time here.

I raise to 1800 - the size of the pot.  Matey snap shoves.  I need to call approx 5800 to win approx 11k - pot odds in the region of 2:1 (the numbers and bet sizes are a little hazy, but in this ball park)

I talk to him a bit and get a real sense that he hates the fact that I haven"t folded - he clearly didn"t want a call. I don"t believe he has a made hand and also don"t believe he"s drawing to a flush (previously he had check/called when drawing).... I just couldn"t make sense of the betting, and put him on air/over cards, or something silly like A2 for bottom pair.

If I call and lose I still have around 9k. Win and I have 27k. If the dimes are live, I have the correct odds to call. Throw in the J and 8 as live cards, and I"m 60/40 favourite.

Would you call?  If not, why not?

[Marty719]

Gng by ur reads its a 100% call.  Esp seeing as ur J/8 mite b gd to hit.  Blinds r still early enuf for a 9k stack to still b playable as well, buts lets face it - u run too good to miss this

[Eck]

If I was you I would fold you will obv get done on the river.....

[daveyb147]

Call all day long there i think,,as u said,, still 9k left if u miss,,plenty to do some damage with.
Was briefly at your table and if it was the guy to your immediate left i noticed during my short stay he was pretty free with his chips.
Im the guy who got payed with my set of kings and then ran to another table lol (seat 1).Was enjoying your table at the .time

[deanp27]

you really should know what you are going to do when you make the raise. Personally i call the flop lead as it is so small and you are certainly getting the right price to play the next street with position.

You are semi bluffing and his donk can mean a few things:

A weak lead with a semi decent hand, traditionally known as a feeler bet
an inducer bet with flopped set or similar strong hand, looking for a raise.
a draw wanting to set his own price, but then realising he can semi-rebluff with stacks sizes once you raise

given his preflop range is likely mid pairs, Ax, KT+, some suited connectors, i think his range is pretty strong vs your hand, made hands and bigger draws are more likely than smaller draws, weak top pairs and air.

i wouldn"t raise to fold in this spot personally but i would have just flatted the donk bet.

[lukybugur]

With no info on the player or against an erratic player with a shorter stack, small-ball FTW, especially in position. With a shove after the donk-bet, I"d give him credit for a hand. If you can put him on AXd, trips or AA, KK with a Diamond in his hand what IYO would be the best play now?

Would I raise with a plan of calling off 9k (half my chips) at the 100/200 level with a J high flush draw? No

Now with 2:1 odds on the call, would I call off 5k more against a range of AXd, AA, KK, 77, 66, 22? Prob not.

[LongshanksED]

I"d have flat called on the flop to see what came. You have a huge drawing hand but keep the pot small so you don"t have to be out to these tough decisions. If turn bricks out then his bet size would determine if Im carrying on in the hand. Apat are relatively deep stack events and I"d rather lose 500 chips and a couple of BBs chasing the draw (with position) than just get it all in

if this was an online tourny where the starting stacks are alot smaller and less room to play I"d call the all in but in such a deep stack play I"d give up to his shove. His bet looks like a bet he wants called IMO. He probably has a high pair or maybe a set and your raise is giving him the chance to get it in thinking he"s gonna get more chips

[Claw75]

I flat the flop bet here too and see what happens on the turn. Miss anything that improves our hand and I"m happy to let this go if he fires out again on the turn.

[WYoung83]

When he leads out for this "strange bet" on the flop, i would of just peeled one off for the turn, to either hit somthing or just float him. But to answer your question.....its a fairly easy call for me steve. Mathmatically its close, but i would call.

Would he lead out with flopped set? doubt it as he is more likely to check-raise rather than lead out. Would he hold an over pair? doubt it, seems like he may of repoped pre flop from the SB (especially depending on the fact he called quick) i think he would of taken a bit more time with QQ for example.

His possible hands here are 4-5 or 8-9 or  maybe another flushdraw, and you are only in bad shape to 3 other flush draws.  if he did happen to have 2 pair, or a set. Then you have 8 outs for the non pair flush which means you need 32% winning chance to call, and you had around 33-35% with what the pot is offering. A cash game player like Durrrr or Ziigmund would kill for this price

What happened in the end, did you call?

[AMRN]

What happened in the end, did you call?

I"ll leave it a bit longer before I answer.

Reason I didn"t flat call was that I didn"t want to show weakness - the way I had been playing so far in the tourney, a flat call would have exposed the weakness of my hand and I was sure to have been facing another bet on the turn... and would I then call again? Too fishy for me... I wanted to take the hand down at this point, and needed to put the pressure on the other guy.  On reflection, my raise was too big as it meant I was unable to get away from the shove - I should have raised smaller to give me the folding option.

[deanp27]

calling is not always weakness

[George2Loose]

You should have a plan before you raise. If you are raising in this spot, you should get it in imo.

Personally I would call here too.

[AMRN]

You should have a plan before you raise. If you are raising in this spot, you should get it in imo.

Personally I would call here too.

I made a crying call simply because the odds were right, and I would still have a playable 45xBB stack if I lost. He tabled  qc ts !!!  I had 15 outs and was a 60/40 favourite. The turn was a 5 to give me even more more outs, but the river bricked.

When I raised on the flop, I was kinda sure that he was going to fold to a decent raise - but you are right that I should have had a plan in place..... and then I would have realised that by sizing the raise way I did, I would never be able to fold to a shove. I should have raised much smaller and given myself the option to fold to a shove.

One of those times where I wish I could resist playing the button in an unopened pot!! lol

[Roscopiko]

Why do you want to take the small pot down on the flop?  Take a bigger pot down on later streets imo.

You are heads up and have position with playable stacks, by checking here you not only control the pot size now but for the rest of the hand.  You hand isn"t weak on this flop and there are so many scare cards you can represent if you have an atc image that floating here must be correct imo.  

[noble1]

You should have a plan before you raise. If you are raising in this spot, you should get it in imo.

Personally I would call here too.

I made a crying call simply because the odds were right, and I would still have a playable 45xBB stack if I lost. He tabled  qc ts !!!  I had 15 outs and was a 60/40 favourite. The turn was a 5 to give me even more more outs, but the river bricked.

When I raised on the flop, I was kinda sure that he was going to fold to a decent raise - but you are right that I should have had a plan in place..... and then I would have realised that by sizing the raise way I did, I would never be able to fold to a shove. I should have raised much smaller and given myself the option to fold to a shove.

One of those times where I wish I could resist playing the button in an unopened pot!! lol

meh rr flop ok ish if you fold to a 3bet all in then you are still deep enough to balance out your range [with what looks like semi-bluff raises that u have been seen/can fold which observant players may try to exploit later] with your sets,over pairs,2 pairs etc on 2 suited flops.. 2to1 with an jack FD and a decent stack behind i can find a fold here,but not with a nut flush draw if we had it in this situation and reads..
Floating to steal/take the pot on the turn or river is an option and again you can balance out later if the hand is shown down..