Did I have the right odds to call? (poker)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hey, it’s been a while since we’ve had one of these!

Obviously, I thought I was getting the right odds (both pot odds and implied odds) or I wouldn’t have made the call. Any 9 makes the nut straight; any club makes the flush (and of course the 9C makes the straight flush). I didn’t put either of my opponents on a straight after the flop. I thought either set-over-set or set vs overpair. I knew wes41’s money was all going in on the river no matter what the river was. Having put at least one of my opponents on a set, does the possibility of a full house reduce my odds past the point where the call is correct?

Texas Hold’em $0.50-$0.50 NL(real money)

Seat1:Otto93($73.15inchips) [QC, JC]
Seat3:wes41($55.55inchips)
Seat4:chico39($23.40inchips)
Seat6:Waylander1($44.45inchips)
Seat8:MandingoMort($34.30inchips)
ANTES/BLINDS
Waylander1 posts blind ($0.25), MandingoMort posts blind ($0.50).

PRE-FLOP
Otto93 calls $0.50, wes41 bets $2, chico39 calls $2, Waylander1 calls $1.75, MandingoMort folds, Otto93 calls $1.50.

($8.50 in the pot before the flop)

FLOP [board cards 8C,10C,7S ]
Waylander1 checks, Otto93 checks, wes41 bets $7, chico39 calls $7, Waylander1 folds, Otto93 calls $7.

(I have to call $7 to win approximately $30)

TURN [board cards 8C,10C,7S,10D ]
Otto93 checks, wes41 bets $15, chico39 calls $14.40 and is all-in, Otto93 calls $15.

(Here I have to call $15 to win approximately $60, plus I know another $30 or so is going in on the river no matter what)

RIVER [board cards 8C,10C,7S,10D,5S ]
Otto93 checks, wes41 bets $31.55 and is all-in, Otto93 folds.

SHOWDOWN
wes41 shows [ 10H,5H ]
chico39 shows [ 10S,KH ]
wes41 wins $32.75, wes41 wins $70.70.

And lest anyone think this is a bad beat post, I don’t consider this a bad beat at all. Also, I sat down with about $20 at the start of the session and got up about an hour later with about $70, so I’m fine with the overall results.

2

As a rule, I never try to fill a straight, but you had great odds at a flush, and I would have been going on the assumption someone was playing a lower pair. If so, that second 10 might have given me pause, but I wouldn’t have expected a full house on that table. That’s some pretty loose play.

[hijack]
I was in Vegas a few weeks ago and played live for the first time in a 70 person tournament. Made it to the final table but didn’t win any money. Pit boss told me he’d never heard of anyone playing live for the first time, in a tournament, in Vegas, make it that far. So yay for me!:smiley:
[/hijack]

3

You made a final table and no money? What the hell kind of cheap tourney was that?

Anyways, I ran the percentages and it turns out my mistake was not raising on the flop. With all the draws I was 63% to win. I should have slammed another $30 into the pot on the flop and taken it down right there. Chico probably doesn’t call. Wes might, because he was a loose moron who way over-valued T5s pre-flop and may have continued to overvalue a naked pair with a crappy kicker in the face of a huge check-raise.

4

No. You didn’t have the odds to call.
You had the odds to check-raise.

The flop is the absolute perfect place for a check-raise semi-bluff and not just because I get to use two dashed words in one sentence!

An idea I’ve learned that makes great tactical sense is that straight flush draws are best played by getting the money into the pot FIRST. If that means pushing in, that’s what you do. If that means waiting for a check-raise push, that’s what you do. It’s certainly player dependent but the logic runs the same: very strong but non-made hands must be the one betting, not the one calling.

AK is a great example of this. It’s a very strong hand but it doesn’t beat a pair of twos. It wins by being the best hand when the smoke clears or getting the opponent to fold before showdown. When you call with drawing hands you’ll always lose when you don’t hit and you’ll only win what the opponents have decided to charge you when you make. That’s a losing combination.

In this situation, my advice here would have lost you even more money than you did if one or both opponents called your check raise. Oh well. As you can see, you had the advantage over both hands and more times than not you’ll come out a winner.

5

If you see both the turn and the river, that is. Unfortunately, you’re out of position for a free card, but a strong check-raise might have gotten you one anyway. (I doubt it, given that two players behind you made trips on the turn, but you couldn’t know that on the flop.)

An all-in checkraise wouldn’t be a bad idea, but it probably would have won the pot right there, and when you’re swimming in good outs with a bunch of what appear to be loose players, the desire to build a pot is understandable.

No, this wasn’t a bad beat, but if that five had been a club, it would have been. :slight_smile:

(Also, if your site allows player notes, you should make one on wes41, since in his world it’s apparently a good idea to raise 4xBB with T5s. Seek this guy ouy, and you’ll soon have your money back.)

6

Oh, it was just a small tourney; a $40 buy-in, and you could re-buy, but I didn’t have to. I think they run it daily. Positions 1 to 6 get cash. I went all in on the second hand, after everyone ahead of me limped in (KQs, I was second shortest stack, and just behind the dealer), and got called by the small blind guy. Turns out he had bullets :eek: , and I only got two of the diamonds I needed. :smack:

7

But on the other hand, had I taken it down there I’d have made $20 instead of losing $25. Isn’t hindsight wonderful?

I was kinda hoping to take it back from him right then. Unfortunately he left a couple hands later. I had to content myself with making chico miserable all over again by taking his next buy-in when my Kings and Queens on the flop beat the Kings and Jacks he made on the turn.

8

Do you have some kind of poker odds calculator? I have Texas Calculate’em, but it doesn’t allow you to plug in opponent’s hands.

9

This calculator lets you check the odds against up to four opponents.

10

I found a nifty standalone calculator called PokerStove.