If you are right this is where I am going wrong. I can see that having flopped the nuts the obvious thing to do is bet them and take the 9BB if there is no caller. But I’m with Leaper, I’d be trying to get callers. You don’t win any more without them and while there are possibles draws that beat me, even the best - QJ only has 7 outs (assuming someone calls with QJ). So I figure the odds are in my favour big time so I want likely losers to take me on. If I lose - them’s the breaks. Tell me where I’m wrong and I may make a few dollars.
I agree with DoctorJ on the flopped straight scenario; another lesson learned from bitter experience of flopping the nut straight and getting outdrawn on the turn because I slow-played in early position. You can’t let them have any free card. Your hand is not going to get any better regardless of what hits the turn or the river. Bet this flop; if you take it down then, you’ve won a decent pot. If he calls or raises then you’ve got your money in with the nuts. Playing cute when there are draws out that beat you is a losing strategy.
First of all, thanks for all the comments. Jolly interesting!
Secondly I clearly need to give more information on the second situation (thanks, Trunk for explaining why!):
Assume you are playing against 8 players in a tournament. They seem to be about your standard and vary in style from tight to loose. You are in the big blind on an early hand, and there have been no big pots so far. So stacks are roughly equal, and you don’t have much information about the current strategies/style of any player.
One player goes all-in before the flop. Everyone else folds.
What hand (or better) would you call on?
Seriously if it is a single table tournament. Mostly TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA but sometimes it doesn’t feel right and I will muck anything and just let it go. I know that mathematically you shouldn’t toss some off these hands but in tourneys you just want to stay in and AA loses lots of times. It’s just one hand until you lose it then it’s goodbye.
It still depends: (1) Just how deep are the stacks? (2) How quickly do the blinds go up? (3) What were the circumstances of the all-in? Were there calls and/or raises in front of it? Where are you?
Assume it’s the following situation: everyone has roughly 100 BBs, you’re on the button. The first player to act goes all-in (I should note that this can’t possibly be a good play on his part), and it folds to you. I would definitely call with AA and KK, and usually with QQ (unless the blinds increased very slowly). I would call with JJ if I knew the player to be wild. Everything else I would fold.
On the other hand, if it goes raise, reraise, reraise all-in, you’ll need AA to call at this stage in the tourney.
You should absolutely never fold AA preflop (the lone exception being an extraordinarily unlikely situation “on the bubble,” or just before you reach the money in a tournament – so unlikely that it need not even be mentioned, except to cover my ass).
The buyin was $1,000. The blinds are $10 / 20 and go up every 20 hands. The first player called all-in, and everyone folded. You are the big blind. You don’t know much about the first player’s style.
(I realise you’ve already given a answer to a similar situation, but a man deserves answers to his questions!)
I guess the answer is the same. AA, KK, and probably QQ are calls. Calling with AK or JJ isn’t terrible, but you’re probably better off folding those. It’s hard to say since that’s such a ridiculous play. If he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he could have a medium pocket pair or something like AQ, hoping someone calls and gives him a coin-flip or better. If he has some clue, he could be fishing with AA or KK, or he could be doing that with any two cards just to lay down the image of a wild player.