[jacob-kieke]

So you played this game against my dad and I feel like I have a pretty good understanding how my dad likes to play hands.

Pre-fold: personally I think calling in the Small Blind with A2o is your worst option. I don’t want to play out a non suited weak Ace multi ways out of position. So many flops that puts us in such tough spots. I lean towards folding pre, against my dad I think you can mix in some 3 bets because my dad likes to open wider then most of the rec poker community, don’t love A2o as a three bet out of the SB a ton but you do have an Ace blocker so against specific opponents I think we can 3 bet be a small % of the time.

Flop: As played, I think check call is completely fine. My dad is going to continue with all over pairs, flush draws and majority of his Ax. No reason in my opinion to bloat the pot anymore with a check raise here, we have equity.

Turn: Personally don’t like the lead. You mention you wanted to turn your hand into a bluff. My question to you is why? You have decent equity here, you have bottom pair, a gut shot wheel draw. The reason I say this is not to criticize just asking why you want to turn this hand into a bluff. You eliminated my dads chance to continue to bluff off his chips. If my dad had AK-A10 he is folding, flush draws he is folding, we are folding out all the hands we beat and getting called by everything we are beat by. I like a check here.

River: As you played it, a 10 isn’t a super scary card for my dads range. Our stack to pot ratio isn’t the best at the moment. With all the draws missing (flush draws and straight draws like 87). I like a check on the River and then it’s a tough spot if my dad bets.

Conclusion: if I was in my dads shoes playing against this action. And I had 77s plus I would really struggle folding here to a 2/3rds River bet. I’m beat my 3 combos of 65 suited, 3 combos of 55s and 66s, so I’m beat by 9 combos. There are 4 combos of 87 suited in beating, 3 combos A5 and A4 suited, so many random flush draws I’m beating, if I had JJs here, you would play 77s-99s this way that I’m beating. There is just way to much I’m beating to not call as played if I’m my dad. As the hero here, I think we turned our hand into a bluff when we had pretty good equity, the question I would ask you is “when you lead on the turn what hands did you want my dad to fold that you weren’t beating?”

Overall fun hand to talk about.

[fivebyfive]

I’m on team fold pre here. And if I’m going to play it, I’m using my A as a bluff and squeezing. We don’t have to exclusively play GTO, but for reference, this is far off from call/squeeze spots here in the SB. We’re folding everything up to A8o. Raising A9o, mixing with AJo-ATo, and jamming AQo/AKo. So we’re out on a limb here a bit. It’s important to remember how badly raggedy Axo plays out of position, especially multiway. I’d be folding this to just a single raise from MP, but I’m definitely doing so after the BTN call.

So I’d explore that line a bit. But okay, we do call. Once we get post, I like the check call on the flop. We’re beating all the unpaired high cards now and if our opponent has Ax and an A comes, we can get paid. The turn doesn’t change much, we’re still ahead or behind except against 44 and 33, which got there. I like to take the lead out of position on turn cards that dramatically change the board. I’m not sure this qualifies. I like a check here, navigating toward showdown with a marginal hand which still beats a lot of the unpaired holdings of our opponent. Our opponent will check back a lot and a double barrel on this board that started with four opponents is quite strong. If we’re ahead and facing that barrel, it should only really be against strong heart holdings and some OESDs.

When we do lead and get called on this turn, we’re very rarely ahead. So I can see the instinct to bluff, BUT, we’re bluffing into a pretty strong range now. This feels very squarely AA-77 to me with some strong heart combos too. Let’s say our opponent is weaker that TT on this river. Let’s say they have an overpair. Are they folding? I kind of doubt it because I don’t think all of our sets would play this way and we don’t have much else for strong value. So now we’re really just targeting 77-99, and those may well fold, but I don’t think that is enough combos to justify this big play. So I’m mostly giving up here, AND if I do want to put chips in the middle, I’m more likely to consider a hero call against missed draws than trying to get JJ etc. to fold.

This is going to sound really critical since I’m saying I’d do something different on each street, but your explanations are well thought out. The problem really is that these kind of loose preflop mistakes can compound. And if we’re going to make those kinds of calls, we need to be able navigate really tricky postflop spots like this. You solve most of this by just folding pre. And then if we do get here, I’d check/call the flop and check the turn and then see where we land. It can be the difference between losing some of your stack and all of it.

[7high11]

Thanks Jacob and Chris for the well thought out replies. A lot for me to think about and process here. And to be clear, I’m very open to criticism, it’s why I post and how I learn! Once I started “bluffing” I was hoping to get an over pair to fold, up to and including AA. You guys make it clear that that was unrealistic. I’ll dig into the responses a little deeper! And the pre flop advice is well taken; I’m learning playing those A rags is a definite leak of mine.

[7high11]

Went back into my charts and I had clearly mixed up my SB opening range will my SB calling range. I was only about 72 pips off! So the point is well taken that I never would have put myself in the later spot had I just folded pre.

To answer some of your questions…this was my thinking at the time. Not saying it was right or is defensible, just my motivations as they went. I wanted to “turn the hand into a bluff” because I felt I was behind an over pair, and the the board texture was good for my range. Don’t know why I wasn’t thinking about over cards in his range, which there are obviously more combos of than over pairs. I did consider that the turn card changed the board a lot in my favor…probably too optimistic. However, I do remember thinking at the time that it would have been much better for me if it had completed a flush draw. I just ignored that fact to my detriment!

More lessons learned!