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  • Shoving into 2 callers with Top Two?

    Posted by 7high11 on November 16, 2021 at 8:10 pm

    1-2 NL Holdem on a Friday night at Foxwoods casino in CT. $300 max buy-in. I’m the effective stack with $231. I’ve been at the table for 2 hours. I’m on the button. It folds to the lo-jack who limps. He’s been at the table for about 3 orbits and done nothing to stand out as being overly aggressive or passive. his appearance is pretty average at the table. Probably mid 40’s weekend warrior type. Folds to the cut off who raise to 8. He has shown himself to be selectively aggressive, either folding, opening, or raising, but never limping and rarely calling. He is mid 30’s t-shirt, untrimmed beard. My impression is that he is a studied player. He 3 bets aggressively when he decides to be in a hand. He has twice forced people all in and revealed pockets aces. (I’ve played one hand against him. He completed from the SB. I raised from the BB with AK off. Folded back to him he called. Flop was something like 9-6-4 with 2 suited. He checked I raised, he called. Flop was something like a 3. We ended up checking down and he turned over 5-6 to win.)

    I have KcQs. I elect to call. Lo-jack calls. $27 pot. Flop is KsQc7s. Lo-jack bets $15. Cut off calls. I raise to $40. Both call. I put the lo-jack on AK, AQ, two spades, or possibly a Broadway draw. I rule out AA, KK, and QQ based on his initial limp. I can’t rule out KQ or 77. Cut off would most likely have reraised preflop with any premium hand so I rule out AA, KK, QQ, and likely even JJ and maybe even 10-10. I put him on the same hands as the lo-jack, but feel less certain about the read.

    Pot is $147. Turn is the 4d. Lo-jack bets $15, leading me to believe he has a strong king. Cut-off calls, leading me to believe he has a flush or straight draw. He hadn’t shown down either earlier for me to get a read on whether he would raise with them. I decided to overshove for $187. lo-jack tanks for a full 2-3 minutes, playing with his chips trying to get a read on me. I just watch tv. He finally calls and has exactly $183 in his stack, so he is also all in. Cut-off thinks for only 15 seconds and calls. Flop is the As. I turn over top 2, lo-jack mucks, and cut-off turns over pocket 7s. Clearly he laid a trap.

    So I know I likely made some mistakes. From first guess is that i should have raised for more after the flop (though I know the ending would likely be the same). The second is that I think I should not have shoved into 2 players that have called my raise preflop, and then one led out and the other called. They both showed that they liked their hands and had some strength.

    I think in the end I would have ended up calling down with top two regardless, so my idea was to try and show enough strength to knock out their draws. However, I might not have lost nearly as much as I did.

    Any feedback would be appreciated

    fivebyfive replied 2 years, 4 months ago 4 Members · 5 Replies
  • 5 Replies
  • taylormaas

    Member
    November 18, 2021 at 10:14 am

    This is just a cooler for you here. I don’t think we should consider doing anything differently here. I know it sucks to lose, but in this spot you are losing to such a small subset of hands and still beating a fair portion of their range. It’s probably close to the same odds as getting it all-in preflop with AA vs an under pair. Cause in that situation you’re going to win 80% of the time. Just can’t be upset when the small portion of their range comes through.

  • 7high11

    Member
    November 18, 2021 at 4:27 pm

    Thanks. I’ve been on the fence wondering if because TWO players were showing they liked their hands whether I should have backed off or not. That is what was allotted for play that night so I had to leave the tables early, but I won it all back in a grueling 13 hour session the next day! (I don’t get to go to the casino often!)

  • binkley

    Member
    November 21, 2021 at 1:00 pm

    Top 2 pair vs bottom set is a situation where I expect all the money to go into the pot. Disappointing when you have the 2 pair, don’t improve, and get stacked. But consider the situations where your opponent is chasing a draw, has a worse 2 pair, or only TPTK. You’re happy when this happens and there are more combinations of these.

    Preflop:

    I thought CO iso-raised the LJ limper and you called on the Button.

    But your later statement seems to contradict this::

    “Cut off would most likely have reraised preflop with any premium hand so I rule out AA, KK, QQ, and likely even JJ and maybe even 10-10. I put him on the same hands as the lo-jack, but feel less certain about the read.”

    With KQo, I prefer to 3bet an open from the CO. Flatting encourages called from the blind and the limper. Offsuit hands don’t play well multi-way.

    Flop:

    After the LJ donk and CO call, pot is $57. The pot goes to $72 with your call and a $25 raise is too small. Your opponents are not making a mistake by calling with their draws. A bigger raise gets more value and puts your opponents to a real decision.

    Turn:

    The shove is fine. We are looking to get value from the draws and worse hands. Sometimes we run into V top of range.

  • 7high11

    Member
    November 22, 2021 at 8:22 am

    Thanks for the reply. You are right, the CO did raise preflop. I guess what was in my mind was that the $8 he opened for was the smallest open he had made all night. Generally it was in the $12 range. The $8 was also below the table average. And yes, I think my biggest mistake was the size of my flop raise. But I’m glad to hear that both you and Taylor feel this was all going in the middle and I didn’t make a silly shove.

    • fivebyfive

      Administrator
      November 22, 2021 at 1:38 pm

      I agree with all these takes, especially in a cash game. There might be some tourney spots where we play the turn a little differently, but if we’re just worried about EV, I go broke here too. My only adjustment might be preflop. Since we’re still in fairly early position, I much prefer raising than overlimping with a hand like KQo. It is just not a hand that performs that well in multiway pots and that’s what limped pots draw. I like raising over the limp. In a cash game, I want to make this big enough too to discourage this going multiway. I’m raising to something like $12-$14. Does this shake 77? Probably not, we probably still go broke, but 77 has to at least consider a fold at that price. Regardless, once we get post, this one is hard to avoid.

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