Hand Where I Fail to Put Pieces of Puzzle Together 🤷🏼♀️
Resorts World Casino, NL 200, Manila
The action begins with a South Korean limping UTG, me raising from CO with QQ, a nitty American daddy calling from the bb, and the Korean calling too.
Little bit about the players: the Korean sits on a big stack, plays a lot of hands, constantly stabs at the non-contested pots, raises the limpers, abuses position.
The fox sits on 100 bb, plays slightly less hands, takes stabs, abuses position. Just won a nice pot with a set of deuces. The opponent folded an overpair on the turn, giving me all the credit. I probably shouldn’t have been repeating that I need to flop a set before I go.
The daddy is tight, straightforward-aggressive when he hits and is hardly ever bluffing.
The flop comes 3 8 J rainbow and all over sudden the daddy leads and bets around 80% of the pot. The Korean quickly folds and I start to smell a big trouble.
Given that the table is decent, with almost nobody doing the signature Manila weird lead into the preflop raiser with the top pair, the daddy is very likely to have a huge hand here, two pair or better. A player like him would almost never get creative with a straight draw or AJ in this spot. I might as well have folded on the flop but I am never supposed to fold this to one bet - am I?
The daddy is not too hard to read, he seems slightly uncomfortable with the call. Last time he looked like that, there was a straight possible on the flop, he raised a C-bet with a set and got called (by me with a flush draw).
The turn is another jack and the daddy looks even more concerned. He bets very small. It makes me sure he does not have a jack and neither does he have a boat. What on earth did he call preflop with and the lead with on the flop? Very confusing line.
That seems like an easy call. My queens have to be good here.
The river is the third jack, giving me jacks full of queens and the daddy checks to me.
I misplayed this hand because I had correct reads on my opponent but acted too fast instead of taking my time to pause, reflect, put all the pieces together and put him on the only two hands he might have here.
Let’s have a look.
1. He flatted pre after the Agrokorean limped and the Agrofox raised in position.
2. He believed he had the best hand on the flop.
3. He was not sure anymore when the jack paired so he neither had a jack nor flopped a set.
If not a jack or a set, what hand could he have on a flop, that he thought had me crushed?
Logically, an overpair. He slowplayed AA and KK to trap two aggressive players.
What did I do on the river? Went for thin value just to get snapped by KK.
What should I have done?
Either checked behind if I thought he was unlikely to lay down a full house OR shoved and put him to a test.
The right move was definitely to shove because he was a nit and would totally believe I have the jack. What else did I call the flop and turn with and then go all-in.
I made my standard post-hand research by asking him if he would call a shove and the immediate answer was “I would never be calling”.
CONCLUSION
One of my major poker leaks is acting too fast and not taking the time to analyze the opponent’s line, put him on a hand and try to predict his reactions to my possible actions to choose the best move.
I was very unhappy with myself after he showed the kings.
- Why are you so upset, you didn’t make a big mistake here, - said the daddy.
Yes, right, the only worse play would be to get it in on the flop versus this particular opponent. Even folding the flop would be better than what I did, given my reads and my faith in my reads.
I mean it, when a nitty Manila leads into the preflop raiser and you are the raiser, you one-pair hand is never good so a fold on the flop is totally ok.
Just don’t tell anybody what you folded (because you’ll get crucified by the adepts of the GTO) because the nits should not k ow they are easy to read and exploit.