Poker Question of the Day

Snowman

Game: No-Limit Hold’em, Cash Game
Position: Button
Type of game: Aggressive
Blinds: $10-$20

Your hand: 7 of Diamonds & 7 of Hearts

The third seat raised to $60 pre-flop. He has been playing a tight-aggressive game and hasn’t been in action for the last half-hour. The rest of the table acknowledges this by folding their hands. You call. To your surprise the flop comes 7 of clubs - 8 of spades - A of diamonds. He bets $100.

What do you do?

Call?

Raise 300?

Raise 600?

Danny Diamond

Founder/Admin

Hmmm, he may have the pair of Aces, but as always I will take my chances.


Raise 600

Create A Poster for No Mercy

K Jay

Call.

I had a sig, once.

Snowman

Explain your answers a little lol.

Whatever you do here, its not bad actually.

Cage 2.0

I'd re-raise. If he's been playing that tight you might shake him a bit if he only has 8s (even though his hand would be better than your's still) or even a pair of something that didn't come up in the flop.

Dr. Giganto

I would raise big...at that point, you would be leading unless he had 88 or AA.

If he has AA, he would probably re-raise. Otherwise, he might have just been betting a pair of Aces, a lower pocket pair, or he may have just been betting big since he was the original raiser and didnt want to show weakness.

Also, if he had pocket aces, he might have thought about check-raising. I'd say, taking all those things into consideration, you have like a 99% chance of having the best hand at that point, and you don't want to give him a chance to improve and maybe make a miracle full house/flush/straight.

So, raise big, and if he re-raises, think about folding, because he probably has AA

Snowman

Ok, there is no way you should EVER thinking of folding this hand. You have a set with no straight and no flush on board. No1 in the world should ever fold and I doubt anyone has ever done it.

You dont wanna raise too big, 'cause you dont wanna scare him off. But you do want him to pay, so you should raise. By raising $600, you are overbetting the pot and could scare him off. With a $300 raise you are hardly betting the pot and so with any A he will prolly call you and pay you off.

But like I said, no matter what you do its not the end of the world. If you just call he might think you are weak and he might come out and bet the turn too.

If you raise $600, he could think you are bluffing cause of the overbet and might try a move back

But the move its to raise $300.

If he has 88 or AA say goodbye to the tournament lol.

Cage 2.0

But thats exactly why I would try to shake him into folding. If he has even 8s he has me, so I want to represent As if at all possible. If he has the As then its over yeah, but if he has me beat then I want him to think that I'm stronger than him.

Dr. Giganto

That was my thinking.

Also, I seem to have ridiculously bad luck, and I get beat by one- and two-outers on the river all the time...Thus, I try to make people fold as early as I can, unless I have the absolute nuts.

I was re-thinking it, and there's maybe a couple of other hands he could have. For instance, let's say his original hand was 10 9 suited. Maybe he wouldn't normally play this hand, but since he hasn't played a hand in a while, maybe it's his first decent hand and he wanted to raise big to try to take down the pot pre-flop. Now, post-flop, he has an open-ended straight draw, which gives him 8 outs to make a straight, not to mention running 9's, running 10's, or running flush cards which can beat you.

Although a raise of $300 may be a good idea, I would want to be absolutely sure that he folds. But that's just my philosophy.

Cage 2.0

And I, in turn, agree with you. I was thinking of those scenarios as well, that maybe he had something decent enough and he was tired of folding. Or maybe he was running a bluff all along, relying on his previous tight play to scare others off and let him at least steal the blinds.

But yeah, with my luck as well...he probably has the bullets. I normally get ass cards too, which is why I almost never play for real anymore. I even catch shit cards on WPT on my XBox.

And oh yeah, I would re-raise only $300. Two reasons:

1) If he does have the bullets I don't want to waste my money

2) I don't want to look like I'm trying to bluff by going crazy with the re-raise, I would rather not give away the potential bluff by appearing too eager.