[UsIreland]

Ok Here's the situation:

Blinds are at 150-300. I've got about 4500 or so of the 5000 buy in. I'm in late Position and get pocket queens. There is one caller before me and I raise to 900 standard 3x the big blind raise. The big blind and limper call. The flop comes 9TQ. The big blind bets out 1000 into a pot of 2850. Limper folds and I think for a while before moving all in (about 2500 or so more than his bet). He insta calls and turns over KJ for a straight. I dont catch quads of a full house and his straight holds up.

Is this just a case of bad luck or did I play this hand wrong?
Was I destined to go broke in this hand?

Cheers
Ian

[jojobinks]

i raise a little more preflop.

no one fails to go broke on the flop.

[DubleDex]

Maybe a little bigger raise pre-flop - but it sounds like this guy is in it no matter what you would've raised.

With his call and no re-raise, you can safely eliminate a bigger pocket pair (KK or AA) and put him maybe on mid pair or some other combination of face cards. I would imagine he would've also re-raised with AK or AQ.

So I'm not sure if there's any way you ever would've gotten a read on this guy's hand without re-raising his post-flop bet. His bet could've meant anything from QT to TT to 99 to the KJ he had. And you've got two out of three of those hands dominated. And you do have outs against the KJ.

And, at that point, no raise would've made sense other than an all-in for you based on the size of the pot.

I think it would've been really hard for you to get away from this hand. That also may have depended on having more information about the villian - whether he'd bullied a lot of pots or whether he'd been being tight the whole game.

But that really seems like one of those hands where someone is destined to lose a lot of their chips - unless you have a really, really good read on the other player. It's ALWAYS tough to lay down top set (I say this because I don't think I've EVER laid down top set!)

[Salvatore1]

I think you did the right thing and just ran into the one hand that could beat you. Your opponent probably would have made the same bet on the flop with two pair, a smaller set or maybe even KQ. If you fold in this spot its just playing scared. There are too many hands you can beat with top set to fold, and if you call you are committing yourself to the pot anyway so you mite as well go all in which you did. Sorry about your bad luck, it happens but next time he will hit two pair and you will felt him. Good luck in your next game. Sal

[UsIreland]

I'll fill in the rest of the story. I had him covered (just about maybe 500 or so back). Its a 7 player supersatallite to the Irish Poker Open. The Big blind had lead out at practically every hand he was in (but never as much as this generally he bet the minimum to 1.5times the minimum) so that had me weary straight away. I wanted to take down the pot right there (the is the straight draw and there was also a flush draw there) and my re-raise was an attempt to take it down and end it right there.

My reason for 3x BB raise is thats what I had raised all night, whether it was a complete blind steal or KK.

Well with 500 left and the blinds at 150-300 I had no choice but to gamble and gamble I did, I got K2 of diamonds all in against 99 and made a full house. This brought me up to about 1500 (one caller + blinds). From there I bluffed and stole my way back up to about 8000. Then came the set of hands that sent me in a tail spin.

Blinds up to 400-800. I get AK, I raise to 2400 and take it down. Next hand I get muck and fold. Hand after that I get AK again raise to 2400 and take it down. Hand 4 I get AJ i was going to raise but for some reason I felt that I shouldn't and just limped, the guy beside me raises and the guy next to him goes all in, I muck my AJ and the two guys show down AQvs AQ, (one made a flush and the case ace came on the flop, glad I folded). Very next hand I get AQ and raise to 2400, the guy who just won the AQvsAQ when he rivered a flush moves all in and says "If you call its over". I really dont know what to do. The guy with AQ is a very tight player and he now has a stack much bigger than mine so its for my tournament life. I tell the guys I'm going to need a minute. I finally decide to throw it away, He turns over pocket tens (tens would have held up). The next hand (i sware to you this was the most bizare sequence of hands I've ever seen) a guy in front of me raise to 3000 (blinds have just gone up to 500-1000. I look down at pocket 6's and have 6100 left. Another agonising decision (at this stage its either all in or fold because the 3000 would pot commit me). I decide that he probably has an over pair to my 6's and I lay it down. He turns over AA.

I eventually went out with the blinds at 800-1600 when i was in the big blind and went all in with AK called by 55 and failed to improve (i did hit the cross bar twice though). I went out in third having outlasted 4 of the 7best players at our weekly tournaments. I think I played some of my best poker there last night and hopefully I can only improve from there (shame I dont get a chance to play in the irish open though (unless someone has a spare 3500euro they want to stake me with?? Anyone?? No,No didn't think so)).

Thanks for reasuring me that i made the right plays.
Cheers
Ian

[dad604]

I would have gone broke on the above too.

[tikipirate]

The only thing I might have done was a pre-flop raise of 1000-1200, but if he's calling 900, most likely he's calling 1200 too. Other than that, nothing you could have done. I don't like his call of your 900 pre-flop with KJ, I think you played it right.

[Double Eagle]

I also would have made the pre-flop raise a little bigger. I like to raise 3x the big blind plus one big blind for each limper in ahead of my raise. So in this case, I would raise 4x ($1,2000.

Hard to tell if this would have made a difference, but a standard 3x raise with limpers doesn't seem to get them out.

[Irish Se7en]

I don't find any fault with your preflop raise though I can understand why others would have raised more. I would have and I believe others would have loss their stack too. It's just one of those hands. Mr.K/J made the loose call but happened to hit the flop hard. Was his K/J suited?