Do I need to be spanked for this play?

[erdiesel]

Wondering if I played this hand correctly from last night's chiptalk tourney (the comeback of last night's champ):

PokerStars Game #14970177925: Tournament #68518700, $10+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2008/01/31 - 22:20:15 (ET)
Table '68518700 5' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: ERdiesel (1410 in chips)
Seat 2: geewhiz41 (1010 in chips)
Seat 3: Darvcus (2215 in chips)
Seat 4: Whataboutj (785 in chips)
Seat 6: links_slayer (4165 in chips)
Seat 7: BrettButter (550 in chips)
Seat 8: ChipTalk.net (2915 in chips)
Seat 9: spunkmonk (1955 in chips)
Whataboutj: posts small blind 50
links_slayer: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ERdiesel [6s As]
BrettButter: folds
ChipTalk.net: folds
spunkmonk: folds
geewhiz41 said, "nothing like a sweat"
ERdiesel: calls 100
geewhiz41: folds
Darvcus: calls 100
Whataboutj: calls 50
ERdiesel said, "i prefer the weight room"
links_slayer: checks
*** FLOP *** [Js 2d Ks]
ERdiesel said, "kinda sweating"
Whataboutj: checks
links_slayer: checks
geewhiz41 said, "i won't get into it"
ERdiesel: bets 300
Darvcus: calls 300
Whataboutj: raises 385 to 685 and is all-in
links_slayer: folds
ERdiesel: raises 385 to 1070
Darvcus: folds
geewhiz41 said, "oh my"
ERdiesel said, "come on spade!!!"
*** TURN *** [Js 2d Ks] [4d]
*** RIVER *** [Js 2d Ks 4d] [4h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Whataboutj: shows [2s Kc] (two pair, Kings and Fours)
ERdiesel: shows [6s As] (a pair of Fours)
Whataboutj said, "whew"
Whataboutj collected 2070 from pot
ERdiesel said, "dohhhhhhhhhh"
ERdiesel said, "nh"


Pf, i wanted to see the flop so i called the BB.

Pf pot is 400

On the flop, with A6 of spades and 2 spades in the flop out there, and with my stack relatively low, I thought I would semi-bluff and throw out a 3/4 pot bet and worse case scenario, play out my flush draw with 2 cards to come. So I put out a 300 bet, and I get one caller. Pot now 1000. Action to whatabout who re-raises 385 to make it 685 to go. Pot now 1685. I need 385 more to call but with one other player behind me (darvcus). Now here is my thought process and where i'm looking for a bit of criticism or feedback..........

Pot is 1685 with 385 to call, giving me about 4:1 pot odds (not exact since i was calculating on the fly but approximate). With an Ace high flush draw and one card to come, i'm a 4:1 underdog and with two cards to come (play it to the river.....i.e. all in) i'm about a 2:1 underdog. I knew if I called whatabout's raise, I would be pot committed and see the hand to the river so I compared the 4:1 pot odds to my 2:1 hand odds and came to the conclusion that the call would be "correct". Subsequently, with one other player behind me, I wanted to chase him out of the hand so I threw in my over the top raise to scare Darvus out though in hindsight with me chasing an Ace high flush (which most likely would have been the nuts - well yes there could have been a boat with the 4 pairing on the river, but i didn't know this at the time of my decision), it would have made sense to keep darvus in the hand to milk him out of more money on the turn or river if i hit my flush.

Question...........do you think my play on the flop was bad? Another general pot odds question is if I bet, and I get re-raised do i discount my initial bet when doing any calculations? Does that question make sense?

[PhilTheThrill14]

Ahhh.....the dangers of playing A-little suited. Did you give any thought to folding pre-flop? Do you play the Ax suited alot or was this a shot you were taking? Was the table pretty much letting "calling" occur?

As for what actually happened...I don't know. You put yourself in a very difficult spot - a spot I try to stay away from......

[BrettButter]

I guess if you really want to see that flop, then you have to limp.

If I wanted to play that hand at all, I probably put in a raise there.

4-handed though, I probably try to take a free look at the flush, especially with the Ace.

Since you did bet, and get raised, I think the last thing I would do is want to isolate with just the draw. Keep as many people in the pot as you can, if you're already committed to playing this hand. You want more chips in the pot to draw to your flush.

Now, wait for the good players to weigh in then ignore everything I say

[jojobinks]

shoving could lose you some value for your flush, but could make it more likely you win the hand. your 3 ace outs could be good against j, but bad if darvcus has AJ or something. or whataboutj could have QT and your hand could be good as is. so getting darvcus out of the pot is probably a good thing.

as philly said, your problem here is preflop. when you have 14bb, you can't just say "i want to see the flop so i limp". you don't have enough chips to limp, and A6s isn't good enough of the time for you to put your stack at risk.

also, if you shoot it up preflop you take down 150 (increasing your stack by a significant amount) and move along to the next hand.

[Sea Vulture]

It looks like you were in late position. If that was the case, a little larger preflop raise should have been in order, maybe to 200 or 250. It would have helped avoid the problem you ended up in.

After the flop, I don't think I would have went all in. At that point, the hand was overplayed.

[erdiesel]

Originally Posted by jojobinks

shoving could lose you some value for your flush, but could make it more likely you win the hand. your 3 ace outs could be good against j, but bad if darvcus has AJ or something. or whataboutj could have QT and your hand could be good as is. so getting darvcus out of the pot is probably a good thing.

as philly said, your problem here is preflop. when you have 14bb, you can't just say "i want to see the flop so i limp". you don't have enough chips to limp, and A6s isn't good enough of the time for you to put your stack at risk.

also, if you shoot it up preflop you take down 150 (increasing your stack by a significant amount) and move along to the next hand.

my thinking was A6 suited was not a good enough hand to raise pf........and I wanted a peek at the flop and if it came up blank blank blank for me, i was going to toss my hand but i see your point about not having enough chips to casually limp in to see flops. Normally I wouldn't limp in like that without an Ax suited but I took a chance at that moment.

the action last night at my table at least was pretty wild I would have to say with wild swings in people's chip stacks.

I guess it comes down to was it "right" to chase the flush like that? Forget my final shoving of chips but prior to, was it "correct" to call whatabout's re-raise? mathematically. As for if I call, whatabout...........then essentially I would be pot committed no?

I guess the general consensus is not to have played A6 suited, and if played, should have raised pf.........and on the turn, get out of the hand despite having approximately 36% chance of hitting the flush with 2 cards to come and 4:1 pot odds. i've done it in the past and when it hits, it pays off nicely obviously. I just want to be consistent so in the long term i'm playing the odds to my favor despite what happens in the short term.

if only I hit the flush...............then my post would read, "Am i a genius or what.......?"

[jojobinks]

Originally Posted by erdiesel

my thinking was A6 suited was not a good enough hand to raise pf........and I wanted a peek at the flop and if it came up blank blank blank for me, i was going to toss my hand

and what if it came A92? gonna go broke there? just check call, or what? when you don't have a lot of chips you need to simplify things. otherwise you're gonna get outplayed too often.

once you're there, yes, you should play for your draw. you're far enough from the money that i don't think it's a good idea to pass on a chance like this.

[Irish Se7en]

Though I don't like this hand, I would have been content taking the blinds. If I was going to play it, then I'm raising it pf. Just hoping to steal the blinds.

That being said, if the two short stacks wake up with a hand after your raise, do you want to call an AI? Now they have put the pressure on you and your hand could easily be dominated.

That's why I would have folded this hand. Ace little regardless how purty it looks (being suited) is an easy fold in this situation.

Since you played it and with the action that followed the flop, I would have been forced to chase the flush too.

[links_slayer]

jojo once told me: "don't call off your stack with Axs!!!!!!!!!!111!!!11!!"

[erdiesel]

Conclusion..............

I need to be spanked