Double barrel?
1/2 NL cash game at the local casino. $5 straddle by a loose aggressive player immediately to my left who has built an enormous stack, over $500 by my estimate (I'm in the cut off). One player calls the $5. I get AdQd so I decide to raise to $27. I know it's a large bet but the aggressive player behind will probably not let go unless it's a big raise and I would rather play this hand heads up. Low and behold, he calls and the other player folds. The pot is $60. The flop is Kd 7d 2c, giving me the nut flush draw. I bet $30 and he calls. The turn is Ks, I check and he checks. The river card is a non event. I check and he checks behind. I've missed my flush and end up with ace high. He turns over 5s7s for a pair of 7 with a 5 kicker and wins the hand. Did I play this right? Should I have double barreled on the turn? If not, would it have made sense to place a large bet on the river to possibly represent a slow played set of kings?
Comments
Your opponent straddled 2.5x, reducing the effective stack size to probably about 40bb. Then he called an overbet with a speculative hand that requires big implied odds.
My first recommendation is to ask for a seat change button and then get on his left ASAP. Then next time you see him enter that cardroom, get a table change and move to his table.
SPR was the big factor in this hand.
Assuming your stack was $200, before the flop cards appeared your SPR was already less than 3. A semibluff was pretty difficult under those circumstances. A small bet like half pot to minimize SPR makes your fold equity unacceptably low. A semibluff bet sized for decent fold equity given this flop would give you an SPR that commits you to the pot.
When your bet of 30 was called, the SPR was now barely over 1. That's shove/fold territory. A case could be made that the flop was already a shove/fold scenario.
I did move to the left of him as soon as I could. My pre-hand stack was about $230. So my flop was too small correct?
If you were going to bet this flop, IMO you needed to jam the turn on any card but a diamond (check the nuts and try to induce a bluff if you wanted to). Not saying that would have worked here but the 1 and done thing OOP is going to get you exploited mercilessly.
Also, how common are button straddles in this room? If you are there to play just solid poker, I'd try to get to a table where this isn't happening a lot. If you happen to get stuck on a table where it is going on, you are likely seated with people who are there to gamble. Fine and dandy if you are ok with the variance but not so much if you aren't ok with getting stacks in on less than premium hands.
Interesting point you're making. I see a lot of straddles in that room. They're actually difficult to avoid. I just try to sit where I avoid them affecting my blinds but they're still tricky to play, especially when they're initiated by loose aggressive players, which is often the case. Anyway, to go back to that hand, would it have made sense to bet larger than the pot to indicate a very strong hand that tries to push any draw out of the hand, or is that too risky a play?
I don't see any reason to over-bet the flop in this spot. I suppose you could go 2 ways here - bet the flop with the intention of jamming the turn or check the flop with the intention of calling or jamming a bet by villain. Against LAGs I like being more value oriented and so I'd likely be in the check-call camp here. For me, this hand is too strong to start turning into a bluff at this point. However, if I'm going to run that line, I know I have to go all the way with it.
If this is pretty commonplace in your room, I'd brush up on my short-stack play and just have several buy-ins at the ready when I sit down. If you have the skill advantage over the LAGs at your table, don't try to outdo them with aggression. Be patient and wait for spots and then try to get paid when you do make a hand.
Ship the turn Imo.
Question: you have a player calling 12.5 bigs with 57s and you want to move? Not sure I understand that. He is a station.
Play a strong range. Bet/3bet big and barrel away for value.