Should I Make a Laydown?

[shipitfish]

I've been playing reasonably well lately, and been able to make pretty big laydowns. Here's a case where I failed to lay down the third nut full house when there was a reasonable chance my opponent held the nut full. However, I don't think that I made a mistake, but would like some input.

This hand is from a 10-handed tight online game, with $.25/$.50 blinds and no maximum buy in. This game was tight and passive, most flops were heads up if raised, but there was a good amount of limping. I started the hand with $213 and have the table covered. spcome, my heads-up opponent on the flop, had $59.90 behind.

UTG+2, I raised with 8 8. RoyRFlush called me, and spcome from the small blind made it $5.75 to go.

I've been raising lots with any pair, any suited connectors and two-gappers, and pretty much any hand I play, and I play tons against opponents this tight-weak. However, it's not common for someone to reraise from the blinds, so I actually gave him a tight range: JJ, QQ, KK, AA, AQ or AK. There is really no way he has something else.

I called for set value, since it's only 10% of his stack and most players on this site will stack off with any overpair. I flopped gin with 8 5 5. spcome bet out $9. I basically have him on an overpair or an AK continuation bet. I call with celerity, trying to represent a flush draw, and hoping it doesn't come if he has an overpair. The turn fell K.

spcome thought for a moment and bet out $7.50. This bet is basically narrows to three possible things: A K, KK, or a scared QQ, the last being unlikely.

I figure I should call to try to trap the A K.

The T brings any possible flush draw home on the river, and spcome led all-in for $37.65 into $45.25. I called immediately, figuring he's made a flush or he has kings full. My “muck or show” window popped up; he had K K.

I'm curious if others think this was just plain bad luck. I think the only other decisions I could have made were: (a) raise the flop against the obvious two-outer, (b) fold the river. It seems to me the spade falling on the river forces my auto-call because A K becomes as likely a holding at that moment as KK, given the action. I also don't mind my play on the turn, because I'm enticing him to keep coming at me if he does have AK. As for the flop, again, I think just calling is better in case it's just AK or AQ.

[ Update: for those who don't read comments, I'm convinced by swolfe's arguments that I should fold the hand on the river if I chose not to move in on the turn. ]

Comments

Middle pairs have this problem

[nick-marden.livejournal.com]

This is one issue with middle pairs that I've been thinking about a lot recently. Most "decent players" are in the habit of set mining with middle pairs - they just look at the relative stack sizes and tell themselves "If he has more than 8x the bet left behind, then I'll call".

The problem is that tight players with big pocket pairs don't always call off all-in when you hit your set (after all, set mining is somewhat obvious), and sometimes you get in a set-over-set situation like this one.

So in other words, your decision that:

"I called for set value, since it's only 10% of his stack and most players on this site will stack off with any overpair."

Is probably a near-zero EV play and it relies on something that I have heard criticize other players for - assuming that you will win all the chips in your best-case scenario and lose no more chips in the worst case scenario.

Because of this, I have recently toned my set mining way down. I only make the 10% calls when I really have a read on a player as being very strong, and unable to fold a second best hand. Otherwise I look for something closer to 20x or more behind to make the call, because of these other variables that have to be taken into account.

Re: Middle pairs have this problem

[shipitfish.livejournal.com]

I do this less live than I do online, because players stack off with overpairs nearly 100% of the time online. He would have stacked off, I am pretty sure, if I'd raised him on the flop, frankly. Also, in these ultra-tight games online, I play so loose that even if they aren't stacking off to most people, they tend to stack off to me because they see that I play very loose. Of course, I'm only playing loose preflop; I don't go that far into a pot unless I've flopped at least two pair, but these baby limit players don't discern properly in this way.