06-30-05, LearnTexasHoldem:

Played Well Or Got Greedy

Question: Hi, like I've said before, great site. I've got two completely unrelated questions. The first one, was when I was in a B&M casino earlier today, in fact it was the first time I'd ever been there. I sat down to play, mucked all my hands preflop till the big blind came around to me. Now, i was sitting in the 10 seat, directly to the right of the dealer. What happened, is after my cards were dealt, utg called, utg + 1 mucked, then the dealer took those cards and put them right into mine, effectively throwing the much pile on my hand. I immediately told her about it, action was stopped, and the dealer called the floor over. they told me i should have protected my cards. So my hand was mucked, but my big blind had to stay in. Here's the problem i have with that. I only had a span of a couple of seconds before that player mucked to protect my cards. The even bigger issue I have is that the table they use, didn't have a betting line around the table. The whole thing was all green, no line at all. I thought the whole hand should have been redealt, but they said no. What do you think?

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Anyways, I snatched up an empty rack threw my chips on and let them know I'll stick to playing in the big name casino in this area.

My second question: Did i get too greedy or was this a good value type play? Here's the scenario. Online sitngo. 3 players left, Dealer has 4500, small blind has 3000, and me in the big blind i have 2500. blinds were 100/200 Button limped, sb called, i checked. I had 78. Flop came J56. sb checked, i minimum bet, button called, sb called. Turn was a 9. I hit the nut straight on a completely rainbow board. sb came out betting 600. I thought about raising, but was hoping to string the button along. so i called, and the button called. River Q . sb bets 600, i raise all in, button raises all in. button has KT for nut straight. should i have raised or gone all in on the turn, or should i have just called and if a bigger straight beats me, well then thats poker? the thing that i was kicking myself about later was that i knew i was a better player than him, so if I could have just taken down that pot, i would have had a good hold on the table and could have hammered away. i think I got too greedy and tried to get it all in one fell swoop. what cha think?

Answer:

1.) Unfortunately, the dealer can't pull the hand out of the muck after your cards have touched the muck cards. The dealers sit there all day going through the same motions, so you can't trust them to watch out for which cards are live and which are dead. Protect your hand at all times. What I do when playing holdem is to grab my cards and keep my finger on them until I put a chip (if I'm going to play the hand). At no point is my hand or chip not on the cards. After sometime it will become habit and you won't run into this sort of problem. Also, make sure you watch the pots too, because often times they are awarded to the wrong player.

2.) The safest way to play isn't always the best. You actually want to make money with your good hands. Just think if you only waited for AA all day and then went all-in with it preflop because you didn't want anyone to draw out on you; an extreme example, but still the same line of reasoning. Slow playing can be a delicate thing in a multi-way pot, but not in three way holdem. If you had anything strong there, not nearly as strong as the straight, the best move is to merely call -- exactly how you played it. The vast majority of the time the other players will be drawing dead or to maybe a few outs at best. And the ultimate measure of whether or not you played the hand right is whether or not you would play it the same way if you guys all had your cards face up.

I would have played it the same way. The guy has 4 outs to beat you on the river, about 8%. That is such a long shot, I would be overjoyed to have his bet in behind me when I had the nut straight. Often times you play hands perfectly, yet they don't win. That is part of poker, it doesn't mean the strategy is flawed. Avoid second guessing your strategy just because it didn't work out once or twice. Remember, anything can happen in the short term.

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