Folding a "Weak" Overpair |
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Posted Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:26 am GMT by xDiamond_CutteRx
Ok, this situation came up yesterday in a $20 tournament at Stars my roommate was playing. It was in the middle-late stage of the tourney, which had gone pretty quickly. The blinds were 200/400 with a 50 ante, making the preflop pot 1050.
My roommate (Hero) is on the button with 22600 chips and is dealt Q  Q  .
The player in second position, a very good player who has 25000 chips pulls the dreaded min-raise and goes to 800.
Hero re-raises to 2000. The blinds fold and the Villain, after thinking, calls.
Pot: 5050.
Flop comes J  10 5  .
Villain leads out and bets 1500. Hero raises to 4000. The Villain thinks, then re-raises to 10,000. My friend smiles and starts sliding the cursor to all-in, but I tell him to wait. I thought he was beat for sure at this point.
My friend asked, "how can I be beat? I have an overpair." I said that the hand range I'm putting the villain on is 55, TT, JJ, KK, or AA. "No way, he said. He has like AJ." But there was no way in my mind that a good player would go crazy like this with AJ. The only hands I see him having here are the extremely unlikely AJ, KQ, or MAYBE AK, but that's highly unlikely. Then there's the outside possibility he also has QQ.
"But wouldn't he have re-raised with TT, JJ, KK, or AA?" Perhaps, but he used that tricky min-raise from early position, and he KNEW he would be heads-up on the flop. And regardless, a set of 5's fits all the action perfectly so far. The villain, by raising to 10k, has committed himself to this pot and WANTS to be called.... that's not drawing hand material. And another factor, does he really want to bust out the tournament with this hand when he is among the chip leaders?
My friend was not convinced and went all-in, telling me I gave the guy too much credit.
What do you guys think?
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Posted Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:32 am GMT by UrAteUp
Villian could be on a set or possibly even 2 pair. Not likely he has AA or KK. He would have most likely been all in after the flop. A10 or AJ I hardly think he would be playing that heavy with. He might trail the hero in betting but not come over the top after the flop in case hero is playing AA, KK or QQ. I would have to put him on 1 of three hands.
1) Over pair
2) A set
3) Two pair
Posted Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:42 am GMT by kingetje
A-J doesnt seem vey unlikely to me... i think he has A-J for top pair top kicker
pocket 10's or J's seems likely as well, but i would think he wouldnt play a set so fast and aggressive in a heads up pot... maybe he would play it slower to extract as much as possible
so what did he end up having?
Posted Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:01 pm GMT by kainARGH
what were the chip stacks of those at the table? If villan is substantiol chip lead , His range of hands may be larger.
what was the tables pre-flop play like? If table is ultra tight , again with lots of chips villan could be min raiseing with speculative hands , IE J10s KJ ect.
What was hero's play like up untill this point? Depending on what he thought of hero , He could be making a variety of plays 
Sorry , overthinking this , /bored at work. getting excited thinking about poker.
Posted Fri Apr 21, 2006 3:33 pm GMT by Phil14312
I think that the ten and the jack kills you here. Now villain could have AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 55. I think you are right that he has committed himself here to the pot and thinks his hand is the best. AJ, maybe, but a good player would probably let that go after the flop raise.
Posted Fri Apr 21, 2006 3:45 pm GMT by kainARGH
I'm really curious what happened. Personally my thoughts on JJ and 1010 , would a 'good' player min raise from relativly early pos with these hands , allowing for those behind him to have pos on him AND see the flop cheaply?
At middle / late pos , maybe villan feels hero Is makeing a move on him after the pot? villan did bet relatively weak , about 1/4th the pot when preflop he also raised relativly weak , minimum from out of pos. Of course if we are to give him credit for being a truely good player , then yes hes playing it in a matter that is beating queens.
This is very interesting though.
Posted Fri Apr 21, 2006 10:07 pm GMT by xDiamond_CutteRx
Ok, so the result of the hand was as follows:
My roommate pushed all-in, and the villain immediately called, showing JJ for a set of Jacks. Fortunately for my friend, he ended up sucking out with a Q on the river and went on to get 4th in the tournament.
He told me there was no way he could have got away from the hand--I told him point blank, "then no offense, but you can't read opponents for shit." He really disagreed with my analysis, but personally I thought it was pretty obvious villain had us beat.
What hands can we beat?
AJ or AK. But the way the table had played, he would have raised more than this from early position.
What about a bluff? Maybe, but he was 2nd in chips and we were 4th in chips; with the raise on the flop, I'd say there's less than 1% chance this guy is bluffing, just on principle.
So what hands does that leave plausibly?
JT. Yes. That accounts for the min-raise, but it a pretty weak call OOP.
TT. Yes, although he probably would have raised more with this hand.
JJ. Yes, this hand makes decent sense, as he may not have wanted to play a big pot on the early streets.
QQ. Yes, but I certainly think he would re-raise pre-flop because it's stronger than Jacks, but not nearly as strong as Kings.
KK. Yes, with a higher possibility that he would re-raise since he would fear an Ace.
AA. Yes. This makes perfect sense since it was going to be heads-up.
55. Yes. That fits all the action.
Personally, I think folding was pretty clear, but some guys just can't fold an overpair.
Posted Mon Apr 24, 2006 11:59 am GMT by Gunslinger
How can he disagree with your analysis when you were 100% correct? 
Posted Mon Apr 24, 2006 12:28 pm GMT by snoogins47
| Gunslinger wrote: | | How can he disagree with your analysis when you were 100% correct? |
The opponent showing JJ doesn't mean that the analysis is correct.
That said, this is one of those times that the opponent has a set a frightening majority of the time, since you said he was "very good." I don't know if I can really stick to a "very good player" read if I'm at the table and see him minraise from EP, but I'm basically just saying this to give you a hard time.
| Quote: | | AJ, maybe, but a good player would probably let that go after the flop raise. |
This may be true, but it's also important to note (in my mind, more important) that a hand like AJ would be much more likely to go all in, instead of raising to 10k. This goes triple or quadruple for somebody with KQ or something. They also check raise, or bet more than 1500, most of the time. I think this is a classic example in the "hero" showing the tendency many folks have to be too stubborn in their reads, and make their decisions hinge too heavily on partial information. The min-raise/lack of a re-raise preflop obviously alter the hands our opponent is likely to hold, but when actions on the current street SCREAM "I have hand X," the actions on earlier streets that make hand X somewhat unlikely shouldn't be weighted too heavily.
Posted Mon Apr 24, 2006 1:00 pm GMT by Soup_dog
| snoogins47 wrote: | | Gunslinger wrote: | | How can he disagree with your analysis when you were 100% correct? |
The opponent showing JJ doesn't mean that the analysis is correct.
That said, this is one of those times that the opponent has a set a frightening majority of the time, since you said he was "very good." I don't know if I can really stick to a "very good player" read if I'm at the table and see him minraise from EP, but I'm basically just saying this to give you a hard time.
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I can see a min-raise from early position with JJ. Sort of a blocking bet. That being said, with the blinds so low compared to the stacks, it won't have much of an effect. Normally at this stage in a tourny I would expect the blinds to be bigger, where a min-raise has more of an impact to the smaller stacks and tight players.
In this case it just adds a bit of confusion. (Maybe thats what he was looking for? Muddy the waters.)
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