Analyze This

[happyhornet]

Hi Guys, I suffered my biggest loss in one hand on a cash table on Friday night, and still cannot decide if I played the hand badly, was just unlucky, or a combination of the two. I can't find the hand history, but this is what happened. $0.10/$0.25 NL Table 10 players, I have about $23, the villain of this piece has about $35 and has been aggressive much of the time. In middle position dealt Kd 10d. Under the gun limps in, i follow, as do the button and BB. Flop comes Ad Qd 4d. UTG raises the minimum, I flat call, so does the button, the BB folds. (I don't normally slow play, but i had the nuts, and wanted to give people time to catch up) Turn is Ah UTG checks. I bet the pot, the button flat calls, UTG folds (I bet here to both disguise my flush, and also if someone had an ace, not to give them another cheap card to make a boat. The flat call from the button put him on an Ace in my mind) River is 6d I bet $5, the button reraises to $18, I call. He turns over As Qc for a full house. Even on the river, I still put him on three aces, but in hindsight should I have seen the re-raise as a sign of a full house as there was 4 diamonds on the board, and made a well judged fold? Any advice here would be most welcome.

[Valiant23]

Re: Analyze This

(I don't normally slow play, but i had the nuts, and wanted to give people time to catch up)

In tournaments you're playing people for their whole stacks and this may be a reasonable play to amass chips. But. Why slow-play here? If you equate the nuts as a hand thats as good as it gets this is exactly the same situation as Tom Hedonist with his KK. The advice in there is bet big. The reason? You want someone to overplay their weaker pocket pair or even AK. and it is exactly the same here. If yuou had pushed all in for your stack or a pot and a half raise you would have got your money in when you were ahead. You see it is entirely likely that Mr. Agression was slow-playing you and giving you the chance to catch up on the flop, so had you reacted aggressively he would have thought he'd hooked you. Another thing, I'm guessing Mr. Agression also showed less agression with his AQ suited than he did with weaker hands, too. You maybe took that as a sign of weakness but that always sends alarm bells ringing with me. Remember, get your money in when you KNOW you're ahead. Very unlucky all the same though.