Poker Plays with PokerPeaker - Getting value from a flopped straight.
I've got A♥-J♦. I'm playing $25 NL on PokerStars. I raise to $1.50 in middle position. I get one caller from the
small blind. The flop comes 10♠-Q♥-K♥. GIN!
The small blind checks the hand. This surprises me. He called a raise, remember, and unless he was hoping to flop a set with middle pair, this hand must have hit him somehow.
Flopped straights are tricky to play. They're a great hand, usually the nuts at the moment, as my hand is. Yet I've been burned before by slow-playing them too much.
I decide, since we're heads up, to slow play it. I check. I tell myself I may have to get away from it if a third heart comes. That's the key to slow-playing a hand: telling yourself that you may have to get off a hand if the third scary card comes.
However, a scary card doesn't come. A 6♣ comes, and the small blind bets $2. I just call again because now that he's interested in the pot, I might get a good river bet out of him.
If I didn't have position, I think I would raise here because I would then follow that with another value bet in the river. But I can afford to let him make the tough decision on the river first.
The river brings another harmless card, a 7♠, and the small blind bets $6. That's a strong bet. Maybe he was slow-playing his hand, too. I can only hope.
In order to get full value from a hand, I prefer to make a huge raise, an over bet for value, on the river. And I have a feeling he will call a big raise because of his strong bet on the river.
So I raise all-in, an extra $14. He calls and I win a nice pot.
It turns out he had A♦- K♠. So he was slow playing a pair. I hate the way he played this hand. On a draw-heavy board, he checked his top pair and then bet it hard on the river when I showing some interest in the pot. When I raised him all-in, he had to think I had a hand.
But maybe my slow-playing confused him. Yeah, that's it.
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