This is getting interesting, good to see a conversation about a poker hand on here, nice change from all the 'Playtech stole my first-born child' threads
Will take what you said point by point:
dickens1298 said:
Ok..let's take a look from another perspective. As the SB, his call pre-flop merely costs him $9. No biggie. So he calls your raise - which IS slightly aggressive, since you'd be in a race against any wired hand that the blinds may have, and you have nothing but A10 off suit.
This is kind of contradictory as you're saying it's 'no biggie' to call 5x the BB, but also saying my raise is aggressive. I agree with the latter, I raise most hands I play about the same amount, I'd have raised suited connectors this way in a different situation. Obviously I'm thinking on this particular occasion it's likely I'll just take the blinds, especially bearing in mind my history of tight play. Since I have a marginal hand like A10 I'm fine with that. But if not, if I'm called, I do have a hand I can play. The purpose of the 5xBB raise is to get people pot committed. I have some amount of confidence in my own play, both in terms of getting chips in the middle when I hit, and getting away from flops when I miss or they're not buyable. Also, the pre-flop raise makes it easier (in theory) to put my opponents on hands when the table cards get interesting. This hand was a good case in point re: pot building, the pot was already worth playing for when the flop came, that is I'm sure the only reason this guy chased his flush draw at all. Maybe he's simply bad enough that he'd have called the flop bet even to a nothing pot, but most players aren't. Now, if a loose aggressive genius like Phil Ivey had called me with J4off here I'd maybe entertain the possibility that he had some sneaky plan to take the pot from me. But that's clearly not the case, the guy just plain and simple made a dumbass call with a trash hand, and 5x the BB IS a sizeable raise. He called 9x what he'd put in the pot already.
dickens1298 said:
Flop comes out all hearts. He now has the turn and the river to complete his flush. You have top two pair - but if he's holding hearts, you need the Ace or 10 to fill you up to win
Let's not forget he's drawing to a flush from the 4 here. He has nothing like good odds on calling a bet to make his flush even with a draw to the nuts, but if he does hit it the chances are great with the info he has that it's not even winning. With the odds of hitting coupled with the odds of him being on top, I'm not even convinced he is drawing in his mind, I think he's just hitting the call button out of boredom, or whatever.
dickens1298 said:
I'd check - basically theorizing that if he was chasing another heart, he wouldn't hesitate to call my bet, and if he's already flushed, my chances of catching an A or 10 are around 10%. If you represented a flush on your bet - and your $30 bet did not - he'd likely fold, since his 4 hearts are unlikely to be the nuts regardless of what he drew.
Checking here is a horrible play IMO. If he wouldn't hesitate to call a bet on the flush draw, that's all the more reason to make one. If I bet into him and he's calling on a draw I'm favourite to take down the pot. If I can get another player to call my bets in any situation at all where I'm mathematical favourite in a cash game, I'll do so, since in the long-term it's profitable play. As to my bet representing the flush - I probably would have played a made flush against this particular player in a pretty similar way it turns out. It'd be a good flush to bet at as it'd look like a scared bet, which would keep all the draws in play. And regardless, theres no good reason to slowplay a hand when your bets are getting called, you just risk not winning as much as you should - it also gives you more ability to trap later when it is the right play. And just a correction on your math, my chances of making a boat from that flop are actually much better than 10% - about 25% (27% assuming he has neither A/10, 25% a good rounder for practical purposes, factoring that people play pairs).
dickens1298 said:
True, your all-in bet wouldn't have represented pot odds for him (I figure he had a 20% to catch the flush on the river, and you were better than a 7-1 favorite with your possibility of still filling up on fifth street), but he likely wasn't even calculating pot odds. Any component could have been in play for him - he felt "lucky", he was tired and had no problem in committing money on the 20% chance of catching a heart, he was just fooling around - but we'd honestly never know.
It didn't represent anything CLOSE to pot odds, and even if he hits he's far from guaranteed to be ahead. My chances of the riverboat aren't actually a factor, because the A10h are already out. But yes, I get 7-1ish too, and yes, I can only assume he was feeling lucky or bored or something - because clearly it's a horrendous call.
dickens1298 said:
But you still have to figure than 15% of the time you'd lose in that same situation. In short, the hand was just one of those times a seven rolled around on a craps table.
As I said in the original thread i didn't post the hand to bitch about a bad beat, I laughed out loud when he turned his cards over, and thought someone else might share my amusement. The result was the best result I could possibly hope for, which is why I don't feel bad about how I played the hand - I managed to get my whole stack in on a bet I was 7-1 favourite to win. That's a very profitable play over time, and as many people wiser than I have pointed out, you don't get paid for winning pots in poker, you get paid for making correct decisions.
dickens1298 said:
You mentioned that you'd want him to call on a draw. I'm more cautious - he may not have flopped a set, but he might have flopped a flush. And if he had suddenly shifted gears on you and represented a draw, the tables are suddenly turned, and YOU are doing precisely what HE wanted you to do. True, the odds are in your favor, but I tend to play more conservatively with loose players, and not let that one in 7 chance of me losing affect my chips too greatly.
Like I said, I'd been sitting with this player a while and made a judgement that he wouldn't play a made flush this way. Of course I could be wrong, but I made a decision with imperfect information, like you have to do, and as it turns out I was right this time.
dickens1298 said:
Personally, I play tight with loose players. I'd be wary of large bets with anything less than the nuts, and certainly not on a draw. Switching gears doesn't always work with these ADHD-afflicted internet players, since some don't even take the time to notice.
I play tight with loose players too, which is why I hadn't played a hand in a long time, but I play tight aggressive. I flopped a genuine big hand, and heads up was more than prepared to take the risk that I was on top. I'll lose that wager sometimes, but win it more times than I lose it, and assuming you can bankroll the rebuy, that represents positive expectation, which you should always take in any cash game. If I can think of a valid criticism of how I played, it's that I bet too high on the turn, because the risk was that I didn't get called. Getting called was a great result not a poor one. It's in a sense irrelevant that he sucked me out, what's important is that I got my whole stack called down in a situation with huge positive expectation, and in terms of the part of the game I have control over, that's the best possible outcome I can hope for.
and my 44. Turn and river both small clubs putting 4 clubs on the board. I had the only club out of all 4 players 
