[lork]

Playing limit hold'em at Harrah's in Iowa this past weekend, my pocket 5's became a quad by the turn. Since I had the nuts and wasn't worried about losing, I didn't give nearly enough thought to what hands the other two players who were still in at the river might have.

The final board is 9c 5c Jh 5d 3c.

I was in last position, and first-to-act starts the betting off on the river. The second player raised, I re-raised, and first-to-act caps it. Second player folds and all I can do is call and take the pot.

If I had been thinking more about my opponents' hands, I might have realized that first-to-act had a boat (pocket Jacks) and the other guy had an Ace high flush.

So, would a call on the river have been a smart play? In hindsight, if I had called, first-to-act would have re-raised and the flush probably would have folded leaving us heads up with unlimited re-raises allowed...and the possibility of my taking his whole stack.

On the other hand, if I had just called and gotten called, I would have looked like (and felt like) a complete fool.

Any thoughts?

[pritz]

Dunno about the rules in your room, but whereever I've played you had to be heads-up at the start of the betting round for unlimited raises. If the rules are different in your room, you should have been able to keep raising once the other player left the pot. Anyway, I think that you're better off ramming and hoping the sandwiched player overcalls than hoping UTG re-raises a raise and a coldcall.

[ballen]

The rule that I've played.

Unlimited raising is allowed in heads-up play. This applies any time the action becomes heads-up before the raising has been capped. Once the raising is capped on a betting round, it cannot be uncapped by a subsequent fold that leaves two players heads-up.

So if I had just called, then UTG could have re-raised without capping, and we would be heads up if the other player folded. I would then be able to re-raise.

In this case, once I raised and UTG capped, I couldn't re-raise even though the other player folded.

[razor]

If you would of just called than Player A with JJJ55 would re-raise and you have a chance of Player B folding, if he does fold than you could probably get a few more bets in with Player A. Even if Player B calls though you still would of made the same amount of money you did by re-raising. So yes a call in your spot would of been the best play you could of made. Now all you have to do is wait for another situation like that to occur...

[lork]

Actually, if I checked and Player B called a raise from A, I could then cap it and should get at least one more bet (possibly two). The risk in calling would have been if Player A just called and ended the betting. Of course, now that we know what everyone had, that clearly wouldn't have happened, and a call from me would have been best.

I guess the moral of this story is to stay focused on everything that's going on in the hand. This play didn't really occur to me until just after it ended since I had the nuts and essentially stopped worrying about the other hands.

[ThomasR]

That's always dangerous, you must never take your eye off the ball. Smart play would have been playing it relatively slow till the turn then to raise and raise hard. You had a great hand, you knew that and you were playing to extract the most possible money out of the hand, so you played it well from that point of view.