Just in from Tuesday night poker . . .
First, slow down the thread. Well slow down if you want any discussion of the hand.
Second, don't skip decision points. In my mind the critical street was preflop and we just passed right over that.
Third, Hero's observation that he is bored and making decisions he thinks are wrong, but what the hell let's do them anyway means he should rack up and go do something else.
But that didn't happen. hero plays this hand.
Preflop is an easy fold. Speculative hand in bad position. I rate fold as the only acceptable option. Like Hero said - he is bored and fired away anyway. If the villain reads said the table was fit/fold post flop maybe Hero can plan on a high c-bet win rate. But these villains seem like just the wrong sort to get into a big pot playing 86s. Not that Hero can't win the hand, but now he needs to actually hit the flop and hope the villains will chase / bluff with worse.
Ok, so Hero raised and ends up with a $36 pot (after rake) and a $273 stack ----> SPR 7+. Just at the inflection point for top pair hands and speculative hands. Knowing only this, we know the hand is likely to prove difficult and advantage goes to the loose aggressive players.
First to act villain bets $20 into $36 (55% pot). First choice is fold. Stacks are deep, hero is in a RIO trap. Let's not have things get worse.
Second choice is raise here and fold to any re-raise.. Maybe Hero can get a better top pair hand to fold. Maybe hero can get gut shots and the like to fold. At least hero might be able to buy position and blow V2 off the hand. These villains might prove to be unbluffable and also capable of bluffing Hero with all sorts of garbage. While an observant villain might put Hero on an over pair, an unobservant villain might not have even given a thought to Hero's holdings. If Hero is raising, that would be the last chip I put in the pot unimproved.
Calling seems like my last choice.
The turn. $96ish in the pot. Effective stacks are $253. hero is not pot committed. V1 leads out again with $60 into a $96 pot (63% pot). Now folding becomes more urgent. Hero could be drawing very thin here - maybe winning only with an eight on the river. Hero should fear V2 as well. A turn raise with trips is going to force hero to fold. The flush draw offers hope, perhaps false hope. But even if the flush draw is good, hero is a ~1-4 dog and facing a RIO risk.
And now the river. $276 in the pot, effective stacks are $193. V1 bets $120 (62% pot). Hero has no fold equity vs V1 with a $63 all-in jam left behind. Hero has expended a third of his stack holding top pair / no kicker. He needs to find both villains with quite weak hands in order to win the pot. I am not sure which of the villains scare me the most. V1 who has taken a bet, bet, bet line with fairly consistent value sizing - so what do we think she has in her range that hero can beat? Or V2 who has taken a call / call / call line? Aside from 76, V2 only has big value hands. Again, folding seems like the best choice.
It could happen that both V1 and V2 are playing foolish / stupid poker and Hero is the winner. But most likely not. Salvage what can be saved by folding and then rack up and leave.
TL:RD. Rack up, go home. Fold preflop, fold flop, fold turn, fold river. Go home. Winning the pot doesn't mean well played.
DrStrange