Royal Flush Bonus Quandry

I play small stakes at Bodog, where there is a bonus (50BBs) for hitting a royal flush. I limped in on the button, behind three other limpers, with QJ hearts and the blinds called. The flop brought AT5 of hearts; giving me the second nuts and leaving me two draws at one out for the royal. 6BBs in the pot, I don't want to bet everybody out and not get the draws, so I call a minbet from the player on my right. One other player calls, so now it's 9BBs in the pot.

The turn brings another ten. The guy on my right bets 5BB, I call, and the other player folds. The turn comes another ten, and I lose my last 18BBs to Ax.

On reflection, I think I probably should have tried to buy the pot after the turn. The EV of winning the bonus was only about 1/25 to win 50BB. Now, I'm thinking that I should have tried to buy it on the flop, comparing the EV of winning 6BBs to the EV of hitting the bonus.

On the other hand, I had a possible EV of winning the bonus, and a big hand, if I called the flop and saw the river. It was pretty unlikely that the board would give somebody a better hand. So, trying to buy the hand post-flop seems like it would have been wasting a good opportunity to win a big hand.

So, my conclusion is that the best way to play this hand would have been to push (or bet half my stack) after the turn.

Small stakes, you're probably not buying the pot, as you are more than likely going to get callers.... So I think you did fine. Plus, it would be xtra nice to hit the royal and the bonus-and with it bragging rights and a great "good beat" story!

Yes, I got to agree with decker, I also play alot of micro stakes games, an yes 9 out of 10 times you would be called, and yes I would have gone for it, to just to see if I could hit the bonus, in micro games you get alot of chasers an people who try to buy pots, it amazes me when the cards are turned over and see the hand they played, about the only thing that comes to mind is what were they thinking,they hit nothing and got nothing, just amazes, but thanks for calling

Very poorly played.

1st you're sitting with 25bb. That fact alone makes you terrible imo. Sorry.

The rest of my analysis is for real poker players (people with 100bb+ stacks). You can ignore it until you become a real poker player.

Raise preflop. Limping leaves you one way to win, flop the best hand. Raising let's you win a lot more $$ more often no matter if you "hit" or not. Your range looks so much stronger when you raise the limpers than it does when you limp the BTN, so your cbets will get a lot more respect.

Raise flop. After you flop the flush any 4th heart is killing your action (or getting you stacked by the Kh), so not raising the flop is HORRIBLE. Please do yourself a favor and learn to bet for value when you flop the world. Calling to slowplay in these situations is generally the absolute worst thing you can do.

Honestly I'd say you played the hand as badly as possible.

I understand the wish to try to see if you land the royal, but there is a reason that it is rare. You have a 1-outer. If the royal comes and you get the bonus, cool -- but don't play waiting for it. Play each hand correctly.

First, I'm not a believer in limping on the button preflop. If you are going to play, raise it up. You want others to consider what you might have. On the flop, you had a nice flush draw, a gutshot straight, and, of course, a chance at a royal. What exactly do you need to raise? Raise it now. Calling a min raise is silly. A raise gives you a sense of where you stand, and if someone else likes his hand, you can be relatively certain he could be in til the end if you hit one of your draws.

Sure, at any of these raises, the others could fold, leaving you with the pot. And you would never know if the royal might have come. But, hey, it usually won't.

No, you misread it. The flop was suited. I had flopped the second nuts.