$100 NLHE Full Ring: Flush over flush

Played on jokerstars tonight. .50/$1 NLHE.

Hero stack: $80
Villain Stack: 90

- Folded to Hero who is in the HJ with Q7dd.
- Hero open raises to $3
- Folds to BB who defends
(Pot: $6.50)

- Flop comes 25Jddd
- Villain checks
- Hero bets out $4.50
- Villain Raises to $11.50
- Hero hesitates and calls
(Pot: $29.50)

- Turn comes 5s
- Villain leads out this time for about $17
- Hero calls
(Pot: $63.50)

- River comes 9c
- Villain bets enough to put hero all in
- Hero calls


Now my thoughts here. I opened light because its been a folded hand, the CO and Button have been folding to me almost %100 of the time and are playing super tight.


When the flop comes, I can't put the BB on AJdd cos the Jd is out, and I figured he'd 3bet AKdd preflop from the BB so this is why I bet out.

When he reraises me I get a bit iffy, would he check raise that flop with the nut flush? If I don't have the K or Q high flush specifically then he's losing money, seems like a -EV move for the long term, so I instantly discount flushes from his hand. Maybe he made 2pair and defended with 25/J5/J2 or he might have AdJx, top pair with nut flush draw. So this is why I call his bet.

turn is a bad card, pairs the board, so any set / 2 pair combo minus J2 just filled up but he bets just over 1/2 pot so I figure I'm getting a good price on my money. From here on I just decide to take the simple way out and just call. He's either doing this with Top pair and the nut flush draw, or a book. And I'm getting 3-1 roughly on my money so I think its +EV.

River is a good card for me, the hand i'm leaning towards him having (AdJx) just missed, and if he did have a full house then thats tough luck, but I think it's unlikely.

He bets enough to put me all in here, so this is where I get a bit stumped. So far It's cost me around %45 of my stack to get here. It's a very big lay down when he does it, and I just couldn't put him on nut flush because he reraised me on the flop.
But this is still a weird hand for me.

Thoughts? Did I play anything wrong here?

Villains hand in spoiler tags.

A cooler no doubt. When you can see 5 diamonds it is hard for him to have 2 of the 8 remaining diamonds. I like your thought about calling down with what has become just a bluff catcher.

You played it great, you need to just call down to keep his bluffs in and you'll still win vs his flushes less than a queen.

Maybe if it was full ring and you were playing a nit and were deep enough that river was a pot sized bet you might be able to talk yourself into a river fold because with the board paired, you lose vs a few more hands. I think the paired board would slow down a hand like 78dd at least some % of the time, maybe opting to check/call river instead of jam.

I wouldn't have gotten away with that hand. I most likely would've tried to shove turn though and make Ad and Kd pay to beat me.. I wouldn't expect A high flush draw.

I don't hate the way you played this hand (I'll often play the same way), but I think it's good to consider your alternatives:
1) Fold preflop - this hand would be good to open in the BTN and maybe CO, but I'm not so sure about opening it in MP2, even with the reads you have.
2) 3bet the flop - there are plenty of semi-bluffs in the villains' range here: any Ax hand with the Ace of diamonds, any set, potentially even a hand like TT with the T of diamonds. There are also some weaker flushes in his range that would stack off, like 43dd, 86dd, 98dd, T8dd, T9dd. Unfortunately, we block out a lot of these combos with the 7 of diamonds in our hand, but even so, there aren't too many Kxdd and Axdd hands in his range either.
3) Shove the turn - this is our last chance to get value off Ax hands with the Ace of diamonds that may call a turn shove. It also gets value off Jx hands by making our hand look like a semi-bluff (for all the villain knows, we could be the one shoving Ax with the Ace of diamonds here).
4) With plenty of A5/AJ combos and weaker flushes in the villains' range, I'm not folding to this river shove either. There's also the chance he decided to go for that triple barrel bluff to make us fold our AJ hands, so we can't give up with the hand we have.

NOTE: I'm not criticising the way you played, just listing some alternative lines that could've worked equally well. Either way, I'm stacking off postflop once I decide to raise preflop, so it wouldn't have made a huge difference. Consider this a cooler.

It is typically a Button/Co raiser even a touch wide.

I guess if you follow the hand charts it starts at Q8?

I don't follow the hands chart and I know I should. Makes sense though Q8 are connected Q7 isn't. I guess that is my downfall, I was trying a bit more aggression then usual just so see how it would play out at these stakes, ended up trapping myself it seems.

Thanks for the advice guys.

GII on the flop. A diamond is going to kill your action if he has a set, and I seriously doubt people would check-raise this flop just to fold to a 3-bet all-in when they have almost 20% of their stack in. If he has the nuts/2nd nuts, good for him. I find that people make moves on monotone boards very rarely.

He should be check-raising the flop with A high flush. A lot of worse hands that you bet here are going to call. Overpair with a diamond, sets, bare high diamond, and people might even get sticky with an overpair without a diamond.

Fold pre

I'm folding preflop unless I know that all the players behind are weak players in which case I'm opening very wide but that's extremely rare at pokerstars.
Q9s is probably as far as I would go here.
As played, I'm trying to get it on the flop, he's calling with a set or a worse flush, he might call with a single Ad if he is a weaker player or he might fold it which is also a great result as we fold out his equity without showdown. Any diamond on turn or river either kills your action or turns your hand into the worst hand if you were ahead.
If you're planning to call down anyway then it makes sense to put pressure on and try to force him into making a mistake.
It is a cooler but it happens, if it was the other way around and you had the nut flush then villain isn't getting away from his hand either so it comes back around. Don't sweat it.