How Could I Play This Differently? #2b

To recap: I am heads up in the big blind with 3-5 against a loose aggressive player in the small blind. We saw the A-2-4 flop for cheap. All the cards are hearts. She checked-raised my $2 bet for another $6. I just called.

The turn is the jack of clubs. This is a great card for me as it doesn’t scare her and at the same time probably didn’t increase her chances of catching up to me. She bets $4 into me.

I was a little surprised at this. I didn’t expect this card to scare her but it looks as if it did. She bets really weakly $4 into a pot of almost $20. Why would she do this? If she had a pair and a flush draw I don’t think she would be so obviously weak. I would expect her to either continue her strong image or check and hope I so scared of getting check-raised again that I give her a free card. If she has a set, she could be trying to trap me into a re-raise or she could be scared by my call that I have the flush and am trying to trap. If she has a vulnerable two-pair she might be scared that I just made a bigger two pair. Also, she could just be doing what I did on the flop and made a small bet to try to force me to reveal information about my hand.

I believe that my table sees me as a tight aggressive player because I am worried about getting outplayed. Therefore I don’t think she can put me on a hand like ace jack because I would have raised before the flop. Also, I think that she would expect me to have played a lot stronger on the flop if I had had a made hand. Factoring this in, I think she is making an informational bet and wants to see just where I am at in the hand. Also, I think this is a strong move because it means she isn’t worried that much about the river card hurting her chances of winnings. She is probably confident that if I just call and the fourth flush card hits, she could lay her hand down. Therefore I narrow her down further to either two-pair or a set that she thinks is good or she is on the draw and is trying to set her own price for seeing the river.

What should I do? I am facing a $4 bet and including the bet, the pot is $24 minus the rake. I rule out calling. I am leaning towards the read that she has two-pair or a set over the flush draw. If I call and the flush card hits, she will act cautiously which means I won’t make much on the river. Thus I need to extract some value now. How much should I bet?

I ended up raising to $15.

I chose this amount because it was almost 4 times the amount of her bet but was still small enough where I wouldn’t lose her. I have decided to wait for the river to bring down the hammer. I am waiting to make sure I have the best hand because I’m sure if she has two pair or a set, all the money will go in the middle as long as the scare card doesn’t come. However, I’m not sure if this is a good amount. She has to call $11 if she is on the flush draw. That means she is getting almost 4:1. I don’t think she’s on the flush so that means she is getting almost 4:1 to fill up. Perhaps I should have bet slightly more to give her worse odds towards filling up.

Small blind just calls. The river is the ace of diamonds. She bets $10. I call. She shows the ace of clubs and the four of diamonds for a full house and I muck my straight.

This was about the worst card in the deck for me. All I could do was call and hope that she had pair of aces and the flush draw and not that she had the two pair or set that I was reading her for.

I don’t have a lot of problems with how I played the hand. However, it was out of the ordinary for me and I am not really comfortable with how it went. Normally I would have re-raised her on the flop. This would create a number of problems for me though. I am pretty sure that she would have moved all-in on me. She was riding a rush and was loose aggressive. I would end up guessing between whether she made the flush or was making a play. I would probably have folded and been bluffed but I also lose a significant % if I call when she is on the flush draw and when she is on the full house draw not to mention if she made the move with the flush.

I guess what I’m really asking isn’t whether I should have played the hand in this manner but where I could improve on this strategy.