Straight on the flop

[rwardo123]

On one of the first few hands of the weekly i had 56 off suit, no pre raises, flop was 789 rainbow only a couple people in. With out really thinking i bet 500 trying to scare off anyone close to a straight, and was raised all in.

Question is what should i do after being raised and how should i have played it out from the start?

First thought was they had trips, but there was no preflop raise then im thinking j10. Ended up folding.

I'm thinking i should have raised alot less, which would still stop any chasing and might have resulted in such a big chip loss early on.

Thanks

[Insidestr8]

A very interesting hand. The 7-8-9 is a scary flop with no preflop raises. You have to figure that someone has at the worst an open ended straight draw which has about a one third chance of hitting on the turn and river if it the hand goes that far. Much really depends on who you are playing against and also what they think of you as a player.

For my style the $500 bet is too high with the flopped straight even though you flopped it on the low side. Since you said it was early in the game I'm figuring there was around $100 in the pot so I think a pot size bet is enough to find out where you stand and to maximize your profit. Yes you'd be exposed to the risk of somone calling with an open ended draw, but you'd also get calls from hands like a K-8, K-9, A-8, two pair, trips, etc. I think that with the made straight a pot size bet would get a call from many more hands that you dominate, then hands you'd be in trouble against. Since you have the ability to lay down a big hand, there's nothing wrong with making the smaller pot size bet and then walking away from it if you are shown strength. Another part of my rationale for this is that very few players do a re-raise in PBL so you're normally not going to have to deal with that.

Since nobody raised preflop the overpair is unlikely as are hands like AK, AQ. Your $500 bet showed strength, but it also showed someone that maybe flopped top pair and didn't want to risk a draw. Someone with trips or two pair may well go back over the top of you and maybe even someone with pocket 10s since they have the over pair and a straight draw. The 10-J is your only true scare hand if the person reraising you was not in the blinds, and if it was a person in the blind then they could also have 10-6. My gut thought is that calling would have been the play, though as you say its early in the tournament and if you feel that you have enough of a stack left after folding then I can see the logic in your move but for me the $500 bet would likely have made me pot committed.

The two other big things are, what do you know about the person that made that move and what do you think they think of you? You have to look at both those things together. I feel that most people in PBL respect my game and very few would make that move on me without having the better straight. BUT, there are also a few people that I think believe that I'm more of a bluffer and would make that move on me with top pair or a draw. There are also a couple of people that I think love beating me and they are likely to make that move on me to get me to fold. I also think there are a few people in PBL that think would have limped in with KK or AA and they also might make that move on me, though most of these people are a bit passive and would likely have just called my bet with the overpair. So it really helps if you have a "book" on some of the other players when trying to figure out what to do.

No right or wrong play the way I see it, just many thoughts to consider.

Str8