The second part to the poker quiz continues here with the answer to the previous question and the rest of the hand…..away you go.

Answer:
Check 10 pts
Bet half the pot 5 pts
Bet the pot 2 pts
Go all in 0 pts

I would check this down here for several reasons. Firstly there are no draws out there so giving a free card is not that dangerous unless they hold something like a pocket pair but they have been playing so solidly that medium to small pocket pairs are unlikely from that position unless they have maybe the following poker hands J-J,10-10 or 9-9.

The pot is raised so the raiser and the caller figure to have a hand that may have hit this flop specifically A-Q or K-Q. They are straight forward tight solid poker players so they are unlikely to be flying around with junk before the flop. Inexperienced poker players who play solidly tend to slow play their monsters and that just could be what is happening here.

Going all in against a pre-flop raiser and a caller on a flop like this is asking for trouble especially when one of the players has you covered. If you bet half the pot and get called, then you still do not know where you are because someone could be calling with a pocket pair suspecting that you have A-K.

What if player 2 comes over the top and goes all in with a check-raise, are you good enough to read him? If you bet this flop, they will not believe that you have trip queens and one of them could put a play on you with a poker hand like 9-9. Checking also possibly installs into their minds that you could be possibly sandbagging yourself.

The turn card brought the 4c, making the board Qs-Qd-3c-4c. The player in seat 2 who is first to speak bets $2500 and the player in seat three 3 folds immediately, what is your play?

Answer:
Call 10 pts
Re-raise 2 pts
Re-raise 1 pt
Fold 0 pts

Why do you want to re-raise all in? If your opponent is bluffing then he will simply fold to your raise so he cannot make anymore mistakes from that point onwards. But he may have a queen and this player has you covered in chips so you could be easily walking out of the door in thirty seconds time.

Raising is not correct here at all because if he is in fact bluffing then why not just let him bluff his money off. There is a very good chance that this player could be bluffing here. He has seen you re-raise before the flop and then check the flop.

He knows that your flop check was either out of caution or that you are slow playing a monster. A-K is one of the most common of re-raising poker hands and that hand has missed this flop. A bet of $2500 could be a probe, the next player only has $5200 so they will be reticent to get involved without a big hand in this situation and the player in seat 2 knows this.

This leaves just you, who he could possibly intimidate with his larger stack and who may not have anything to do with that board and you have after all checked this flop. But if he is in fact slow-playing trip queens then calling prevents you from possibly getting busted.

The river card was the Holy Grail; it was the Ah making a final board of Qs-Qd-3c-4c-Ah. This card gives you the top full house which can only be beaten by quad queens. Your opponent checks on the river and the relative stack sizes are as follows.

Seat 2: $15,500
You: $ 9,000

Over to you now tiger, there is $14,300 in the pot so far.

Answer:
Bet 4000 10 pts
Go all in 7 pts
Bet less than 4000 7 pts
Check 0 pts
Fold -100 pts

Anybody who checks because they fear four queens has obviously been drinking very heavily and anyone who folds is probably a lunatic. If you fear the absolute nuts every time that you are involved in a pot then you simply cannot win at poker, period. The only issue here is how much to extract from you opponent.

Obviously it all depends on what type of hand they hold. Going all in will get their entire stack if they have a queen and the ace falling could have given them the belief that you may bet this board if you have A-K. I still think that going all in is not the best play as it depends on your opponent having a queen for you to get anymore money out of them.

Betting about 4000 makes it look like you may be trying to steal the pot and it also gives your opponent the opportunity to come over the top of you if they do have a queen. For the record, your opponent check raised you all in and you of course called with your opponent showing K-Q suited.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Why not come and play online poker tournaments at bwin?

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