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An interesting hand

$5/10 NLHE 9 handed

EP raises to $30 and gets two callers. I call in the cut-off with KdJd and the big blind calls. Flop come JsJc7h. Jackpot. I sure hope somebody has QJ or JT. It gets checked around to the player on my right, who bets $150. I smooth-call hoping to get another bet from TT, 99 or A7s. If they have QJ or JT, I'll get all their chips on the turn. The preflop raiser calls. Oops. The preflop raiser just killed my hand. What could he be calling with after I smooth-called?

The turn is a red 2. It gets checked to me and I suddenly think I have the second best hand. I'm either way ahead or way behind the preflop raiser and I'm confident the other player in the hand is done putting chips in the pot unless they get a huge river card. He did get called twice. I put preflop raiser on AJ and check.

The river is a blank and the preflop raiser bets small..$200-$300 into a $600 pot. I would never check the turn if I plan on folding to that bet on the river, so of course I have to call now because I may have induced a bet from a miserably played hand like AA, KK, QQ, TT, etc. ... maybe he has QJ or JT. He flips up 77 for a flopped full house. I think I lost the minimum I could have on that hand. I can't fold on the flop because I have to believe I'm ahead of the bettor. It was the preflop raiser call that told me to slow down. I could've bet the turn, but a bet would've been pot-committing since it would've been over half my remaining chips. I chose to check through and induce a bet from a worse hand. He priced me in with the small bet.

The lesson for this hand is to 1) pay attention to your opponents, not just how pretty your cards are and 2) to not slowplay monsters with a large field. There were four other people in the hand. If he played the hand like he had an overpair, he would've ended up with all my chips. Instead he got less than half a buy-in. A highly coordinated or paired board isn't one to slowplay when you have several callers. Play the hand to bust somebody. Make them think that you either missed (or you're scared of the board) with a weak lead or act like you're trying to get them to fold with your normal follow-through. You may get an aggressive player like myself reraising you with nothing or convince some poor dude that he has the best hand.

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