Wigginx appears to be the outlier with his idea of putting in a min-raise here, while most of the other commenters seem to think that a smooth call is the approach best suited to getting my opponents to commit more of their chips. Let me give my thoughts and explain what I think about these choices. #1, I agree with the commenters generally that right now is not the time to put in any kind of a big raise here. I've found myself in the enviable position of flopping quads and actually having not one but two people betting at me on the flop. If I bump them significantly here, as Beldar pointed out in his comment, I'm basically going to telegraph to them both that I have at least trips at this point, and odds are I will lose them both. So I like the smooth call here, especially given that there are the two hearts on the board, and one of these flop bettors likely has a flush draw that I can hopefully take advantage of.
About the minraise idea....my thoughts are that, in a normal large mtt, I think this would work fairly well, and in my view this generally is a nice candidate situation where a minraise can actually work for me. Both players would surely call the minraise, and, generally speaking, minraises are viewed by online poker players as weak, scared moves. So, I don't think that would be betraying my hand to any degree, and the only likely effect would be to add a bit more chips to the pot here on the flop, and probably also to make my opponents think I am somewhat weak at this point in the hand. Generally speaking, those are my thoughts on the minraise here. But, we are not generally speaking here. I will have to agree with Matt that this is a blogger tournament, and these guys will almost surely recognize the minraise for what it is, especially coming from me. So in this case, I don't like the minraise, and much prefer the smooth call, which as many commenters pointed out, does not betray a thing about the nature of my hand and still leaves me in good position to make some more money from one or both of these players on future betting rounds.
Speaking of future betting rounds, so I smooth called the 130-chip bet here, bringing the pot total to 550 chips, when the turn card comes down a harmless 2♣. The SB checks to me. Following the same logic as above, I decide to check it as well. This way, I'm letting the two original flop bettors/callers believe they might actually be in front here, and I am further depositing the idea in their heads that I may be on a missed draw, a pocket pair between 6s and Queens, or a similarly not-too-strong hand. And, of course, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow here is the flush draw, which I believe one of my opponents may be on, and which I desperately want to fill on the river.
And that's exactly what happened, as the river brought a lovely 5♥, and my opponent in the SB led out with a 250-chip bet into a 550-chip pot.Now what's the best move here? Obviously I have the nuts with my quad 6s, and a flush card finally came on the river after the pot was checked around on the turn. Do I put the SB on a made flush with his 250-chip bet, and if so, will he call a decent raise from me here? What about the other player still left in the pot? How does he factor in to what the best move is for me here? How am I best going to get either or both of the remaining players in the hand to commit as many of their chips as possible into this pot?
As always, the comments to Part I were great, and I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts at this point in the hand. I will post the conclusion to this hand on Wednesday.
1. You definitely have to raise here. How much is up for debate. I would probably raise it to between 600 and 700, making it an easy call for a flush. If you're lucky, the nut flush is out there and may actually reraise you, allowing you to get all of your money in.
Posted at 5:48PM on Nov 21st 2006 by kaellinn18