bad play?

[krakajak]

I'm next to the button with AQo. Pretty much everyone pays the blind, and I raise. Flop comes Qh, Qd, 5s, and checks around to me. I feel pretty confident, but I figure if I bet I'll scare almost everyone out of the pot. The button had been betting pretty hard all night, so I figure I'll check to him and hope he bets for me, then I can make a real nice check raise on the turn once the stakes have gone up. But the button chucks. 9s comes on the turn, and it checks around to me again. I bet this time, and get a couple of callers. Another spade comes on the river and I'm beaten by a flush. Did I play this hand poorly, or did I just get unlucky?

[boden12]

I'd say the play was fairly decent, but you may have wanted to throw a bet out there with the trips, unless you have a very tight table image, you should get enough callers to drag a decent pot. With a pair on the board, most people will fold just about anything (except for like an over pocket pair or 2 pair if the other card is an overcard, four to a flush or open ended straight draw) with none of those present tho and it getting checked to you...a decent bet would still be ok. Perhaps someone in early position tripped up and was hoping to check raise, in which case you'd get headsup with him and with the best kicker, most likely win.

edit:

Also, how did you play on the river? If you noticed someone who was passively calling start to bet on the third flush card did you still re-raise with the trips? I'm guessing it was bet, raise, re-raise (him), call (you). Watch people checking the flush draw by peeking at their hole cards, especially after the turn.

[krakajak]

There's this promo at Empire where if you play a certain number of raked hands in a day, you get to play in a $3k freeroll. My idea was, I don't care how much I win, but I wanna get into that freeroll without losing anything, so I was playing extremely tight. To the point that if I bet from early position, I get 2-3 callers, when normally about 70-80% saw the flop. So I'm sure I would have folded almost everyone out if I bet. Plus, I figured that since the button had been playing so loose, he would get a few callers if he bet. Oh, and it was limit, so small bet/big bet doesn't factor into the equasion.
As for the river, he was before me and came out betting. I knew he had hit a flush or had a pocket pair and made a full, but I just couldn't bring myself to throw away my hand, so I called.

[JimTheBullet]

OK, I know I said on my other post that I have never played limit, but it seems to me that you missed a trick here. In limit, as in no limit, surely if you think you have the best hand you want to reduce the number of hands that you are playing against to get rid of the drawers and keep hold of those who have a piece (but not as much as you) of the flop. Given these facts you would ideally like to see the turn card with one or at most two opponents.

Obiviously, in no limit poker you would achieve this by making what Doyle Brunson calls a "reasonable bet" (I call it a pot sized bet). In limit poker you are constrained to betting and raising in fixed increments so you cannot bet people out as easily. However, you said that the man who raised before the flop was yet to act on the flop.

If you check in this spot, hoping to raise him, what happens? The people before you all call (it is only one bet), you raise it and the original raiser calls so they all call again since their pot odds have now improved.

On the other hand, what happens if you bet into the raiser? He may fold, which is good, or (hopefully) he will raise. If he raises then he makes it 2 bets for anybody else to play which means that you may now lose some players.

My conclusion is therefore that you want to remove some opponents from the hand and the only way you can stand a chance of doing this is by making it 2 bets for them to call. You can't do this yourself so the only way is to bet into the raiser and hope he raises you.

Apologies if I have misunderstood anything, as I say, I have never played limit poker.