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Fat Turkey posted:To fold hands that beat us, per chance? Not to give overcards a very cheap draw to the river? I'm with the Turk on this one. I wouldn't call the flop with that many people in without a strong read-- there are people out there who think you have to c-bet if you raised, no matter how ugly the flop-- but I the turn play is the only way to do it here. You're not getting a third barrel out of most people if they don't improve, so smoothcalling to get another bet at the river (if you're ahead) is a bad idea. I'm thinking the vast majority of the time you call and end up facing a river bet, you're well behind. Therefore, calling just gets you what's in the pot now. If that's what you're looking at, a raise here gives you the best chance to win the same amount that you stand to get a shot at if you flat call. And for the record, I've found that even some total mouthbreathers are capable of folding a decent pair with two aces on the board if they don't have one of them.
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Feb 14, 2007 17:02
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Fat Turkey posted:This is why blah might be right in it being some sort of thinly veiled brag. If it is, it is veiled from me. But this is one of the only hands where I just felt...I knew what he had and how he'd play it. That was my factor in calling. As I said it's probably wrong. Before I say anything: By all means, if you've got a strong enough read that all your instincts are telling you to call the flop, go with it. You've gotta trust your gut if your gut is generally reliable. That's what reads are about; they make profitable plays out of situations that might not typically be profitable. That said, it's a matter of a c-bet in a protected pot. He raised and got three calls, two of which have position on him. One checked in front, which means little given this flop. There are two people still to act behind him and the board is devoid of draws. He could safely check a good pair hoping it checked around; a lot of people at NL50 would check through without an ace, instantly putting the raiser on AK!  Well, they'd be afraid he might have an ace, at least. If someone fires on this flop, they're likely to have one. Therefore, the raiser has a fair chance of being able to check his pair through, keeping the pot skinny for later streets and having a better chance to get to showdown cheaply, while giving himself a chance to get out if someone wakes up. If you've pegged him as weak-tight, this would be a common weak-tight play for something like TT-KK here.The fact that he hesitated and bet doesn't necessarily mean he's scared. Hesitation is a common lure online when someone has a big hand. He may be attempting to instill doubt that he has an ace so he can get paid off. Coupled with a smallish bet, it could either be true weakness or feigned. Regardless of whether it is, you have no idea what the other two people in the hand have, and with four people in a raised pot, there are very good chances there's an ace around. If you were on the button, that would leave just a single unknown commodity behind you. There, I'd call more often unless I had pegged the SB as a tricky type who likes to check-raise. If I had him pegged as straightforward, I'd generally look up the villain with the read you had if I thought he could be knocked off. Calling here does look very strong, and it's exactly what he fears if he doesn't have an ace. His repeated weak bet into a thinner field on the T screams weakness, and unless you think he's savvy enough to set that up intentionally, the push is the way to go. But that's been covered. There is one other thing that makes the flop call not so bad with a read, in my opinion. While you may only have a read on the villain, you were the first to call his raise. The other two in the hand are the button and the small blind. The button had better odds than usual to call (just shy of 2.5:1) since you coldcalled in front, and the small blind was getting 4:1 to call. That broadens their ranges considerably, which makes it less likely for them to have an ace. At the very least, the flop bet is relatively cheap, giving you a chance to call and see how the others react. I don't think the flop call is terrible. I don't think it's great, either. I would make it if my read was strong enough, and in this case yours was. Nothing wrong with that. Unless you haven't really found your happy place as far as reads go, you've gotta trust it. From what I've seen of you in goon games (which isn't exactly a huge sample size, but still), you generally have pretty sharp reads. My NLHE notes on you from Full Tilt read: "Usually a fairly strong reader. Some limit-player holes in fundamentals. Can play the sheriff at the river, especially with hands like A-hi on double-paired boards." (Well, that's what my shorthand notes translate to, anyway. Granted, I haven't played with you since early last GSOP season. I imagine you've gotten better (although for what it's worth, I had you color-coded as pretty dangerous) since you've been playing NL full time for a while now. Regardless of how far you've progressed now, if you had asked six months ago what to do here, I'd have told you to trust your gut based on how it had served you while I was at the table. (Granted, my read of you is based on a woefully short sample size.  ) So, in short, if you tally things up and it looks like you'd be making a small mistake according to the book, but a read pulls you the other way, go for it if the price is decent. You can afford to make a call like this on the flop, when it's cheap. Your read changes the whole EV equation, and if it turns out to be a mistake to call the flop and you have to fold the turn, you didn't lost much. To review, this is a bad flop call by the book, but reads have the power to trump the book in my opinion. Hopefully I haven't set myself up for some crazy nth-level-thinking battles in the future by divulging the notes I had on you. (That's not all of them, at least.) 
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Feb 16, 2007 17:35
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blah_blah posted:Board is very dry and they don't need to fold very often for him to win bux. Also given stack sizes call pf is very -EV if he doesn't win some of the time that he doesn't flop sets. What? He's got a 137BB stack and one of the callers has him covered, not to mention the other two in the pot. The 20BB stack is negligible, but there's a 69BB stack likely to be in the mix, too. There's more than enough behind for this to be reasonable. Even if you expect a flop push from the CO, he'll be short enough that it might not scare everyone off, and betting out the flop makes it far less likely he'll get involved. That said, I'm all for taking down some pots without a set. This is a perfectly reasonable flop for a probe. I'd usually bet more like 6 if I thought about it, to potentially save some money and leave the pot v. stack left behind at a slightly more awkward level for the villain-- some people around this level really hate to overbet, so they'll try to make silly bets to get more in on two different streets, which is an alarm bell. I'm not saying it'll work often, but it makes things slightly rockier for the villain. Given the read, I doubt he has much of a problem overbetting. Honestly, though, I'd probably just see the CO had 7.50 left behind and bet that automatically if I was going to bet at all. You can't fire this turn. He only has a PSB behind, so betting anything will lead to a push if he's going to play, and you'll be getting huge odds to call even when you're normally dead. By the river, this positively reeks of a busted draw. He could have been playing A5 and you're wrecked, sure, but there's not much else here to be afraid of, unless he's clueless at the river. Pushing with a queen will only net him a call when he's beaten. He's either trying to buy it, or he's desperate to get paid. The way he played this, is looks like a clear bluff. If he was making a value bet, he wouldn't be pushing. You bet the flop and shut down after you got called. There's absolutely no reason for him to believe you'd call a push here unless he's got a read that large bets make you suspicious and you like to snap off bluffs. You might run into the odd two pair (probably only Q8, really) or straight here on occasion, but not nearly enough to make this river a fold, in my opinion. You have have a read. Use it. He's trying to buy this one most of the time.
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Mar 22, 2007 16:44
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crackstar posted:Is 6 the bet you would make if you had a Q, a set, or when semi-bluffing with 2 hearts or 45? The typical bet I would make with one of those hands on this flop would be between 3/4 and full pot. I don't usually vary my bet size according to what I hold, but according to how coordinated the flop is unless I have a specific reason to do otherwise. If you're adjusting do to the weird stack sizes in order to make the pot the size you want then that's fine, but betting different amounts with bluffs, semi bluffs and made hands is bad. I would make the same bet with a wide variety of hands. It's not about what I'm holding; it's about the situation. This is a probe, not a continuation. This is a hand that you can't play without definition. Checking tells you nothing, and is highly likely to lead to the CO pushing for his remaining 7.50 anyway if it gets to him and no one has shown interest. On the other hand, betting out limits everyone's range. The CO has no fold equity on any reasonable bet made here, so he'll generally get out of the way-- or, if he's as bad as advertised, push anyway with unpaired broadways or other weak holdings. Everyone else knows that, so they know you've got something. Their reaction is how you gauge your hand. Trying to make the pot an awkward size in relation to the probable stack sizes behind puts them in a trickier spot, letting you get a better feel for their reaction. I prefer smaller probe sizes because it tells you more, in my experience. This is largely a bet for information. If they smoothcall a smallish bet, most of the time they're not very strong. If they raise it, you know to get out now (or see if they're willing to go all-in when you probe with something like a set). If they fold to bets like this frequently, it's easily exploitable. Etc, etc. blah_blah posted:Didn't notice button, sorry. That makes the flop donk a lot shakier. Note that betting 7.50 on the flop is pretty strong since it precisely puts CO ai. I figured you'd missed something there. As for probing the flop here, this is just a matter of whether you want to play the hand at all or whether you're just in it for set value. If you want to play for set value, fine. Check-fold. End of problem. If you're willing to play a mid pair without hitting the board or flopping an overpair, this is a good flop for it. A bet on the flop is required if you're going to play this hand. I'm not saying you have to play it; playing mid pairs always takes some post-flop acumen, and doing it out of position is trickier. If you're not comfortable doing it, don't. If you are comfortable doing it, you'd better be comfortable betting this flop, because otherwise you have no idea where you are which just aggrevates the fact that you're out of position. Like I said, due to stack size and position, the CO is likely to push if it checks to him; there's only one guy behind, the pot is larger than his preflop stack was, and he has less than a PSB remaining. It's a good spot to take a shot. The button might know this and call light, particularly if the CO is a lousy player, as per the read. Overall, that doesn't necessarily narrow the button's range for you; he could have hit something. He could be drawing (as he'd be getting outstanding odds, paying 7.5 to see a pot of 18.25 to the river-- close to 2.5:1, when a heart draw is 1.8:1 to hit, and it anyone check-calls, it just makes his odds better and he still has position, likely to get a free card), and he may even just have a good ace and figure it's good enough against the CO's range. With the action in front, though, you've got little chance to improve and should let it go, when being more aggressive on the flop would give you the chance to take the initiative and change the entire line of the hand. If you're just in it for some set mining, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you're looking to get some value out of this hand otherwise, you're going to have a hard time doing it if you don't bet this flop. Edit: That said, given toybux's mention of his "terminal downswing", this certainly isn't the type of hand you want to dance with if your confidence is shaken. Keep it simple and setmine if you're downswinging; it's too tempting to go farther and farther if you're gradually tilting from a downswing. If you're not on an even keel with your game, then don't get involved. AmnesiaLab fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Mar 23, 2007 |
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Mar 23, 2007 07:01
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I don't like your river push here at all, barring a specific read. If the guy is suspicious of big river bets and likes to snap off what he thinks is a bluff, I can see it. Otherwise, you're losing value here most of the time, and setting yourself up for a big loss when you're behind. Given how it was played, a river bet is in order; I just don't like it being a push. You're going to get paid much more often here with a smaller bet. The way the villain played it, he's planning to check-call any reasonable bet on the river. He bet the flop, got raised, called, checked the turn, and checked the river. You could easily be on a draw, and he probably has a hand that he can't bet at the river. He's looking to snap off your bluff. You have him pegged as a decent player, so you've gotta give him this much credit. Some people are more likely to call a push here. If that's what your read was and you were using that, bravo. If not, well, it worked out this time. In the long run, making a more callable bet will get your opponent to call more often with less. That said, always watch and take notes on the willingness of an opponent to snap off a bluff. I generally have a line of notes for A) what he called with as a bluff catcher and B) how big the bet was in relation to the pot. This, of course, applies to any call that was clearly made as a bluff catcher, whether his opponent was bluffing or not. This kind of info comes up huge on the river.
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Mar 26, 2007 15:51
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The size of the pot in relation to the stack behind makes a pot-sized bet fairly silly. Anything from a little over half the pot to a push becomes moot with what's in here. Still, you could do it just to see if you get a call out of curiosity or confusion. At this level, though, it's unlikely to matter much. The way the hand was played, half or an overbet is the only thing that makes sense, and a half-pot bet (or thereabouts, anyway) is most likely to get called. Whether it'll get called while ahead often enough to be a better EV move than a push is dependent on your opponents tendencies and your play. Like I said, I favor the smaller bet by default, but with a read, the push can clearly be better. Even without one, it's not necessarily a terrible play. I just think you're losing some value here when you're good, given the circumstances. He's gotta be pretty confident you're bluffing to try to pick you off here, as far as the odds you're offering him. You give him 3:1, and he's calling regularly. I don't know what it is, but it seems like most solid players online have something against any bet that isn't at least two thirds of the pot. In high stakes live games, smaller bets (not minbets, or anything) are much, much more common, and don't seem to have this automatic stigma about them. Just an observation. Edit: Loveboat posted:Part of it because you can have a bigger bluff-frequency the bigger bets you make. Half-pot bluffs work often enough in high stakes live games. AmnesiaLab fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Mar 28, 2007 |
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Mar 27, 2007 17:02
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Call. With that much behind on a paired board without even the nut flush, shoving is potentially big trouble. I'd take what's in the pot and be happy with it. There's no guarantee a smaller flush will call the shove, anyway.
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Mar 29, 2007 10:36
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dontpanic posted:Is hand reading just something that comes with lots of experience? I started using an HUD, and I printed out a long hand reading guide from 2+2 to read this weekend. To an extent. Hand reading will come with experience if you're actively trying to understand the motivations of their plays and put them on a hand. If you don't bother trying to figure out their hands, you can gain a lot of experience and still be a lovely reader. Make sure you're really trying to get a feel for their range and possible holdings all the time and you'll get better. Also, could you link that hand reading guide? I'd like to see what they say over there.
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Feb 1, 2008 12:02
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Live home game, but a fairly big one with mostly decent (but not great) players. It's essentially 200 NL. Blinds are 1/2. My stack is about 350, villain has probably 300. Villain routinely minraises in late position and fires a PSB as a c-bet almost all the time if it's heads up. I've called in blind defense a few times given the odds, but I've only put a move on him once thus far. I have a reputation as a dangerous player at this particular game, but the villain is new and probably hasn't heard much about me. My table image from the session is semi-tight aggressive. I've shown down a couple of hands no one expected me to have, but I haven't been in enough pots to really be pegged as fully loose. Villain is in the cutoff and minraises, as per standard. It folds to me and I look down at 2d2h and call. With $9 in the pot, the flop comes Ac2c7h. I check, villain bets $9, and I call. With $27 in the pot, the turn comes 7d. I check again, and the villain bets $20. I check-raise to $80, and the villain folds. This is obviously an extraction issue. My hand is nowhere near bulletproof; if he has an ace and another ace or seven hits, I go from killing him to sunk. If I check-call the turn and another club hits, it'll likely freeze my action. The guy has seemed paranoid of flushes (which probably explains why he has a fetish for betting the pot). The villain has been playing tight preflop, clearly altering his requirements by position, but his postflop play is weak. He was up to $500 at one point, mostly from a big set vs. set, but then he ended up shipping 100 BBs to a new guy at the table with TPTK. He has no real concept of pot control. The more I think about it, though, the more I think I picked the wrong spot to raise him. The seven pairing the board on the turn is scary for him if he has an ace. And while a club on the river would freeze my action, check-calling the turn and then leading a non-club river might look enough to him like I was drawing and now trying to steal that I'll get a call. (Nevermind the fact that I wouldn't be likely to actually chase a flush draw out of position for such big bets against a guy unlikely to pay off to justify my calls, but again, he's new and we've never seen each other before tonight.) There's also the chance he's drawing to the flush, and my check-raise on the turn was big enough to blast him off that draw unnecessarily, since I very much want him to catch his flush if that's what he's going after. The way he plays, though, a flush draw is highly unlikely. Anyway, what line would you take here? A check-call on the turn risks losing the hand to a bad card, but I was already risking that by checking when I couldn't be sure he would bet, and my read on the guy says his most likely hand is a middling ace here. I've seen him go too far with one pair before, and I want him to do it again. I think the check-raise was too much. If I just called and the river came an ace or a seven, I could have gotten off the hand without much damage, so it's not like I'm really risking getting stacked. If he does have the odd flush draw, I make much more when he gets there on the river and feeds my full house. Normally, I think there's a chance he calls my check-raise on the turn with a naked ace, but the 7 was a bad card to get him to call a check-raise on. I was hoping he might think it was a bluff (I have shown one bluff, maybe an hour and a half earlier) and call, or have enough to look me up. He didn't. So, what do you think? I'm not overly happy with how this hand played out. The more I thought about it afterward, the more it bothered me.
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Mar 22, 2010 20:57
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Yeah, my big problem was not taking enough time to think it through on the flop. I was hesitant to check-raise there because I'd seen him ditch his c-bets almost all the time on the flop to a check-raise. (Again, the guy was bad.) I'd also seen him overplay top pair on multiple occasions. I got the feel that he had extremely little experience playing deep-stack poker. He seemed to know just enough about poker to lose money and be highly exploitable, and I was just getting greedy going for it all. Those occasions when he wasn't check-raised on the flop, he nearly always bet out on the turn as well (even with small-pot hands) and got way too many chips in. I figured if he had nothing, I'd earn more this way (although I think just check/calling the turn and leading a river brick hoping he put me on a busted flush would probably be better if I'm just gonna rope-a-dope him), but against any real hand, yeah, I think the check-raise on the flop and lead from there is pretty clearly the way to go. The guy was more of a bettor than a caller, but if he had top pair, I might have been able to coax a call all the way to the river. Playing for better expectation against air is pretty goddamn retarded since there's a hard cap on what you're ever gonna get, and changing my line because of the 7 on the turn completely killed it. Blah. I'm rusty as all hell in NL cash, and I'm fresh back into poker after about a year (maybe more?) off since I decided to invest most of my bankroll into a high-risk, high-reward startup that went tits up. I'm a much better tourney player than cash, honestly, although I make up for it in live cash games by being a good people-reader. My reads in online cash games have never been where I wanted them to be, but a big part of that is experience. (The other, obviously, being worse players in live games. I was a slight winner at NL100 online, and a slight loser when I briefly moved up to NL200. Sample size and all, but I found myself in too many post-flop situations where I just lost the thread of the hand, so I moved back down.) I'm gonna check out Harrington on Cash Games and maybe give online NL cash another whirl. I hear good things about it. I just don't exercise my ring game skillset nearly as much as my tourney game, and it shows.
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Mar 23, 2010 09:23
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Newf posted:25 NL Rush. Dude, small hand, small pot. Big hand, big pot. Seriously. I've gotta disagree with Ranma here. I've got some experience at NL25 full ring, and you're not going to get anywhere near the retard equity you think you do. Know why? Because you're the retard at the table. No offense intended, honestly, but someone has to tell you. The way you're playing shows you just haven't adjusted to deep-stack poker. You're overplaying top pair and you're going to get loving crushed if you keep doing it. Let me guess... you make some of these moves, get some raises and a really dry board, and think, "But, I've got TPTK! (Or whatever.) He would have to have this, this, or this to have me beat here! That's bullshit!" So you call, and you take it all the way to the felt, and sure enough, he shows you that you were crushed the whole time and you don't understand how people keep doing this to you. Just because it's NL25 doesn't mean everyone are habitual bluffers. You'll spot those types if they show up pretty quickly. Don't be afraid to let them bluff you off a hand on occasion, because if you're going all the way to showdown with top pair regularly, you're losing your stack regularly. You are the exact player I look to play with. When I sit down at a table and see your play, you are my target. It is insanely easy to win money from players who can't get off top pair, and it's one of the most common notes I put on people, along with a color code. So yeah, upon review, your loss at NL25 is not a downswing. You need to develop the skillset to play deep stack poker. It's a different animal. What do you normally play? Where did you start? SnGs, lower ring games, MTTs? Just wanna know where you're coming from here. I'm not saying you CAN'T play NL25 ring. I'm just saying you have to learn first. If you wanna send me a PM, I'd be willing to talk some things over with you. AmnesiaLab fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Mar 28, 2010 |
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Mar 28, 2010 14:48
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Ranma posted:I recently sat down, villain seemed to be in a lot of pots but really its been like 10 hands so nothing solid. I agree with a c-bet on the flop here. Checking behind with jacks in this spot sets you up for confusion later in the hand. You 3-bet pre, so c-bet post. That'll give you the information you need for clearer decisions later in the hand. Holy double post, Batman!
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Mar 28, 2010 15:08
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Ranma posted:What better hand folds / worse hand calls a continuation bet on this board? Also, there is a non zero chance that something gross like a check/minraise or check/larger raise happens here, which would be a very profitable play if I'm cbetting 100% of my range on this board. I check back TT+ and AQ occasionally on this board as a standard. Checking behind this flop leaves you totally in the dark. I want to find out where I am now. This is four-handed. This hand is in a vacuum; neither of you know anything about each other because he's new to the table. He may start out by giving you more credit than he normally would. And who cares what worse hands call here? This is a flop c-bet against an unknown. You have no idea what he'll float with. There's just not much point making a guess with no info. Some people will float you all day long, some float with any piece of the flop they grabbed with their suited connectors, and some won't even call with QQ. You have no idea what this guy plays like. You're talking like he'll be super suspicious, but if that's the case, he makes some calls while behind. Then you talk like he'll be super-aggressive, smelling weakness, or like he'll check-raise here regularly just to test you. You're as much of an unknown to him as he is to you, so many players are going to be straightforward here. With such a shaky hand, I'm just happy to take the pot down now. You can't confidently expect to outplay your opponent even in position with no significant read on him and a hand that doesn't give you any confidence. The whole situation is murky. If you check behind, you've got no idea what's a bluff and what's a value bet because you have no experience with the villain. I would rather just go ahead and define my hand here than have him betting at me with no information. If you bet the flop and he calls, he'll probably check to you since you led, anyway, which means you can check behind the turn for pot control and fish for a free jack if you get called. I wouldn't lean towards barreling just because you have no read whatsoever. When it comes down to it, there just isn't much reason to play anything but straightforward on this hand because you're doing everything in the dark. If you use this hand to pick up information, you can file it away for later and have a better idea what to do next time. I don't like getting in tough situations with a complete unknown. Some people make bets like that only on a bluff, while others do it with value hands hoping to get called because it LOOKS like a bluff. With both of you new at the table, it could go either way. The PSB on the turn could easily be a real hand trying to protect against the draws, and the PSB at the river could be a value bet attempting to maximize EV because you already called a PSB on the previous street. You may have made a hero call that worked out here-- I dunno what actually happened in the hand-- but most of the time, I think this falls more into the super-spew zone without a read. With a read, that's a whole different story, but this position sucks when you're flying blind, and I'm glad to end the hand as quickly as possible. AmnesiaLab fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Mar 30, 2010 |
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Mar 30, 2010 09:29
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Spasms posted:http://weaktight.com/3150438 Personally, I'd have raised the flop, partially for range-narrowing purposes and partially just because we've got a strong but vulnerable hand. Yeah, he's aggressive enough that you might get a second barrel from him if you don't, but that's going to build a big pot with a hand that can't necessarily stand that much heat, and it's gonna make for tougher decisions here. That said, I think you're right to weigh him heavily toward QQ. That turn bet looks like he's trying to protect his hand from that wet board and also trying to build the pot to a size where he has some chance of getting you all in with a monster. Backing into a set with 33 is certainly possible, as well as the far less likely 55 and 66 with one combination each. There aren't many straight draws in his range (78, basically), but 7d8d or 7c8c for a combo draw could be possible. With a naked OESD, I doubt he'd be overbetting the turn. Almost any time I see a turn bet like this, it's a made hand. At the river, though, I think this is a clear fold. He had you beat probably the whole way. I doubt the 9h is a factor. It's not a scare card; it completes one possible straight draw, yes, but it's not an obvious card to bluff at like, say, the 7c would have been. In order for you to be ahead by this river, he has to either be three-barrel bluffing you for 300bb, or he has to be capable of putting 300bb in the pot with one pair (barring the highly unlikely 53 or 63 for a weaker two pair that you actually beat. If he really did have something like TPTK, I don't see him making an overbet at the river after he made an overbet for protection and value on the turn. You've shown some willingness to call an overbet on the previous street, and if he's sitting there with one pair, he has to be at least somewhat concerned. A river bet of over 200bb just isn't getting called by anything that TPTK beats. Same goes for an overpair. I don't really see him betting anything you're ahead of for value. As for the chance he's bluffing, it doesn't look like a good spot. You've shown strength throughout the hand, calling an overbet on the turn. That's practically an announcement that you have a strong made hand. You're clearly not drawing, which means he's not betting with air to prevent a busted draw a chance from bluffing at the pot. The river isn't intimidating to trigger a bluff in a vacuum. This looks to me like a major hand that's happy to see his opponent apparently willing to pay him off. Getting 1.7 to 1 or so, I just don't see you being good at this river anywhere near enough to merit making a call without a strong specific read on the villain. Sorry if this is rambling and/or retarded. I'm barely awake at the moment.
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Jan 25, 2011 09:44
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$1/$2 live NL game. Table has a full ten players, lots of action and bad players. Extraction question. Villain is in the big blind with a stack of ~$400. He's a human tell-box. When he gets a good hand that isn't the nuts, he gets excited, but nervous, and his breathing gets deep and speeds up. He tries not to draw attention to himself, and it's not absolutely blatant, but I was able to spot it easily clear across the table from him, though everyone else seemed oblivious-- which isn't abnormal at 1/2 live, but this guy literally has some of the most obvious unintentional tells I've ever seen. Also, when he has the nuts, his breathing is similar, but he also gets the classic shaky hands tell. I've spotted and confirmed this over time. It's worth noting that when he's got a big hand (which, from what I've seen, can mean something as small as two pair, but overpairs don't trigger his tell), he CAN fold if his "big" hand is on the bottom end of big and he's convinced he's sunk. I have seen it happen once. But mostly, he's interested in action. So. Yeah. 1/2 NL BB: Villain, Semi-tight/vaguely leaning toward aggressive-- ~$500 MP1: Loose/Passive crazy Asian lady-- ~$250 MP2: Bad LAG-type who has lost close to two grand already-- ~$200 HJ: Loose/slightly passive-- ~$850 CO: Your dashing hero!-- ~$200 (Just sat down maybe 20 minutes ago.) BN: Old dude who likes to piss away money because he has too much: ~900 SB: Weak-tight Asian dude-- folded KK preflop to a 4BAI from the villain earlier (Villain showed AKs, beeteedubs.)-- ~$400 MP1 limps, MP2 limps, HJ comes along. I call w/A  T , not wanting to build a big multiway pot with a hand that sucks multiway, because all these fuckers would call unless I raised to at least $25, in which case I'd probably get three callers. BN limps, SB completes, Villain checks. Pot is $11 if I'm not mistaken, due to rake and jackpot. Flop comes K  J 5BB bets $5, MP1 folds, MP2 folds, HJ calls, I call with my gutter for implied odds purposes, BN folds, SB folds. Turn: Q Pot ~ $25BB looks at the flop, starts his breathing tell, and checks. Q definitely improved him, but I just hit the nuts. It checks around to me and I bet $20. Villain check-raises to $50, with no shaky hands. Big, but non-nut. (Not that it would matter; we'd just chop, anyway. But this means he's got something he thinks is pretty good, but he might still be able to fold, even though I've only seen that happen once.) My remaining stack is something to the tune of $175, which would represent a very large raise by this table's standards. What do you think is the best line for getting paid here?
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Feb 25, 2011 01:13
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jeffersonlives posted:Easy shove. If he has a hand like AQ or KT he's more likely to talk himself into a call on the turn under the "I have a pair and a (dead to a chop) draw, how can I fold!" line of bad player logic. And nobody at 1/2 is ever folding two pair here for 100 BB stacks. I know most of the players at the table and how they play, and I've tried a lot of different plays in situations like this, because they happen all the time (preflop, I mean). I'd raise with 78s here before ATo, knowing who's at the table. Raising hands that suck multiway against this field has never worked out well. I'd attack limpers with it at most tables, especially with position, but I didn't feel like it would give me a workable postflop situation often enough here. Then again, we had several people fold to a $5 bet on the flop, which was highly abnormal. Regardless, I shoved and he tanked and finally called, showing Q5. River was a king and I held up. Just wanted to get some takes on it. With the physical reads involved, I knew he had a redraw that I had to charge him for, and if he slipped the hook, oh well. Didn't see any way he was showing up with a flush draw without K J, which he would have been excited about earlier, or T9. He would have been showing his tell with a set on the flop, too, and a set of queens didn't make sense because he would always have raised preflop like that. I figured his most likely hands were KQ, QJ, Q5, or T9. I had to consider sets or KJ still in his range theoretically, but less likely for the reasons I mentioned. (Of course, there was always the chance that he had managed to control himself on the river and just couldn't maintain it any longer, but since he has no idea he has such major tells, I doubt that. It's been one of the most reliable tells I've ever seen, and I'm fairly stunned even 1/2 players fail to notice it.) I didn't really see him betting into that field on the flop with T9, though, so two pair seemed the heaviest part of his range, and coincidentally, the most likely for him to get away from.Really, I only took about 20 seconds before deciding to shove, but when I had a good feel for his range, I figured I had to push to avoid a card freezing the action. Too many cards could make two pair very nervous. If I called and the river bricked, he'd shove, but any spade would limit what I could extract and any board pair that didn't hit him would have led him to check/fold the river in the event he got counterfeited or didn't have at least a king. The main thing I've been going over in my head is what if he makes this move without showing his magic bullet tell? If he made the check-raise and wasn't showing his tell, I would probably have a harder decision. He could pull that with a decent king and fold to a 3-bet, but it's also possible he'd make a play like that if he picked up a flush draw. Then I'm split between shoving to take the pot down on the turn-- he would almost never call in that situation; I would guess he would need something like Q5 (if that didn't trigger tellbox mode; I wasn't sure, but since that's what he had, it apparently would), or the K and a flush draw, but since I have the A, the Q is accounted for, and the J would kick in tellbox mode, the only hands I could see a call with would be KT, which has three outs to chop and eight to win, or possibly K9-- or flatting the turn to see if I get another bet at a blank river. Flatting would leave me with a stack just about perfectly the size of the pot, and he'd be pretty likely to bet about half the pot and make a crying call if I raised at the river and he had 3:1 to call. He's also capable of bluffing a busted draw at the river after showing that much strength, but I've picked him off so many times when he's tried it that he doesn't try it against me anymore. (If he goes all-in and doesn't have his OMG HERE COMES MONEY tell going, it's easy to snap him off. I'm pretty sure I'm the guy's bogeyman.) Also, it'll be obvious to me when he has the flush-- or at least one good enough to bet-- at the river if he wasn't in tellbox mode at the turn, so flatting sacrifices equity by giving a draw a chance to crack the nuts, but I have nothing to lose from a reverse implied odds standpoint because I'm never calling when he has it at the river. If he started freaking when a spade hit, there's no way it's less than a flush because he loves suited cards and flushes and is wary of possible flushes when he has less than a flush. Hrm. The more I talk it out, the more it looks like this is just an EV problem. I suppose I should just bust out the calculator and get to work. Sorry. I'm a long-winded bastard when I get in analysis mode. I usually talk it out with one of my live crew, but they weren't available. AmnesiaLab fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Feb 25, 2011 |
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Feb 25, 2011 12:37
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Bugger. Double post. Well, here's a response to TheKevman and ZeroStar, then.TheKevman posted:I'm fine with your limp-raise attempt preflop with the CO raising like clockwork. Granted, I'm also a big fan of limping in games like this. I frankly think limping has a bad name mainly because a lot of lovely players don't know how to work it into a functional strategy. I know it's unpopular, but I've started limping more and more often since the poker world has started limping less and less, for a number of reasons. For one, it makes people unfamiliar with you think you're a fish, which is always a good thing. Limping fairly regularly will seem so bad to them that it'll take a while before they realize you're actually playing well postflop and start to get you credit. On top of that, I love to limp with hands I would normally raise when I have an aggressive table with people who like to raise behind me. I know they'll build the pot for me while I keep the strength of my hand disguised, and it doesn't let people force me off a hand at the lower end of my range by three-betting. Also, it just makes some middling hands more playable, because you're not forcing out hands that you dominate, and it lets you play a LAG game that confuses the poo poo out of most opponents and leads to some major payoffs. But really, it seems like the only people who think limping fairly often can be a good strategic play are me and Ted Forrest. Granted, to work well with a strategy like that, you have to be pretty confident postflop, and good hand reading skills are a huge perk. If you're still developing, focus on a fundamental and basic game first, and then start experimenting. ABC poker wins pretty easily at 1/2, generally speaking. You can increase you winrate by adapting to the game, but you need a baseline first. Still, even with that, I like a limp-raise attempt here, partially because you may get some more limpers in the pot between you and the CO which you can then 3-bet out of the hand, and just because the CO is going to call with inferior hands regularly. With that many limpers at $5 a pop, though, I'd just go ahead and shove if he does raise. You'll have a lot of overlay in the pot, and that may tempt him to call while you've got an almost sure favorite. Regardless, you're adapting to your table and adapting to the players around you, and that's the important part. Bear in mind that a lot of plays that will maximize your winrate in live 1/2 games will completely gently caress you if you try them online. The two just don't play the same. I don't limp much at all online, but live, it's a regular weapon. Also, keep a spreadsheet to track your progress and a notebook to log reads and hands in. Scan your notes before you go to the game to keep everything fresh if you don't already. And really, sitting to the direct right of the cutoff isn't a bad thing. You know what he's going to do most of the time, so you wanna see the other players' reactions to it before you make a decision, because their response to him is gonna matter a lot more than watching him make the same move over and over before your act. Every player at the table who doesn't suck is gonna be trying to trap him, and if you've got a multiway pot, seeing whether someone is gonna check-raise or something before it gets back to you is very valuable information. That's a great time to work some limping into your game: limp with hands you would normally raise if you're to his direct right and let him raise them (and even c-bet them) for you if he's that reliable. Everyone bemoans the passivity of limping, but the fact is, there are some players against whom passive play turns out to be the most profitable. I don't want to get into a direct war with a maniac, forcing him to adjust his lovely play because I keep playing back at him. That can make them back down and start to play better. But it's amazing how many times you can trap them before they start to realize that you check-calling them doesn't necessarily mean weakness after all, and you're just exploiting their game. ZeroStar posted:No point in limping preflop because the crazy fish CO is just going to call your raise every time, whereas if you limp he won't always raise and you will get more people in the pot as opposed to raising. Gotta disagree here. Most of the reason TO limp raise is because the CO is going to call it almost every time. Enough limpers following first may trap him in, and with the CO left to act behind, you're highly unlikely to get anyone who limped calling a limp-shove with a low pair, because the presence of the CO means they're unlikely to get a heads up race. That, and limp-raising UTG makes most people immediately assume you have AA. In the event that things play out like they did and you get a limper cascade that the CO fails to raise, that's fine, because we've got AKs, which plays well multiway.
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Feb 25, 2011 13:21
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Live 1/2 again. Villian is a very good LAG player. Fair amount of history between us. He normally tends to be very talkative to coax people into calling when he has it, but I've occasionally seen him get chatty while bluffing. Several hands ago, he tried to three-barrel and got very silent in the process. Stared me down after a $200 river bet, etc. I asked him why he was so quiet all of a sudden and he just stared at me. I asked if he would show if I folded, he said no, and I immediately called with an underpair against his ace-high. He plays a wide array of hands and can show up with just about anything at any time. He bluffs a lot and can get hyper-aggressive and he'll definitely make some questionable moves at times, but he usually has very good instincts about what he can and can't pull off, and he's easily one of the biggest winning players at the card room. Villain: UTG, ~$1000 CO: Fairly clueless, semi-loose, mostly passive, ~$200 Me: BB, ~ $700 This is late at night, and the table is down to 6-handed play. Villian raises UTG to $12, CO calls, everyone else folds. I pick up A K and reraise to $30. UTG calls, CO folds.Flop comes 864r. I c-bet $45 into a pot just shy of 70 after rake. He sits there a second and calls. Turn comes a 5, no flush draws. I check and he checks behind. Pot is about $160. River is another 6, and I check. I know he'll bluff at this river a fair percentage of the time, but with a flop this coordinated and his potential to show up with such a wide range here, there's a lot he could try betting for value as well, since there are very few sevens in my range at this point-- although considering how bluffy he can be, I wouldn't be above trapping with one, and he knows it. He bets $125 and starts getting chatty. Normally this means he's got it and he's trying to talk me into calling, but there's enough history between us that metagame comes into play and I'm cursing my big loving mouth for pointing out how quiet he got while bluffing. Our line has shown weakness he's likely to fire at. What's your move at this river?
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Mar 1, 2011 12:33
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waar posted:sdkjfkjsdfhksdfnskdfns This has nothing to do with whether he would actually show if I folded. It's just standard table talk, probing for information. What he said didn't matter nearly so much as how he said it. He stared me down and gave me an uber-serious "No". When I heard his response, I knew he was bluffing 90% of the time and called. jeffersonlives posted:Q: What hand exactly could that dude have that would call the flop, check behind the turn, and not have you beat on the river? I know this guy can easily float with little to nothing. I still couldn't find a reasonable call here, though. Considering our history, he's capable of making a thin value bet here with a pair and trying to maneuver me into making a hero call. He could have been betting too many things that beat me (considering I'm sitting on AK UI), and even given the likelihood he could be bluffing, I didn't think I'd be good often enough at those odds to call. I basically surrendered the hand when I checked the river, and I couldn't find a good enough reason to take that back and try to snap off a bluff. Naturally, I folded and he showed Q J, which stuck with me enough to post this hand and see if anyone could justify a call here.
AmnesiaLab fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Mar 2, 2011 |
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Mar 2, 2011 04:41
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Hahaha... yeah, well. I should have specifically stated, he's good POST flop, but tends to make some questionable moves preflop because he's basically cocky and thinks he can outplay anyone. Which, considering the field up there, is generally the case. Not that he's mistake-free postflop, but he makes a lot of loose calls, raises, and 3-bets pre, but he's usually good enough post-flop to get himself out of bad situations.
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Mar 2, 2011 05:22
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Yeah, I was pretty shocked he didn't take a stab at that turn. I pegged him for having a small piece and trying to get a hero call out of me the way it was played. The whole hand was weird, although I wasn't shocked he called a 3-bet with QJo. I've seen him call a three-bet up there with hands as weak as K8s. Granted, I'd also 3-bet him several times that session, and I have shown down hands 3-betting him light before, but always when in position. I'm sure he was planning on trying to bluff me off the hand, but I don't know what the hell he was thinking with a check behind on the turn. Edit: Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think he may have checked back the turn just because it would make the river look less like a bluff. AmnesiaLab fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Mar 2, 2011 |
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Mar 2, 2011 05:36
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Dr. Eat posted:At the time my thought process was he was a nit whose showdown range was like 1st nuts/2nd nuts/3rd nuts. If he has AJ/QJ/JT it was for value and villain would call me down on the turn and river. These two sentences do not remotely match up. If he's not going to showdown without a near-nut hand, you're way, way behind. Dr. Eat posted:Looking back on it I'm sure my kings were good and I should've jammed immediately after he called the clock and raised me so fast but I didn't feel comfortable being in a 1000bb pot with just an overpair and no draws. if he has a set and I had shown I was going to bet all 3 streets wouldn't he want to just call the turn and save the big raise for the river for max value? Not at all. You bet and called a raise on the flop, and then bet into the raiser again on the turn. That would seem to indicate you're happy building a big pot, (and it's generally a highly questionable move in the first place, so he's probably basing part of his decision off that, too) and this is a drawy board. Even if the villain is strong enough that he's not overly worried about you sucking out, there are a lot of cards that could kill the action here. What if a card hits that completes the flush and puts a four-straight on the board? He's not likely to get his monster paid in that case, so he's looking to get it in now. I'm baffled as to why you're so convinced you were ahead here. Everything you've said about his play indicates the opposite. Dr. Eat posted:Should I just not have been playing so deep and gone home? The deepest I've ever been is like 300bb. I was happy to have a big stack when there were a lot of drunk fish there but by like 11am everyone was solid and it was pretty expensive learning experience. Ended up leaving only up 100 bucks. Yes. Poker gets trickier the deeper you are. Stack level changes the nature of the game, and mistakes can be magnified. You had a great table to stack up to that point, but the drunken fish dried up and you had no experience playing this deep. Call it a night, get some rest, and come back for the tourney. You'll play better in the tourney if you're not on the end of a major session, anyway. Really, though, I would suggest you cash out when you get this deep in the future, because your play here looks a little lost. MassRayPer posted:Holy poo poo did "a thing" start because of my loving post. Jefferson isn't even wrong in his analysis, it just reminded me of how many hilariously stupid things 1/2 casino players will do that may resemble higher level play if you take them out of context. Nobody in that situation was coming with nothing, he's completely correct. Yeah, I didn't think there's any world where I can make a call there and not be setting money on fire. Just posting to make sure of that. But like I said in my initial post, this guy can absolutely float with an eye toward stealing later. The main hole in his game is OVER-aggression. He calls all kinds of crap pre-flop and early when it's cheap and counts on fold equity to get him out of it. I thought he might be tightening up on me since I had recently called a three-barrel, but I have a feeling this whole thing played out in his head as a daring attempt to show he could still bluff me.
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Apr 1, 2011 14:22
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Yeah, shipping the flop is standard. There's really no need to get cute and pretend you're retarded and unaware of stack sizes, hoping to let him stick the rest in trying to push you out. If he's not gonna call a reraise that small in the first place, it's unlikely to matter, because few people are going to think they have any fold equity on the turn to push you out there. You're clearly committed to the hand at that point, and every indication from the villain shows that he's willing to go to the felt. May as well just get it in as soon as possible. Bear in mind, you really get the best of both worlds here. Yeah, you don't quite double up, but you come about as close as you can without doing so, and you do it without even having to risk a suckout. If he had T7 and called, he'd win the hand by the river about 17% of the time. He folds you a pot of $880 while you had about $80 behind. You win that 100% of the time. If he called with T7, you win a pot of $1040 about 83% of the time, making your expectation for a call about $863, so a call (if you're thinking two pair is the bottom of his calling range) actually makes less money here in the long run. Granted, one-pair hands are going to be in much worse shape against you, but they've still got a chance to suck out that you're completely avoiding.
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Apr 4, 2011 17:43
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Yeah. Fold all day long. This is Rush. Your calling standards have to go up when playing Rush in general. Rush is full of set miners. It would be rare enough that someone would try checkraising so small as a steal into someone who's shown so much aggression and a caller on top even if this weren't Rush. He's trying to get paid. You did the right thing in disappointing him.
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Apr 11, 2011 19:18
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Ah. I had their stack sizes backward. Regardless, I'm still folding to the 80BB stack in Rush. Everything in Rush is a bit on the nitty side. More than a bit, for most players. Assuming you don't have notes or stats indicating the guy's a complete fucktard, I'd still fold. Trying to use SPR theory in Rush is much different than presented in PNLHE; I've found all your ideal SPRs should be adjusted much lower than suggested in the book because Rush is so nitty. With this kind of SPR heads up, I'd call against a stack that size, but I still don't think your average Rush player is making this move into two guys who've shown strength without beating you.
AmnesiaLab fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Apr 11, 2011 |
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Apr 11, 2011 23:12
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Totally disagree with putting him in there. Instafold is good unless you've got a read that the guy will stack off like this with less than TPTK. Normally, this indicates huge strength. If a guy is running a bluff, he doesn't want to seem indecisive before he does it. The hesitation and debate followed by a raise is almost always a monster.
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May 5, 2011 01:58
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TheKevman posted:(...I've sat out waiting for a BB just to watch a table for a while if I'm fresh there. DOES THIS MAKE ME A NIT!?) It does give you a nitty image, one way or the other. If I'm sitting at a table where I'm an unknown to them and them to me, I prefer to buy in short and splash right in. You'll get a lot more action in general. People won't take you as seriously because you bought in short, and you're less likely to make a huge mistake playing short for lack of reads so long as you're a competent short game player. Then when you get some better reads and you've located your juicy targets (and maybe changed seats to optimize your position on the table), you just buy up to max if you haven't chipped up. But yeah. As for the hand, there's no way you fold this at live 1/2 without a very, very strong read. If you do fold it, correct or not, you're making a mistake, because most of the time you're crushing them both.
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Nov 4, 2011 10:25
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Your reasoning is all off. If he's shoving any two at that river, you should be check/calling the river, because that's got a hell of a lot more value than shoving yourself. The only thing you beat that might be bluff catching is a nine or a pocket pair. You're losing to everything else. If he'll bet any two, you need to give him the opportunity to do so. Shoving this river is setting money on fire.
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Nov 25, 2011 07:23
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VoiceOfIntuition posted:Hey guys, so I've been getting back into poker over the Christmas break and I'd like to start reviewing hands so if you guys don't mind giving a little bit of feedback on the hands I'm going to post that'd be nice: I just wanted to comment on the first hand from your other post, because no one did other than to say "fine". And really, there's not anything wrong with how you played this hand, but I'm barreling this turn and shutting down if called. Think about it for a second. He flats in the cutoff and calls a raise. You give us no info on how he plays-- PFR and whatnot-- but if he has average stats with a normal PFR range, failing to raise from the CO six-handed would weight his range to speculative hands. You see the limp/call constantly against middling to low pairs. His range includes a lot of other hands-- broadways, suitcons, rag aces-- but those are high on the list. After your flop bet, his most likely hands (guessing for normal players at these stakes) are a pair with a random club, a flush, two pair or better with no flush draw, the naked king of clubs, or a weak ace. I see people flat here all the time with the intention of taking a stab later if you show weakness. (That's admittedly less likely at these stakes, but hey.) A lot of players like to call with a club-less made hand and just check to see if they can fade a club on the turn and reevaluate. Some players are just never folding the K here. A float with a low to middling pair with a club is still very possible here; if you're c-betting without a club, they could be ahead now, or they could have a redraw if they're not. If he's aggressive, he might call with a small pair just because he recognizes the fold equity he'll pick up on any club turn. Slowplaying a flush is also possible, but if it's a flush with middling to low suited connectors, they should be raising to protect against one-card draws. If he does have a club, the turn means he now has the better hand. But look at the board. The ace, king, and jack of clubs are all accounted for. That makes a middling to low pair much more likely in his starting range. All K hands are eliminated, which means he wasn't chasing a naked 4-card nut draw. His weak aces are now probably folding even if they have a club, just because his preflop action makes big aces unlikely. Two pair is probably folding here as well, and he might fold sets depending on the bet and his nittiness level. Smallish pairs are still a big part of his range, and though anyone with a club just got there, a ton of hands that are killing you may fold to a bet. The Q and T are probably the only cards we have to worry about calling, because barreling the turn carries the threat of a river bet behind it, and really, all it takes is one card to have the nuts here and be able to bet with impunity. Any hand your opponent has that doesn't feature the Q is likely to appreciate that vulnerability.On the flip-side, checking this turn almost always means you're shutting down because you have no club. That allows the villain to just jack you with position because your calling range is ridiculously small. Well, on a board like this, his calling range is probably ridiculously small, too. Given that most of the good clubs are accounted for, I'm firing on this turn and not putting another cent into the pot if raised or called. Again, check/folding here is reasonable as well, but I prefer to barrel because there is so much in his range that folds here, but that he can turn into a bluff if you check to him because, in essence, the turn already turned everything that's NOT a flush into a bluff. So, bluff with your pair first and don't give him the chance. If it doesn't work, you're never, ever losing another cent beyond your turn bet.
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Dec 6, 2011 07:47
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VoiceOfIntuition posted:
Hand one is fine. Talking yourself into a call here is generally a tremendously bad idea. You rarely see 3-bets postflop at these stakes, and you see them as bluffs even more rarely. Usually this is a bet of "HOLY poo poo I'VE GOT HIM!" Hand two is a clear value bet. Checking here is a HUGE leak. Pots are biggest at the river, and since bets are generally made as fractions of the pot, river bets are typically the biggest bets you're going to make or call. That has a major effect on your bottom line. If you're not value betting TPTK here, what ARE you gonna value bet with? He could have plenty of hands that calling, and his line is never gonna be sandbagging with a big hand unless the guy has loving brain cancer. Go ahead and charge him. Hand three is interesting contrast with hand two. Here, you "value bet" with AJ unimproved. If you're really value betting there, it's WAY too thin. If your idea was "his turn check indicates that his c-bet was weak, so make I can steal here", I really don't like that line, either. If you think the guy is weak, check-raise his c-bet on the flop and take control of the hand. It's a nice, ragged flop for it. Check-calling, checking the turn, and then firing the river doesn't really show any sort of real strength, and you're gonna get looked up by any piece or pocket pair, depending on the player. In hand four, what are you doing? From your history with the villain, it sounds like your plan is to let him bluff and build a pot, and you call him down at the river for bonus nachos. This is a terrible flop for that plan. You have no flush draw, so a lot of his random hands have good equity against you. A flush card is gonna hit by the river about a third of the time, which ruins your whole plan. At the river, there's a very good chance he's bluffing just because you practically never have anything to call with the way you played the hand, and because when you saw him donk to the river and actually MAKE a hand, he bet small. That said, I think you're too deep to hero call an overbet like this at the river. If the guy's that bad, you'll find a better spot against him later, so just be patient. Edit: I'm already a double-posting human being, so I'll just edit in more for the Abortionator's hand. Basically, Ranma's got it covered here. TheAbortionator posted:I had been 3 betting the guy a ton, but one question. If I'm not 3 betting premiums should I care if my range is unbalanced entirely towards trash? In response to this, no, you shouldn't care-- if he's folding to 3-bets 92% of the time. Balanced play and optimal play against a specific opponent aren't generally the same thing. Balance is about deception, and sacrificing expectation on some hands in return for greater expectation on other hands. You've found something highly exploitable against this opponent, so exploit the hell out of it. Just be sure your 3b range stays balanced against OTHER players, because they're probably going to see you 3-bet the nit a lot and assume that you just do that to everyone (at least at first). Stay more balanced with the rest of the table because they're likely to misread you, and be ready to change gears if you see your nit adjusting to being exploited. You might also be forced to change gears if someone else realizes what you're doing and starts cold 4-betting when you raise the nit. AmnesiaLab fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Dec 6, 2011 |
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Dec 6, 2011 08:17
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From several pages back:TheAbortionator posted:This read means nothing in regards to the hand unless you have a time machine. Do you? I really wanna go see At-the-drive-in. Unrelated to poker, but ATDI is actually having a reunion, and they're playing Coachella this year. On to poker, here's a retarded hand: Live 1/2. Hero ($380 deep) raises to $8 (light for live 1/2, but it had been a small-raising table) in MP with K Q, weak-tight HJ calls, loose chick with ~$600 calls in the SB, TAG BB with ~$250 calls.4-handed flop (pot ~$28 after rake) comes Q JTBlinds check to hero who c-bets for $15. Weak-tight HJ folds, both limpers call. 3-handed turn (pot of ~$70) is K , naturally.Turn checks around. River comes K .SB checks, BB bets $15. Hero: ???
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Feb 10, 2012 12:53
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I raised to $50, SB folds, and the TAG repopped it another $75 on top after asking what it would take to qualify for a BBJ. I folded, naturally. TAG shows down A5. Thinking over the hand, I've been leaning more towards what Moose is saying. The SB was kind of a tellbox, and it was obvious she had lost interest in the hand, so the TAG BB was my only real concern, and thinking about it, I don't even know if he'd call a raise there with a boat. He definitely calls when I'm beaten (obv), but while I've never seen it, I think this guy (who leans a bit toward the nitty side, but uses that to bluff on occasion; I've seen him three-barrel before) might be able to find a fold here, but I don't really know. I think if our places were reversed and he was facing a 3-bet raise, he could definitely kick in a boat. Considering it was a relatively small raise of a small bet and it wasn't a three-bet, I'm thinking I may get some crying calls from boats here, but the way he played the hand, I don't see him showing up with boats from how I've seen him play. With QQ, he reraises pre. With JJ, TT, or 9s9x, he MAY smoothcall (probably only with TT), but I would expect him to checkraise hard after my c-bet with a set on a monochrome broadway flop, and after the turn, he would shut down. 9s9x could play this way, with a bit of wariness of the ace, I suppose. With two callers in front, he could easily play KT/KJ/KQ, but he wouldn't necessarily call the flop with KJ/KT if he didn't have the king of spades (which he didn't since it hit the turn). I could see him making the small river bet with a boat, but I don't really see many ways for him to have one there. All in all, his three-bet turned it into a trivial fold of the third nut for me, but it really left me wondering whether a raise is even merited in that spot. Thanks a lot for the input.
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Feb 11, 2012 01:10
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Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. On this board, no one is calling with a vanilla flush, because the best card they could have to make it would be the 8. If I had Tx9x on a TT987 board, I could get a call from the nut flush with a naked A, or possibly even from less (depending on the player and such). On that board, though, I don't see anything weaker than a boat ever calling, and even then, it's not a sure thing.
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Feb 11, 2012 03:26
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Non-standard hand discussion here. This one is about table talk. Effective stacks $300. UTG limps. MP limps. Hero limps behind with K 9.Villain limps on the button. Villain is one of the better regs at the card room. Has multiple gears, very slippery, but generally gives me credit and doesn't get too far out of line with me. SB folds. BB checks. ~$10 pot, post-rake. Flop comes 5 43.Checks to hero, who bets $10. Villain calls, all others fold. ~$30 pot, turn card is the 2 .Hero bets $20, button calls. River is 8 . Brick!Now, at this point, I know he has either the straight or a flush draw. In this kind of situation, there's just nothing else in his range. The problem is betting this river with nothing is loving retarded, but if I check, he is likely to bet his busted flush draws at me. To simplify the situation and preserve any equity I may have, I sigh, say, "Well, I guess we're chopping," and check to him to prevent him from bluffing his busted flush draws. Unless he has a 4, 2, or 8 with a flush draw, I'll take the pot when he checks behind. Most of the time, though, it's moot, because I'm losing to a straight. Anyway, he checks behind and shows A7o for the wheel, and I muck, while receiving a lot of strange looks. So, my question is this: Would you classify this as simple creative table talk, or angle-shooting? I don't think there's anything angle-shooty about it, personally, but at least one person I talked to felt differently. Another jokingly called me an angle shooter, but quickly told me he was just loving with me and he didn't see anything wrong with it. Therefore, I come to PITR to seek the opinion of the biggest degenerates I know: Am I an angle-shooting douchenozzle? It is up to you to decide.
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Feb 19, 2012 05:17
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Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Any table talk works both ways. It's just a matter of figuring out what the purpose is and how to disappoint your opponent. That sort of comment with chopping happens all the time at the local card room, though, and I've never seen another instance where the person making the comment wasn't being honest, so I figured it was relatively safe. If I had been somewhere that I wasn't known, I would have shot for retard points by claiming I mucked because I only had the six and he had the ace, and then I'd congratulate him on his ace-high straight.
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Feb 19, 2012 16:35
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Mexal posted:Question about a line I had from a live session on Saturday. Given your description of the villains in this equation, I would really rather just take a free card here. V1 will cling to any piece and likely has at least a jack, while V2 could have your club draw dominated and likes to call a lot. Either way, you need to improve to win the hand. In a multiway pot against people who like to call, I just don't think juicing the pot with a draw is a good idea, because you can easily find better spots where they'll call while you're way ahead. If your two pair and trip outs are good and your flush outs are clean, you've got up to 33% equity here. If your draw is dominated and someone has a bigger pair, though, you've got more like 12% equity. And it could be worse than that. Aggressive play is all well and good, but you have one villain who likes to chase and one who can't fold to an obvious monster. I feel like as played, you could turn your hand into a bluff and knock V2 off his hand at the river if he didn't hit something serious, but V1 is going to call like a retard regardless. These aren't the kind of villains you want to target for aggressive stealing with weak hands. These are the guys you want in the pot when you have a monster, because they're going to pay you off. Don't get me wrong, I like the flop raise, but you got (fairly predictably) called twice. These guys are probably gonna keep calling if you keep betting, and your equity just isn't all that huge. Checking behind will mean you win less most of the time when you hit, but most of the time, you're not going to hit. I don't like shoving the turn because these are both great guys for action when you have something bigger, and you should be able to find a better spot to take their money. Juice it when you have a big edge, not a small one; they'll come along anyway. Here, I'd rather take the free card. There's still plenty of value to be had at the river, because if you check this turn, V1 is gonna be able to convince himself you were making a play, and he'll call any reasonable bet on the river to play the sheriff. That's what it sounds like to me, anyway. Sure, you can juice it, and you might get there. If you really want to gamboooooooool with this hand, I don't think you have any real fold equity at the turn unless you jam, so just stick it in and hope for the best. I don't like it, though. I'd rather put the money in when I'm more likely to be winning, especially against these villains. You should get plenty of better shots to take a piece of their stacks.
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Mar 12, 2012 19:08
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Mexal posted:I need to clarify something. V1 isn't a calling station. He likes to donk bet 2nd pair then he reevaluates if someone shows strength. Probably should have put that in the read. It's one of the reasons I raised so that I could take control of the pot. I did think about checking behind but decided not to. For what it's worth, I'm fine with the bet sizing of the flop raise if you're just trying to take the lead in the pot and you intend to check for a free card if called twice, as just happened. With your revised read on V1, though... well, if you think V2 goes away if V1 does and that's what you're hoping to do with a raise, then like Ranma said, you need to be raising more on the flop. Different raise sizes accomplish different things. I like the raise to 240 for free card purposes because a flatcall on the flop would put 365 in the pot. You're likely to see bets in the 200+ range on the turn if you flat, but raising to take control of the action in position lets you pay 240 for two streets now (assuming it works) rather than 75 now and, say, 200-250 on the turn. You save a bit of money, and if you hit one of your outs on the turn, you just fire again. It gets some money into the pot for when you do hit your draw, but also gives you the ability to manage the pot size yourself. Raising bigger may take the pot now, which isn't a bad result, considering. If V1 can donk a middling piece and then reevaluate, it's all your read on him. If you don't raise enough to knock him out, V2 is almost certainly coming along. You probably need to pop it into the 400 range to have a solid chance at taking it down, I would guess. If it doesn't work, you can go back to the free card plan.
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Mar 13, 2012 03:30
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Yeah, I fold the turn. Most of the time I see someone who is decent donkbet like this and keep coming, 99 isn't gonna cut it. It's a strange line, but one that might get confusion calls. At the very least, I'm willing to just toss it and wait for another spot. I don't think a lot of decent players are going to suddenly three-barrel donkbet into you with much that 99 can beat. If you have a read otherwise, go for it, but by default, if the villain isn't a total mouthbreather, I think we're in trouble here. I've got one for you guys. Live 1/2. Table in general is playing loose and aggressive. Every pot is raised, usually to 12 or 17, but to anywhere as high as 60 preflop (not even as a 3-bet). I have been cold-decked since I sat down and have barely played. I 3-bet all-in preflop with QQ earlier, and on the hand right before this one, I raised a $5 straddle to 20 with AA from the BB, was called five times, flopped a set, and check-raised all-in after a stab from MP folded around to me. (I rivered the case ace, but I didn't need it.) Other than that, I've sat here for an hour and a half not getting involved because all of my other hands have been poo poo. I'm still stacking chips from the quad aces hand when the action comes to me. Action is as follows: UTG folds EP folds MP1 (average reg, bitching about being card dead all night) raises to 7 MP2 (loose, somewhat aggressive, generally retarded reg) calls 7 MP3 (apparently decent reg; has shown down a good bluff in a multiway pot that he credited with his tight table image at the time) calls 7 HJ (huge nitty human being on a sick rush, who has gone from 150 to 1100 since I sat down, mostly with AA, KK, QQ, AA, and a turned nut flush with Ah6h versus TPTK [This dude is notable for being a huge loving tellbox with actual TICS with distinct meanings when cards hit; I could call this dude's hands all night long as a parlor trick just by watching him. I swear, it looks like Tourette's. I can't believe no one seems to notice his tics or what they mean, and they still give him action.]) CO (dangerous reg) calls 7 BN (tight, but mostly unknown; can adjust to specific players, as he called MP2 light when he was being characteristically retarded in a big hand) calls 7 Quick recap: 38 in the pot already including blinds. I'm in the SB with a stack size of 236. Almost the entire table has me covered, with the exception of MP2, who is sitting with about 140. I look down at KK. Obviously, we're 3-betting. My question is how big? I figure there are a couple of options. With 236 in our stack, we can either 1) blast it hard preflop, which may fold everyone, but is likely to get a caller considering the table, and set ourselves up to shove the flop, or we can 2) raise a bit smaller and set ourselves up for a c-bet on the flop and a shove on the turn. In scenario 1, I figure we raise to 60. That puts about 160 in the pot if we get a single caller, and leaves us with 176 behind to shove on the flop. This is good to take poo poo down without letting anyone draw, but we've got less upside as people are going to fold much more often to this line. Also, we have far less room to maneuver on a bad flop. In scenario 2, we raise to 31 (SB is in, after all, so putting the extra chip in simplifies the math), which is light for a 3-bet with so many callers. We're likely to pick up at least two, but we've got room to evaluate if an ugly flop hits, and we'll have 205 behind to work with. If we get one caller, the pot is 90 or so. 50 on the flop sets up a shove of 155 into a pot of 190 on the turn if we got called. With two callers, we can still c-bet 50 into 120, and shove 155 into a pot of 270 if called in both places on the turn. This gives us the best chance of making extra money on the hand and gives us the best chance to get away from a bad board, but it also makes us more vulnerable to suckouts. Also, if we get three or more callers, the plan is hosed, and we're left with an awkward stack size. (With three callers, the pot is about 150 and we have 205. Jamming the flop is likely to only get called when someone outflopped us, and betting smaller on the flop and/or turn leads to bet sizes that don't accomplish much. Again, bear in mind: I have only shown down QQ (after a 3-bet) and AA (technically after a 3-bet, since I raised a straddle with it) at this table, so people probably think I'm a nut-peddler. That lessens the likelihood of getting a call if I try scenario 1, and makes just getting a call or two for scenario 2 more likely. So, what do you think? Fire away with the raise to 60, leaving ourselves with such a low SPR that we don't have much room to maneuver, but we're set up to punish draws, or raise smaller, retain some moves for postflop, and be set to milk the hand for all it's worth in return for a greater chance of getting bitten in the rear end? AmnesiaLab fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Mar 31, 2012 |
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Mar 31, 2012 14:25
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Mr.Showtime posted:I agree, cause raising to 31 is terrible and I can't imagine how scenario two plays out anyway but you getting 5 callers. HJ and BN go away to pretty much any 3-bet, even if it calls around to them, and MP2 definitely calls 31 and will probably call 60. I figure worst case scenario for 31 is MP1 calls and triggers a cascade, because MP2 is definitely coming. If that happens, MP3 probably calls and CO definitely calls. MP1 has been making a lot of noise, but he's also done the whole "it loving figures"/ragefold bit when he gets 3-bet pre. Still, he's been card-dead long enough that he could easily say gently caress it and roll with anything in his raising range just to be stubborn. I figure 60 almost definitely folds him, and 31 usually does. The balancing factor, though, is that I'm pretty sure MP1 repops it to isolate with anything he's actually going to play, which reopens the betting for me. If he repops it, MP2 will probably still come along, but no one else will. If he repops either raise and MP2 calls, I jam when the action comes back to me and expect both will call 95% of the time.
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Mar 31, 2012 22:05
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Here's one from a 1/2 NL game tonight. A line check would be appreciated. Villain is an old dude with too much money who likes to put it in the pot. He'll will bet the flop and barrel the turn with pretty much any two. I have never seen him three-barrel bluff, but he'll bet the river with second pair. He's been firing multiple shells at everything. A few hands ago, I called flop and turn bets with Q3s on a board of AQ952, and he turned up 94o. (I even considered betting the river. Seriously, dude is bad.) He's also called my all-in with an underpair before on a paired board, but the raise shove equated to only about a minraise. He doesn't call a lot of early raises, but he feels like he's practically obligated if he's already invested some money in the pot. Effective stacks: 236 Villain raises from MP to 13. I call in the hijack with A J. Villain's PFR range is huge. Folds around to the BB, a generally loose and passive player, who calls.Flop (3-handed, 34 after rake): A J 8 BB checks. Villain leads for 20. I don't mind giving the BB a freebie on a dry board when I've got top two, and Villain is going to keep betting if I let him. Villain is also prone to overbetting the turn, so I flat, hoping he'll overbet to an amount I can jam over. I call, BB folds. Turn (heads up, 72 after rake): 9 Villain bets 50. I really don't like the 9 because Villain could easily be here with a ten, or even the straight. With 153 to call a pot of 328, I'm charging the poo poo out of his draws, although I expect he'll call anyway. I jam for 203 total. My big question is the flop play. This is a guy who loves to take lots of rope to hang himself with. If this board had a flush draw, I'd have raised to punish draws (especially three-handed), but this board is dry enough that I don't mind a free card peeling. If Villain were a tight raiser, I might raise him on the flop expecting him to be unable to fold an ace, but I doubt he's anywhere near that strong and just want to let him run with it. Anyone have an argument otherwise? Raising this flop into this guy just strikes me as lighting money on fire.
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Apr 11, 2012 11:33
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