Weak and passive wins the race |
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Posted Thu Mar 17, 2005 3:19 am GMT by snoogins47
$5/$10 Hold'em, 2 handed.
This kind of situation is horribly common, but I think this particular hand (and ones like it) are interesting.
Hero is button. Haven't played that long. Only thing I can gather is that villain seems well on the aggressive side of life, but far from maniacal. He has raised every hand that he's been on the SB (which is funny given that he's out of position, maybe he's not used to playing on this site heh.) From what I've seen, he will bet the flop 100% of the time he raised PF, and will almost certainly bet the Turn and River unless he's given a reason to slow down. Doesn't seem especially tricky, but he's quite capable of the ABC trickery.
Villain posts $2 SB, Hero posts $5 BB.
Hero is dealt 7c 8s
Villain raises, Hero calls.
Flop (4sb): Jd 8c 2s
Villain bets, Hero calls.
Turn (3bb): Td
Villain bets, Hero calls
River (5bb): 4h
Villain bets, Hero calls.
Final pot between Villain and Hero: 7BB.
Just want to spark some discussion, and I'll post my thoughts and results later.
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Posted Thu Mar 17, 2005 2:57 pm GMT by howzit
snoogs, you play like this?
Just kidding. . .
I'd raise flop unless you've seen this guy three bet the flop w/ace high out of position. . .
More likely than not, i think you'll see queens being tabled. I think the river's where you know you're ahead. AA, KK, QQ, AJ likely look to check here.
two suited broadway cards?
Posted Thu Mar 17, 2005 3:17 pm GMT by Idaho
My prediction - he has A2.
Posted Thu Mar 17, 2005 5:03 pm GMT by Jauron
If you are gonna call the flop, might as well call him down now that you've hit a pair, turn gives you an ugly ugly draw that I don't think you want to hit.
I'm guessing it's Ace high but hell I have no idea since you never did anything but call.
Posted Thu Mar 17, 2005 5:07 pm GMT by snoogins47
What would a flop raise accomplish, and why is that superior to calling?
Posted Thu Mar 17, 2005 5:15 pm GMT by Jauron
Well in this case it forces him to either call or reraise. You already stated he will slow down if you give him a reason.
If he reraises you can dump the hand, if he calls you can make a decision on the turn if you are really ahead or if he's waiting to check raise you. You get the turn for free if you want it.
Posted Thu Mar 17, 2005 5:46 pm GMT by howzit
coming from a NL player, I'm looking to raise the flop w/second pair and then steal it on the turn. I hate facing shitty decision on the turn and river facing bigger bets and dumping hands like this. and if you think you're really ahead, then bet it.
The only time I'm check/calling is that I'm sure he's holding air and he'll bet every street. . .but we're not there to know this guys betting patterns so that's up to you. . .
Posted Thu Mar 17, 2005 6:06 pm GMT by snoogins47
| Jauron wrote: | Well in this case it forces him to either call or reraise. You already stated he will slow down if you give him a reason.
If he reraises you can dump the hand, if he calls you can make a decision on the turn if you are really ahead or if he's waiting to check raise you. You get the turn for free if you want it. |
If I raise and he 3bets, I can't fold the flop. I'm not really sure I want him to slow down, since I figure he's a favorite to have missed the flop. I hate raising the flop and if he calls, checking behind on the turn... chances are he's on something that missed, and unimproved overcards would correctly call, and hands like ace -rag ace high might make the call incorrectly, so I feel I'd be losing a whole lot by checking behind, but taking the lead in this hand opens me up to serious chip spewing later in the hand if he really has a hand.
If I'm behind, raising the flop will save me 1 bet if I check behind on the river, and will cost me precisely the same as my calldown line if he check-raises the turn, which is pretty likely with top pair or better, and I don't get the benefit of showing it down.
Posted Thu Mar 17, 2005 7:26 pm GMT by Jauron
If he 3 bets you can't fold? Sounds like you have bigger problems then. If you can't get away from a pair of 8's then yes you are correct to just call and hope like hell you are ahead and it holds up.
If you call him down you have one way to win the pot, by betting you have two.
Here's the real kicker though, since you know he's gonna continue to bet anyway, he gets to catch his card for free, and you get to keep making decisions every street.
Sounds like real fun to me.
Posted Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:26 pm GMT by snoogins47
| Jauron wrote: | If he 3 bets you can't fold? Sounds like you have bigger problems then. If you can't get away from a pair of 8's then yes you are correct to just call and hope like hell you are ahead and it holds up.
If you call him down you have one way to win the pot, by betting you have two.
Here's the real kicker though, since you know he's gonna continue to bet anyway, he gets to catch his card for free, and you get to keep making decisions every street.
Sounds like real fun to me. |
Jauron, your first paragraph is silly. Saying that folding to the 3bet is bad has nothing to do with "getting away" from middle pair.
Betting gives me another way to win the pot, but my goal isn't to win the most pots, it's to win the most money.
Posted Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:54 pm GMT by Jauron
And how is calling winning you the most money?
You want to generate a discussion, fine lets discuss, if you just want to correct everything I say, then I'll just move on.
Posted Fri Mar 18, 2005 9:46 am GMT by howzit
kept thinking about htis hand last night and don't know whether to pop the turn or flop. . . i said rais the flop but then that opens up all kinds of tough decisions, especially if he's capable of 3-betting w/nothing.
but I only really like this hand if you got a read on your opp. that he's betting ace high. . .why not raise the turn?
The problem I have w/this hand is nowhere do you think or find out if a pair of eights is good or not. . .if you are behind, you're losing 2bbs and if you're ahead than you're river decision still sucks and the question is how do you play a broadway card on the river? fold right. . . raise the turn, make him dump his shit hand. If he actually is holding overpair, then your turn raise should get you a free showdown costing the same as it would going call, call.
To me, it looks like you aren't sure if eights are good until the river and even if you think they're good on the turn, any paint on the river is going to really make you face a crappy decision. The way it turned out, hte the river bricked so yeah, straight forward call, but something tells me this hand should've been finished on the turn.
Posted Fri Mar 18, 2005 11:26 am GMT by suitedaces84
| Jauron wrote: | | And how is calling winning you the most money? |
All a raise will do is force out a worse hand. Sure you probably could take it down quicker, but you're putting more of your money on the table and getting less for it.
Posted Fri Mar 18, 2005 12:00 pm GMT by Jauron
I suppose you are right. I guess you can pull off passive in a limit game.
In NL it will get you killed.
Posted Fri Mar 18, 2005 12:41 pm GMT by howzit
Jauron, i agree. In NL that river bet is going to be pot-sized.
But this is a limit hand so I've answered accordingly. But here's my thoughts on raising the turn: (i'm probably going to get flamed for this)
- maybe eights or good, but way too vulnerable. Bet the best hand.
- if you're against an overpair, raising the turn after calling the flop is a pretty good line to slow him down, maybe even get a free showdown. Cost is still the same.
- you're still getting value against two over cards.
- the cons are getting 3 betted and folding. but the cost is still 2BBs.
The first response for me was to raise the flop to go for a steal on the turn, but that's a NL/PL play. I think calling the flop doesn't open the door to chip spewing w/a medium hand like second pair.
Snoogs, you never answered my question, what happens if an ace, king, queen, jack falls on the river .. you still calling? I wouldn't.
Posted Fri Mar 18, 2005 2:45 pm GMT by snoogins47
I can echo those sentiments... it takes a really special kind of opponent to make this play in NL.
And Jaur: I'm not sure this is winning me the most money. It was my thought at the time, but I wanted to open it up for discussion.
First: Broadway card hits, I'm still calling. It's probably a close decision on an Ace, especially the Ad, but I still think I'm winning more than my share on the river almost regardless of the river card.
The overall gist of this post is that I think the classic "defining your hand," "raising for information" type thing might not really be worth it in situations like this. Even if I stay in uncertain territory the entire hand, my opponent is uncertain as well, and is prone to just keep on firing chips with 90% of the hands he raised preflop.
Howz: When I called the flop, I wasn't sure, but I was considering raising a blank turn card, though in typical Jake fashion I wasn't sure. If I was confident that raising the turn would make him check to me on the river, I would love that line. He was pretty aggressive though, and clearly knows that I am as well... not to mention the important part: I had done the 'wait until the turn to raise' play probably 3-4 times already in our very short session, and the third time he looked me up with second pair (was something like QQ on a King high board) and saw my rags ;P) so I think he's inclined to 3bet VERY liberally, or leading the river very liberally, which makes me lose confidence in this line in this specific instance.
Not a flaw on your part, just the at-the-table reasoning that made me rethink my turn raise. You do bring up a good point: against people that tend to freeze up after raises, raising the turn then showing the hand down is one of my favorite plays, and it's probably one of the better lines to take in hands like this. I still may have raised a blank turn card though: the Td really hurt here, because all of a sudden a LOT of hands are going to be correct in calling, and while I do get value out of them by raising, I'm also often losing another bet when they hit (or I'm folding the best hand) which isn't the worst thing in the world, because they're going to miss more often than not.. that alone isn't reason enough, but combined with the uncertainty of my hand being best I think pushes me toward this line as well.
Posted Fri Mar 18, 2005 3:03 pm GMT by howzit
well thanks for mentioning the "he-looked-me-up two hands ago." before I start spewing rhetoric. hahahahaha
yeah, you see, the subtlety of the 10  was totally lost on me. Not only does it freeze up your opponent, it freezes you up. Now your best hand is not doing to good against almost every kind of draw out there.
i'll go back into the bank against a NL hand i played. I called on the flop looking to bluff the turn and accidentitally made top pair on the turn. unforutnately, that was a bad card cuz it tied me to the pot. I played hte river like a fish (inconsequential to this post) but what I got something pretty good out of the hand:
two options when playing second pair or bluffing against what you think is very weak hand:
(1) take control on the turn if it blanks.
(2) but if a pseudo-scare card hits and where betting won't drive out a weaker hand, calling station, or somebody who doesn't give you respect, look for that cheap showdown.
This is a great hand on situational play, past results, and table image. Not one of those, i have this vs. this board kind of hand.
Posted Fri Mar 18, 2005 3:29 pm GMT by snoogins47
| howzit wrote: | | well thanks for mentioning the "he-looked-me-up two hands ago." before I start spewing rhetoric. hahahahaha |
Sorry hehe, I didn't even think to mention that until you said "raise the turn" and the lightbulb went off "hey, I thought of that too, why didn't I? oh yeah.."
Posted Fri Mar 18, 2005 4:18 pm GMT by krakajak
With raising here, every pro has a con.
If you raised, he might have re-raised and given you info you could use to fold the turn if you didn't improve. but at the same time, he might have bluffed you.
You might have gotten him to lay down overcards, and kept him from sucking out on you. but you might also have kept him from paying you off to the river.
You might have gotten him to check the turn and river with a better hand, so that you could show down cheaply, but he might have bet into you anyway, causing you to pay an extra half bet.
All in all, in terms of ev, I don't think it makes much difference.
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