1. Set on a scary board
Effective stacks of about 120. I'm in early position with pocket sixes. I raise to 3 units (a small raise, I'm only interested in building a big pot for a set preflop). About 4 callers to the flop. Flop comes 6s8hTc rainbow. Hells yes! I bet out 10 into the ~12 chip pot.
Jay, a tricky player on the cutoff, raises to 25. Jay has traditionally been the kind of player who will always check with the nuts, and always bet with a draw or air. I have a set, there's no way I'm folding this, regardless of the player, so I now have a decision. Call or raise?
If I raise, I charge him more for what is likely a draw, or I could blow him off of top pair or complete air. If I call, I can induce a bet on the turn and check-raise him all in. Normally I will raise here, but instead I call.
The turn brings a 7c, putting four to a straight and adding a flush draw to the things I have to worry about. This is a horrible, horrible card for me. There's about 60 in the pot right now, and I slow down. My original plan to check raise isn't looking so hot anymore, so I check with the intent to call or fold. He bets 18, giving me great odds to draw to my boat. I call.
The river is a 2c, completing the backdoor flush. Awesome. I check, he thinks and bets about 30 into the massive 100 chip pot, and I fold.
2. Top pair, fourth kicker good?
In the big blind with King Jack Not Suited, aka the Fillmaff. Four people limp to the blinds. SB checks, I check my option. Flop comes with K98 rainbow. SB checks, I bet 5 into a pot of 6. Nick, immediately to my left, raises to 15.
Nick's a good player, so I don't think he's doing this with complete air. I run through the possible options and try to put him on a hand.
1. A solid made hand. He'd definitely raise here with a set or two pair with people left to act behind him. However, on a board like this, the only good hand I could see him having is 98. AK, KK, 99, and probably 88 he would have raised preflop, and he's not the kind of player to muck around with K9 or K8. I'd say the odds are about 20% of this
2. Complete air. Nick is fully capable of bluffing, and this is a pretty dry board, but I think he respects me enough to not try any fancy moves on me. 10%.
3. KQ. Definitely matches his betting pattern, but I feel like the odds of him limping with KQ (he would have raised) are about the same as him limping with KT (he would have folded), so I'm going to say this one cancels out.
4. A lower pair or a draw. He's completely capable of semibluffing, in fact I think he might do it a bit too often. He could even have a weak pair and be trying to push me off of what is likely to also be a weak hand. Somewhere over 50%.
Alright, so my percentages don't really add up, but what I'm trying to say is I put him on a weaker hand here than mine more often than not. Being keenly aware of the straight draw possibilities, I elect to just call.
The turn is a total blank, I think it was a deuce. I decide to check here. Nick bets 30 into the 35 chip pot. Hmm, that's a big bet. What could he have here? Was he really slowplaying a good pair preflop? Or is he trying to blow me off a made hand? I figure it's more likely to be the second, so I raise to 100, effectively putting him all in. He thinks, does some math, and folds.
In retrospect I hate my turn check here. If I know he's going to bet that turn with a draw then the checkraise is a lot better. He told me after the hand he was indeed on a draw, and wanted to take back his turn bet as soon as he made it. So, it worked, but still, lesson learned.
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8 comments:
1. While reading through that I thought "that flop is a re-raise" for just the reason that there's probably a lot of weak made hands with gutshot/backdoor draws and if a 7 or a 9 falls you'll have no idea where you are.
BUT then I thought, well, if you're only re-raising with the goods then it's fucking obvious as hell what you have. So if you'd never do that yourself with a weak made hand/crappy draw then it's the wrong move. And I don't think I make that move enough myself so I'd end up just calling.
What do you think of the 3 bet with a shitty made hand/weak draw here? It seems like he's definitely on a draw here MOST of the time from your read and even if he does have 2 pair/set/straight you'd have draws to the straight that might save your ass the one time he does have the goods and call.
Plus if they know you're capable of that then you're able to do stuff like 3 bet your sets and maybe get some action? How often would they have to have seen you semi-bluff 3 bet practically all-in to call you here with 2 pair? Every other set is bigger than yours, there's no OESD and no flush draw.
After typing that all out and see the lack of good draws I think calling is definitely right now.
If the turn had been a blank would you have lead at the pot? I think you have to.
I think the 7 is a lot worse than the 9. He's a lot more likely to have stayed in with TP/GS (gut shot) or 89 than 67 or 78.
A small bet on the turn would suck (please raise me off my hand) and a big bet will blow away everyone that you're beating but get called by almost everyone that beats you. I think check is the right thing and given the 18 bet you have to call of course.
I wouldn't worry about the backdoor flush hardly any. He showed the most strength on the flop when there was no FD. On the turn if he picked up a FD (which is even more unlikely in this case because the TP on the flop was Tc (so if he had top pair he couldn't have had a club FD)) then I think most people would have stuck in a reasonable sized bet knowing even if they got called by the straight they have flush outs.
Of course some people use the logic of "well I've got an okay hand now that could become a good hand so I feel like I should bet but I don't want to bet a lot because my hand isn't great yet I'll just stick out this weakass bet because I don't know what I'm doing". If Jay's tricky though I wouldn't bet that's the case. So it's nothing definitive but I'm guessing the FD probably didn't help him.
The real question is whether he had the 9. Here the question is if he ever makes small bluffs on the end because he knows he can get you to lay down a real hand on a scary board. I think once and awhile you gotta suck it up and stick some money in there with a hand you really don't want to or else a $30 bluff on the end becomes VERY +EV for them which is -EV for you.
But sometime you have to fold when you know you're beat.
I think this would be an okay hand to say "fuck it" and stick it in to see if he really did have it, but it's also an okay hand to let go. Agreement?
2. It sounds like you're pretty damn sure he had a draw and if you're 90% he'd bet I like the CRAI. If he'll check behind a decent amount of the time (either with a weak K, a 9, or a draw) then I agree you've got to lead the turn because the hands that are head of you just don't seem likely. He wants to get to the river cheap.
Maybe that's what you mean by:
"In retrospect I hate my turn check here. If I know he's going to bet that turn with a draw then the checkraise is a lot better"
But I'm confused because a CR does involve a check first. And it looks like you did know he would bet the draw and you DID CRAI. Do you mean you didn't *know* he'd bet the turn so you should have bet (and instead just got lucky he did bet the turn)? I'd agree with that.
1. I'm reraising that flop like 90% of the time, but this time I decided to get tricky. I felt there was a good enough chance that Jay was either semi-bluffing or protecting a hand like JT that I would make more money by picking off bluffs and raising him on the turn instead.
Calling is something I'd normally do here with top pair or an overpair, so it's possible he'd think he could push me off such a hand with a big bet on the turn.
I've three-bet Jay with weak hands / air in the past, not sure if I've been called down more than once or twice, though. It's tough, he'd probably give me credit for a big hand since it's something I usually only do with a monster.
If the turn blanks, yeah, I have to lead since he's on a draw so often here.
Jay (and a couple other players at the lunch game) has a bad habit of slowing down a LOT when they make a huge hand. Seriously, it's like, if someone bets 1/3rd the pot, watch the fuck out because you're likely up against a flush/boat/set/etc. When Jay put out that tiny bet on the turn I was certain I was screwed. If he wanted to buy it on the river he likely would have thrown out a much bigger bet, and I really couldn't see him betting any hand there that I can beat. I guess the question is, am I good there more than ~25% of the time? It's tough, actually... calling there might have even been correct, I certainly would have called against most unknowns, but having played against these guys for a while I feel like I have to lay that down.
Later on he told me that he had 97, for the flopped straight, which is sort of surprising since he really likes slowplaying a hand like that. If he was telling the truth, I'm sooo lucky that the turn made four to the straight because I was losing my stack there otherwise.
2. Yeah that's exactly what I meant. He's a little aggressive but he knows when to slow down, and when I called his flop raise he has to know I'm not screwing around there.
He's probably checking that turn 70% of the time, so I really should have bet out to charge him for the draw.
The other thing going through my head at the time was to keep the pot small. If I bet and get raised, I probably have to fold. If I bet, get called, and a scare card comes on the river, I'm in a tough check-call spot. I was originally planning on just check-calling the turn until I realized how bad that was if he's on a draw. Man, being out of position blows.
Man I wish I played against the same people a lot so I'd know their tendencies. I guess I could here at Microsoft if I go to the same game every week. I really should.
Okay... I have a poker question that's not really related to your lunchtime poker post (keep in mind that I'm totally green and don't have access, either physically or intellectually, to the same stats knowledge that you or Andrew do; also, I'm playing online play money tables, so the caliber of play is not nearly as high as your lunch poker games appear to be):
I had pocket sixes with 3 players at the table. I'm on the button and short stacked. I have about 3K and the other two players each have 13-14K. Both limp in ($10) and I raise the pot by 3 times the big blind (30$). They both call.
Flop is 6s10d10c. Both players check to me and, thinking I'd slow play them to get as much money out of them as possible, I just min raise. First player folds and second player raises $100. He might have had a 10 (5% chance; but who cares, I still had him beat with that) or pocket 10s (not good for me, and I don't know what the chances are of this, but it's obviously less than 5% chance that that's what he's holding)... maybe this was a misstep on my part here but I just call. Maybe I should have raised here or maybe I should have folded, but I was blinded by the beautiful glow of hitting a full house on the flop.
Turn was 2h and doesn't help either of us. So, he checks and, being less convinced that he has pocket 10s, I bet the pot. He raises me all in. I thought for a brief second that maybe he really did have those pocket 10s and had me beat, but given that this is online play money poker where people go all-in with 7-3 unsuited and he had been playing loosely and aggressively all night, I still thought pocket 10s were improbable. Maybe this was a bad read on my part. The other more likely possibility is that he had that 10 with JQKA, but even with that he only has 4 outs: the remaining 10 and the three remaining JQKAs. So, that gives him an 8% chance of hitting his hand on the river, right? I don't have the pot odds to call, but I figured I had the implied odds (am I using that terminology correctly?)... so, I call and he turns over 10hAs.
Of course he hits his ace on the river and wins the pot. So, my question is... what would you have done differently? I'm sure I could have played that better... but, that's why I'm asking you guys!
"3K and the other two players each have 13-14K. Both limp in ($10)"
Holy CRAP you guys are deep stacked. You've got 300BBs which is normally VERY deep stacked but they've got 1300 and 1400 BBs. Good for drawing hands like yours.
"I'd slow play them to get as much money out of them as possible, I just min raise"
So you bet $10 into a $120 pot or something? Yeaaahhhh, that does make is pretty obvious what you have. Especially if you'd never do this with KJo or something (which you shouldn't be doing anyway since it's just throwing away $10).
If you had TT on a 66T board I'd be more inclined to check behind on this flop and slow play it. As you pointed out Tx (x > T) does have outs against you. Not a whole lot but a few. So I'd throw out a bet on the flop. Generally I like to make my continuation bets 3/4th the size of the pot but on dangerous flops (single suit, paired flops, KQJ two suited or something) I'll always throw out 1/2 pot (whether I hit or didn't). It's generally enough to figure out whose interested and whose not without investing that extra 1/4th of the pot. I think I read it somewhere and I like the idea. But generally you should just throw out whatever kind of bet you'd make with a continuation bet.
Oh, also if they both fold you probably weren't getting any money out of them anyway. Even if they had AK and hit an A they'll be worried you have the T. So you're not really losing much money by just betting the flop and having them fold.
"He might have ... pocket 10s"
Yeah, but the chance is SO slim compared to him having something else that it's right to just get all your money in and lose to pocket Ts. That's poker. Oh also T6 is ahead of you here but that would mean he's got the case 6 plus a T and he called a raise preflop with it. Not impossible but again, if that's the case you're destined to lose.
"maybe this was a misstep on my part here but I just call"
Yes! You've got someone interested. Since we're okay going broke against a better hand (and no matter what you do you'll be able to get all in against a better hand) you have to figure out what would be the best thing to do against other hands.
He's either misread your "I've got a huge hand so I'll min bet" as a weak bet (which is possible if he totally sucks or is a maniac) but more likely he correctly read your strength and thinks he's still got a better hand.
If he's got nothing and is a maniac that will bluff again on the turn (he'll have to act first) then definitely just call and get him more commited.
If he's got a T-big kicker I think the correct thing to do here would be to just call again. Since your stacks are SO fucking big there's a lot more money to be gambled and if you min-bet, then re-raise after he raises he's going to seriously start considering the possiblity he's actually behind (would you do that with TJ?). If there wasn't much left in either your stack or his stack then a flop re-raise all in would be good because he'll have to call because the pot is big compared to the money he has to put in and he'll call with a lot of hands that have you beat.
But as I said that's not the case and he's OOP (out of position) so he'll have to lead at the turn (or check it which when you bet he'll have no idea if that was because you have a good hand or because he checked) so he'll be in a bad position if you just smooth call and wait for the turn.
"Turn was 2h and doesn't help either of us. So, he checks and, being less convinced that he has pocket 10s, I bet the pot."
Even if an A or K came down I'd still be looking to get a lot of money. Sure he might have had AT but he might have had QT. There's really no way you can be sure. Even better though is a blank like you got.
Right, after a check I'd bet 3/4th of the pot to the pot. Good call. He might call with a lot of worse hands because he thought you were trying to bluff him after his check. He might call with worse hands because he thinks he's ahead (we didn't tip our hand on the flop).
In the end you get all in on the turn which is exactly what you wanted and it turns out you're ahead which is great.
So in the end the only thing I didn't like about the hand was the min-bet on the flop.
He hit his 4 outer on the river and you lose. Nothing you can do there.
Yeah, last post had a few typos but there's no edit that I see. So when I say "that beats you" and it's obvious I meant "that you beat" (or some other error like that) just go ahead and make that substitution.
1. Sounds like you had a good read which makes it well played.
2. You should have bet the turn. He should have checked the turn and bet any scary river, probably.
Your only good options are to call and bet out the turn or to just reraise the flop. That's it really, nothing else is close.
Steph: It's called a cooler. Sometimes you just have to lose a lot of money.
Thank you, boys. That was incredibly helpful. I'm not being sarcastic... I'm totally serious. It just took me, like, a month to process all that information. You poker players are effin' prolific :D
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