Two 75-150 Hands

[Lawrence Ng]

Here are two interesting hands:

Hand 1. Semi-loose aggressive kid raises limps EP. I raise with A /images/graemlins/diamond.gifK /images/graemlins/diamond.gif in cutoff. Everyone else folds.

Flop comes A /images/graemlins/spade.gifK /images/graemlins/club.gif3 /images/graemlins/heart.gif. Kid checks, I bet. Kid calls.

Turn comes a 7 /images/graemlins/spade.gif. Kid checks, I bet, Kid Check-raises. I just call.

River 2 /images/graemlins/heart.gif Kid bets, I just call.

Hand 2. Same kid limps again, folded to me in the cutoff with K /images/graemlins/heart.gif2 /images/graemlins/heart.gif and I raise, folded to SB (weak passive player) calls, and BB folds.

Flop comes K /images/graemlins/club.gif2 /images/graemlins/club.gif8 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif. Kid checks, I bet, SB folds, Kid calls.

Turn comes a 6 /images/graemlins/spade.gif. Kid checks, I bet, Kid check-raises. I just call.

River comes K /images/graemlins/spade.gif.

Kid bets, I just call.

Comments?

[AJo Go All In]

??

[rigoletto]

#1 Raise the turn, he's is likely to have a semidraw with his ace. Failing to raise the turn I raise the river!

#2 Why you didn't raise the river is beyond me!

[Lawrence Ng]

You will notice a pattern in the two hands where there is a C/R on the turn by the kid.

It should be pretty obvious why I did not raise both hands on either the turn or river. Basically I wanted the kid to induce a bluff on the river.

He's got a record for C/R the turn constantly with flush and/or straight draws. That's exactly what I put him on.

Sure if I re-raise the turn, I can charge him more for the draw, but I make exactly the same number of bets if I just check-call and by doing so I induce the bluff and he is forced to show his hand which is also something I wanted him to do.

Occasionally, the kid will keep raising the turn if you re-raise him so I guess I gave up some EV by not re-raising him. But tonight he wasn't as ambitious and I wanted to look weak-tight so would keep inducing these semi-bluffs at me.

[rigoletto]

And...?????

Why post the hands without all the information?

When someone checkraises the turn with draws, raising is exactly what you should be doing. Punish his mistakes now are better than inducing future mistakes.

It doesn't only look weak/tight, it is weak/tight.

Not raising the river in hand 2 is beyond weak/tight.

[chesspain]

[ QUOTE ]
But tonight he wasn't as ambitious and I wanted to look weak-tight...

[/ QUOTE ]

Mission accomplished! /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[mikelow]

At least throw in a river raise (on both). Were you really scared of 33 on the first hand and K6 or K8 on the second hand?

Sounds like Mr. P was in the house.

[skp]

Hey Lawrence,

I think you misplayed these hands, bud.

On hand no. 1, assuming that you are right in that he has a flush draw, his most likely hand will therefore be Ksx or 3sx (given that the Ace on the flop is a spade). So, he is checkraising you with what he perceives may be a 14 outer. If you 3 bet and he calls and he misses on the river, he may put in a crying call with a King. So, you do stand a good chance of making an extra bet on the hand by raising the turn. Also, he may think that he has a 14 outer but doesn't. So, for example, if he hits his kicker to his Ksx hand, you may make multiple bets on the river also by raising the turn.

Besides, he may well be checkraising the turn with Aces up or just an Ace with which he will call your turn raise and river bet.

On hand no. 2, I don't understand why you didn't raise on the river? Surely, you have the best hand. It's the last round of betting. He has bet into you. You can't "induce" him to do anything if you just call. Sure, if he has just a flush draw, he will fold if you raise. But who cares? What if he had flopped a set? You lose out on mucho action on the river by failing to raise.

[Ulysses]

Looks like this kid owns you.

[elysium]

hi lawrence

you lose hand 1, for sure. i don't know what this kid did to convince you that he has you beaten. barring some other reason not to, you have a 3 bet on the turn, and if the kid bets out on the river, a call. if you had the same surety that i have that you lose this one, then the call on the turn is o.k.; not 3-betting is usually an error here however.

hand 2) no lawrence, no. forget about this hand for a moment. you've been here for some time now. if after this amount of time, you really played hand 2 as posted, you need to go back and review hfap and top. everyone needs a refresher course lawrence. you won't necessarily get that here on the forum since a lot of this stuff deals with higher level chit, the acquisition of whose knowledge will more often be misapplied by the reader, helping only the poster himself or herself, or the adviser threading up. only the 2+2 ers whose hfap book looks like this (i'm holding up my hfap book, which, by the way, has never worked before; but this is the first time i'm threading using dsl. can you see how tatered and worn it is lawrence? no? well then, i'll put my book down now.); anyway, only 2+2 ers who have read hfap and top many times over, can correctly assimilate the concepts that go on here on the forum. go back to basics lawrence.

[DiamondDave]

In the absence of a truly magical read, you gotta raise the river in hand #2. Just calling down with top two in hand #1 was OK if you fear that the kid may have a set (or if you really want to give up about 1 BB in expectation in order to convince the others at the table that you never but never overplay your hand).

[Dantes]

I would raise the river in hand #2 just so I wouldn't have to show.

[Lawrence Ng]

That's exactly what I want him to think..

[Lawrence Ng]

Hi Rigo,

On a hand by hand invidual analysis it may seem that both plays are extremely weak tight, but this a kid that had a major love affair with check raising draws and he loved doing it on the turn.

Against a good player, a 3 bet on the turn is a given with either hand. Against this kid, I want him to keep inducing these check-raise semi bluffs. It's just going to make me more.

Another plus is that is confuses the hell out of the table as to why I am a calling station when I have two monsters on the board.

Like I said, tonight the kid was not as ambitious and did not re-raise if I re-raised, so a check-call down was not such a bad idea.

[Lawrence Ng]

Exactly Chesspain,

Why is that a tight aggressive image is always the optimal image? If a weak tight image can be used to manipulate other players into making further mistakes, then why not capitalize on it?

[Lawrence Ng]

Heya Sid,

Great analysis as usual and like I mentioned against a good player or a two-plus-two'er caliber type player I would have re-raised the turn or raised the river.

I really could not put him on a pair with a flush draw. He made no move on the flop to indicate he hit a pair. It was a pure flush draw that I put him on and nothing else and thus my reason for just calling all the way.

Now, if he check-raises me on the flop, then I will definitely re-raise the turn or river. But I figure I maxed the pot on either hands (which I did), and made him show down the hand for his semi-bluff attempts.

[Lawrence Ng]

Hi El Diablo,

That's exactly how I want the kid to think...

[Lawrence Ng]

Elysium,

The kid is semi-aggressive. When he C/R the turn, he's going to bet the river no matter what card comes out. It's a given.

Provided that he may get a little ambitious and 4-bet me on the turn, then yes I stand to make an extra 2 big bets to make him pay for that draw, but as mentioned tonight he just wasn't so gung-ho.

I maxed the pot, but on top of maxing the pot I made the kid show his drawing hand and I created a weak tight image for myself which later on I did capitalize in the game nicely when the flop came Q-Q-2 and I had like 6-7 suited and check-raise 3 bet the flop and made 2 other players fold on the turn when they both thought I had the queen.

HFAP is a great book, that I agree. I have read it, studied it, but will never apply it my mid/high limit games here in Vancouver. That book is detrimental to the games here because honestly the Vancvouer games are the softest on the west coast I have seen.

Anyways, thanks for your reply.

[Lawrence Ng]

Grue, you have a good point here and one I cannot argue against because I really don't like showing my hands. But I guess seeing my opponents hand and verifiying that I am right in guessing his hand is important than conceding my own hand per say. I'll have to weigh this one.

[mike l.]

i understand youre reasoning but youre out thinking yourself out of immediate bets in the hope of future ones. against a LA you dont really need to do that. however if you want to start isolating him w/ stuff like K2s that adds another dimension altogether and you may have other issues to deal with.

in other words weve got similarly confused convoluted poker minds that need a cleanin'. interesting hands.

[ike]

No Lawrence, its whats happening. You're just giving him bets. Leaving bets on the table when you're clearly ahead is just as bad as calling down with a clear loser. If you do this with all of your winners you won't be able to make money isolating this guy because he'll be getting much better value out of his winners.

[shemp]

[ QUOTE ]
Sure if I re-raise the turn, I can charge him more for the draw, but I make exactly the same number of bets if I just check-call

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a classic misunderstanding of EV, seen so often that it puts a smile in my heart.

[bobgreen]

You assert that you're trying to induce future bluff check-raises from the kid and yet you make him show his hand?

[Garland]

Hand #1:

Huh? It looks like you missed a raise somewhere. It definitely looks like he made A's up on the turn, but I'd definitely pop him back on at least the river, and probably the turn due to him possibly bluffing a spade flush draw. Top two with no straight or flush possible is a very, very nice hand.

Hand #2

I don't know about playing this hand, let alone raising it, but you flopped lucky. Again, where are the raises? If not on the turn, on the river where you counterfeited his set of 2s, 6s and 8s. It doesn't sound like you're getting everything you can from your monsters.

Garland

[chio]

[ QUOTE ]
No Lawrence, its whats happening. You're just giving him bets. Leaving bets on the table when you're clearly ahead is just as bad as calling down with a clear loser. If you do this with all of your winners you won't be able to make money isolating this guy because he'll be getting much better value out of his winners.

[/ QUOTE ]

exactly, what good is this image, when you can't get extra value bets out of your good hands?

plus, if you think he's bluffing, you, call his turn c/r and then raise the river. the times he's completely bluffing you get an extra bet anyway, and the times he has a second best hand, you make an extra bet. he might even reraise with worse 2 pair (1st hand) and worse trips (2nd hand)

[rory]

You missed two river raises.

-rory