A River Quiz (somewhat long)

Here's a few hands taken from live play. I take no responsibility for mistakes made prior to the river, but of course feel free to discuss them anyway (like I could stop you /images/wink.gif).


1. You limp on the button with 77 and 7 players take the flop of 8 7 2 rainbow. It's bet by a tight/solid (TS) player after the first 3 players check, called by the next loose aggressive (LA) player, raised by the next tight moderately tricky (TMT) player, you smoothcall (not your standard play, but going for some deception this time and maybe a little extra action on a later street), and only TS and LA call. The 4 of you see the Ah on the turn (making a heart draw possible), TS bets out, LA and TMT call, you raise, TS reraises, LA and TMT call, you cap, and all call. The river is a 6d. Checked to TMT, who bets. Fold, call, or raise?


2. Two limpers to you on the button with AKo, and you raise. Only the limpers call, and the 3 of you see the flop of K 5 5 rainbow. You bet when it's checked to you, and only the second limper (a fairly loose, occassionally overaggressive opponent) calls. Turn is an Ac (making a club draw possible), and you both check. River is a Qc. He now bets, you raise, he reraises. Fold, call or raise?


3. A loose player (LP) limps, a tight solid player (TSP) raises, you call in the BB with 65d, and the 3 of you see the flop of Qh 7h 4s. Checked to TSP, who bets, and you both call. The turn is another 7, and it's checked around. The river is an 8h, you bet, LP folds, and TSP raises. Fold, call, or raise?


4. You complete the SB with 53d after 2 limpers, and 4 of you see the flop of Qd 7h 4d for 1 bet each. You bet, BB folds, a fairly straightforward loose player (SLP) calls, and the other limper folds. The turn is an Ad, you bet and are called. The river is a 7d, you check and SLP bets. Fold, call, or raise?


5. You raise UTG with 77 in a 4 handed game and are called by the tricky loose aggressive BB. The flop comes 6 6 5 rainbow, and the BB calls your bet. The turn is a 3 (making a diamond draw possible), you bet, the BB check raises, you reraise (a mistake), he reraises, and you call with your probable 6 outs. The river brings a 8, and the BB bets. Fold, call, or raise?


6. A loose player limps UTG, you raise from MP with black kings, a tricky loose aggressive in the BB calls, and UTG calls. The 3 of you see the flop of 6s 5s 3c. Both players check and call your bet. The turn is the 9s, and you make a debatable trapping check after your opponents check. The river is the 2s, BB bets, UTG folds, you make another debatable play and raise, and the BB reraises. Fold, call, or raise?

1. Just call. A raise will not get out a hand that has you beat. With a pot this big, it is unlikely that the bettor is bluffing.

2. Just call. He may have quads, but I doubt he has AQ. He will call with any ace for a chop, so you might as well just call.

3. Raise. The only way you are beat is 88. He would likely bet the flush draw on the turn. He would also likely bet the 88 for that matter.

4. Call. He has to bluff more than one time in six for this to be profitable.

5. Call. Why not? You came this far. If you don't call now, you will be run over.

6. Call. Damn am I loose on these. Good thing it's not my money. Call because he is tricky. Of course that is why you raised in the first place.

1. Just call because you can get people to overcall after you. You probably have him beat. If he has the straight, you don't want to get 3 bet here.


2. Why give a free card on the turn? I think you are beat and have to call and pay off.


3. You are probably beat by the solid player, but you have to pay off here.


4. Depends on the bluff frequency of this guy, but since you mentioned he's straight forward, then I'm leaning toward folding here.


5. Tough one, because you've built the pot so big. But I think you are beat here and folding maybe the better option.


6. Again you are setting yourself up for tough situations like this. I think he probably has the As for the nut. I rarely see people 3 betting on the river without the nut with 4 flush on the board.

I detest the pre-river play on many of these hands, but hey, on to the situation at hand. In a nutshell:


1. Call

2. Fold

3. Call

4. Call

5. Call

6. Call

1. 77 hand in late position- call. The straight draw is about the only one there for him to raise with on the flop, call all bets on teh turn and then bet out on teh river. You can't raise and you can't fold.


2. AK hand- call. Strangely played hand. His most likely holding is A5 but again, too many damn bets in the middle to fold for one more hand. One can perhaps suggest reraising so that he now may fold a flush to your "obvious" big full house. Two problems with that. For him to have a flush, he would have to call on the flop with no overcard. Plus, he ain't folding a flush.


3. 65 hand in the bb - fold. You are likely beat to QQ because I would think that a tight solid player may only call with AK at the river and not raise. He would likely keep his foot on the gas with a flush draw and overcards. While I think it's an error for him to check QQ on the turn, it's something that does happen moreso than pure river bluffs. Plus, the pot is not huge.


4. 53d hand in the sb. He better be fairly straight forward but you probably have a fold here given that the pot is not very big.


5. 77 hand - Fold. Way too much heat on the turn to think that he may be betting a hand worse than 77.


6. KK hand - Easy fold. The key here is that you have played your hand consistent with you having the Trump Ace. Yet, he makes it 3 bets. He has gotta have the Ace (if not the straight flush). On the other hand, if your eyes somehow magically see the Ace of spades sitting on the board and if your eyes tell you that there can't be a straight flush, then you ought to go 19 bets on the river :-) In Vancouver, they now call that move "pulling an skp"

My "answers":


1. A crying call. It looks like TMT is drawing all the way, probably with 10-9. He got there.


2. Just call. Hard to toss this one. What could he have? A five? Maybe. I would have bet the turn. BTW, a five is more likely than clubs.


3. Call, though folding is alternative. TSP has Ah-Kh (or Jh). I would have bet the turn once again. Were you going for a check-raise?


4. Fold. 99.7% chance of a bigger diamond.


5. Fold again. I agree the turn reraise was a blunder. You didn't improve.


6. Call. BB might have the ace of trump. You played it too fancy, but you weren't going to get the space ace out.

Yes, the play preriver on all of the hands is debatable, and we can put up a thousand posts on that.

1. Call. Can't fold your set here, even though you might be beaten.


2. Call. You have to because you checked behind on the turn.


3. Call. I'm probably flushed, but I'm not going to lay down my straight here for one more bet on the end.


4. Fold. You are getting 6-1 odds on your call, but against a straightforward loose player, you are beaten here. I think you should bet out on the river here and put the decision on him whether to call with his marginal diamond.


5. Fold. You didn't hit an out. You are getting tremendous odds to call, but even loose agressives don't 4-bet the river without being able to beat your hand.


6. Call. The play on this hand was horrible, but I don't see how you can fold here.

Coilean,


I think you need to look up the meaning of the word "somewhat" /images/biggrin.gif


Regards,


Rick

Unsurprisingly, skp pretty much nailed them all. For what it's worth, here are my answers.


1) I can't see how I can do anything but call. My chances seem dismal, but hey, there are almost 25BB out there and I have a set. As expected, TMT showed T9 for the straight. I think the flop smoothcall is fairly debatable; I mostly did it for variance since I almost never slowplay sets on the flop, and I might get someone to misread me for a much weaker hand by going for the shutout raise on the turn (which actually did happen in this case: TS had A8s, although he didn't overcall the river).


2) I called, but think I should have folded. With the club flush out there and my play consistent with slowplaying AA or KK, I think the sirens should go off when he goes ahead and 3 bets me on the river anyway. I raised the river partly in hopes that the scary board would shield me from a reraise by a 5 or flush, but I ignored my own thinking and called the reraise anyway. He had A5 for the boat. I think the turn check was OK, since bluff induction works very well against this opponent and he usually won't have more than 2 outs to beat me (when I happen to be leading, anyway /images/wink.gif).


3) I called, and think it's pretty marginal whether I fold or call. He had QQ for the boat, which is what I was expecting to see (or maybe 77 for quads). Like skp said, he probably bets the turn with the flush draw, and shouldn't want to let a heart slide off for free if he held an overpair, which leaves him pretty much only with monsters. The river bet itself seems pretty questionable; after everyone indicated they had dick on the turn and the river blanked, I should have been looking to snap off a bluff, not collect a weak call.


4) I folded. Another one that seems pretty marginal to me, since it feels like my odds of having the best hand are probably pretty close to the odds I am getting to call in this fairly small pot. The previous 3 hands had just happened to me in the prior 30 minutes, so I think I was simply fed up with paying off.


5) I called. I agree with skp that this was a no brainer fold, as he almost has to have even a big overpair beat to put in the 4th turn bet. He had 33 for a boat on the turn. This was the worst played hand of the bunch, IMO: I lost 5 bets where I should have lost 3, and even turned down my second chance to salvage a bet by folding on the river.


6) I called. Another no brainer fold: he's tricky aggressive, not tricky insane. He had AsJc for the nuts. Another badly played hand, checking the turn was criminal against loose opponents: I kind of did it on the spur of the moment thinking it might be a reasonable time to let them hang around and bluff the river while having only 3-4 outs. Too bad I hung myself against the guy with 11 outs instead.

Hey, don't let my quiz format stop you from lambasting the preriver play as well. Nothing cures bad play quicker than public humiliation. /images/wink.gif

Coilean,


...because it is instructive and touches the more realistic-spur-of-the-moment decision-making that, right or wrong, we constantly face on the poker table. It stands apart from the daily doses of "I-look-down-to-see-black-aces" or "winning with AK's" varieties that appear to be contrived.


I think I found some nuggets of wisdom from this post. I hope more players will do the same.

Hand 2: I think the river raise after inducing a bluff has no value. He is more likely than normal to fold to my raise because its more likely he is bluffing. He could also hold the trip 5's that are the reason I checked the turn in the first place. If he always bluffs, bet the turn and call him down. If he is good enough to bluff once in a while, raise me with the 5, and fold most of his garbage to my turn bet, that is when I check the turn. However, if this is correct, the river raise probably isn't because he wont pay me off very often with worse hands.

OK - my $.01


Hand 2 (AK top two)- There's just too much he will call the turn with. I'd bet. If you want to go S&M and check behind, that's OK, but to subsequently raise the river defeats the whole purpose.


Hand 3 (straight on the river)- Check and call. The turn was checked around, so there's no reason to think a worse hand can suddenly call. A flush or slowplayed boat will raise you and almost everything else will fold. Hope to induce a bluff.


Hand 5 (77 in 4 handed game) - You can't ever fold that hand with that board in a 4 handed game vs a TA opponent. Call the turn checkraise and call river unless improved. 3-betting is not what you want to do headsup and shorthanded vs this type of player with a hand as fragile as yours.


Hand 6 (checking behind with KK) - is the same as hand 2! Again, I prefer betting here. But if checking behind, then call the induced bluff. The raise, even with the flush coming, is inconsistent with checking the turn IMO.

1. When a player calls 4 bets cold on the turn, and then comes out firing on the river, then I aint raisin with nothin but the nuts! I call because the pot is huge and there is a 4% chance he mis-read his hand, not to mention folding the best hand in a pot like this would put me on semi-tilt for a week.


2. I like your thin-value raise on the river once the clubs and the straight hits. Most players wont 3-bet the river without a very strong hand, especially when a scare card hits. Once you do get 3-bet, its very close on whether to call or fold IFF the guy is over-aggressive as you indicated. I think I would fold anyway, though.


3. I don't like the river bet when the flush gets there. I would check and call. Once you bet and get raised, I think you have to pay off. I can't imagine TSP not following through with a turn bet with the flush draw, so the flush for him makes no sense. When confused, I pay off.


4. I call. I have seen way to many river bluffs when a 4 flush hits the board.


5. Once the BB check-raises, I go into check and call mode. As you stated, the re-raise was a mistake. Since you got 4 bet on the turn, a river fold is easy once you don't hit your outs.


6. I probably would have just called on the river, but a raise is not out of the question. I think you have to pay off, though.


Just my opinions! Thanks for letting me play... can I try again next time when the prizes get really big?