made a fool of?

[mike l.]

this was a nice little hand that came up 4 handed 100-200 live game the other night.

i have A6o in the sb. all folded to me and i raised. the bb called. bb is someone i consider to be a good player but he is a bit loose (but relatively tight compared to the others) and not very aggressive. he seems to do very well in no limit as well as the 1-2 game. he's constantly there i think he's one of those freaks that lives there and has no other life.

anyway, he calls and the flop is J74 rainbow, i bet and he calls.

the turn is a 7. im really liking my chances at this point of having the best hand and i decide i want to make him pay me. so i check, he bets, i checkraise, he calls.

the river is another 4. i decide that the winning play here will be to check-call and hope he bets a loser. or in case he has a 4 i save money. so i check, he thinks and thinks and bets, i call. he shows 55. i lose.

i felt like a fool. it happened a couple other times that night (different players, different scenarios). what do you think?

[Gabe]

[ QUOTE ]
the turn is a 7. im really liking my chances at this point of having the best hand and i decide i want to make him pay me. so i check, he bets, i checkraise

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you want to expand on this thought a little?

[Nightwish]

How often do you pull that turn check-raise with A high heads up? You said it happened a couple other times with other players, but I wasn't sure if it also involved turn check-raises or something else. If he's seen you pull this move a little too often, there's very little you can do to make him fold.

[mike l.]

"Do you want to expand on this thought a little?"

people call a lot with nothing or next to nothing on the flop in that game. at least that's my impression over the hours ive played in it. not just against me, but a lot of heads up scenarios.

that's the preface. the next part is where i say i really really *felt* like my A high was good here. he's the type of guy who i put on raising the flop w/ any pair, maybe just calling w/ a 4 (but not A4). and i felt he would raise w/ 98 as well. so when he just called the flop and then the turn card paired the board i liked my hand even more. i wanted to make him pay to stay in the hand with me. i felt my checkraise on the turn was strictly a raise for value and given hands that had went down between he and i in the past i felt very certain he would bet the turn 100% of the time when i played weak and checked to him.

that was my thinking at the time. was it way off base? knowing the results i know now that he was probably flat calling the flop to either try and rope a dope (me starring as the dope) and call down the whole way or more likely he would raise the turn when i bet and expect to get called down by A high.

would love to hear your detailed thoughts on the hand gabe if you get the chance. sorry i still didnt get your number on my phone ill be around tonight if you want to call and gab. i hope to check out hp next week.

[mike l.]

"How often do you pull that turn check-raise with A high heads up?"

not often. this was a 4 handed table for the moment until the game broke completely into the main game where we played three handed for most of the night and i slowly bled to death.

anyway, to answer your question, no i dont make that play often. i meant there were a few other hands that night where i thought i was playing the hand well but in the end i lost and felt totally owned.

[Gabe]

[ QUOTE ]
that's the preface. the next part is where i say i really really *felt* like my A high was good here. he's the type of guy who i put on raising the flop w/ any pair, maybe just calling w/ a 4 (but not A4). and i felt he would raise w/ 98 as well. so when he just called the flop and then the turn card paired the board i liked my hand even more. i wanted to make him pay to stay in the hand with me. i felt my checkraise on the turn was strictly a raise for value and given hands that had went down between he and i in the past i felt very certain he would bet the turn 100% of the time when i played weak and checked to him.


[/ QUOTE ]

That's the part I don't get. How is check-raising him going to make him pay?

I think you need more of a hand or less of one to make check-raising right here.

[andyfox]

"there were a few other hands that night where i thought i was playing the hand well but in the end i lost and felt totally owned."

By "playing the hand well," I assume you mean you had X and put him on Y and felt that X was better than Y. By "in the end," I assume you mean not that you got rivered, but that Y was actually greater than X all along.

So you're either overvaluing your hands or undervaluing your opponents'. I think that's sometimes a general function of shorthanded play: guys have less than they would normally have at full ring games so we sometimes just put them on something we can beat.

But maybe also, for you, you saying "I felt totally owned" comes into play: it's important for you to dominate these clowns so you tend to put them on less than perhaps you should.

Maybe I'm all wet here. Only you would know.

Regards,
Andy

[elindauer]

[ QUOTE ]
i felt like a fool. it happened a couple other times that night (different players, different scenarios). what do you think?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see anything wrong with your play. The turn check-raise is obviously aggressive, but heads up in a 100-200 game that's not surprising and probably necessary to avoid being run over. Certainly your play is not that of a fool. At least, I hope not. Uh oh.

Good luck.
Eric

[mike l.]

the bottom line with the hand is i misread what he had, overplayed my hand, thought i was playing it right but in fact played it wrong, and lost the max. plus looked dumb and felt dumb when he made the thinnest of value bets on the end, the exact next highest hand, and not a very high one at that, and i paid him off. when was the last time you did that andy? probably many years ago.

[Yeknom58]

I can see the reason behind the turn checkraise but if you planned on calling a bet on the river why not bet. If you could get another A here to fold only some of the time I'm thinking it's better to bet.

[cero_z]

Hi Yeknom,

[ QUOTE ]
If you could get another A here to fold...

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm guessing mike felt that an Ace would never fold, since he checkraised FOR VALUE on the turn.

Mike,

This is what I think happened. You bet for value very thin (as evidenced by this hand). Your opponent, knowing this, had a choice when you checked the river: does mike have nothing, or is he going for the double? He decided you weren't checkraising, and the double-paired board made it likely you'd call with Ace-high, so he bet YOU for value.

I don't like your river call, because I can't think of 2 cards he can hold that you beat, given his flop and turn calls. KQ would've 3-bet pre-flop, right? No flush draw on the flop. A gut-shot would've raised. How can he not beat Ace high, unless he called on the flop with T5s or something, planning to take it away on the turn, and picked up a flush draw? All that doesn't seem too likely.

Your turn play (as a value bet) is debatable but fine if the game was right. But once he calls that raise, you are toast (or possibly tied--and I wouldn't call, hoping to get half of this tiny pot).

[PokerBabe(aka)]

Hi mikel,

I think andy's points are excellent ones. I have never played with you, but there is a general theme to your posts of trying to outplay everyone in the pot. You are often actually surprised when a guy has a hand that beats you. It seems you have a bit of the "entitlement" disease that Tommy talks about.

Ever try downshifting your game a bit or is auto agression the only speed you know /images/graemlins/confused.gif.

LGPG,

/images/graemlins/heart.gif

[mike l.]

"I can see the reason behind the turn checkraise but if you planned on calling a bet on the river why not bet. If you could get another A here to fold only some of the time I'm thinking it's better to bet."

i understand that play. my goal here was primarily to induce a bluff. but there were secondary possibilities as well: he could check behind with a worse hand (like motherfuucking 55 for instance), or i could avoid putting two bets in against a monster.

if you find yourself constantly betting the river because you plan to call a bet you need to think more about the power of checking to induce a bluff. it's a beautiful trapped if used correctly.

[Softrock]

Hi Mike:

This is just some surmises from quite a distance - not meant to be a flame etc but meant in the spirit of giving you something to think about.

My sense from reading your posts for over a year now (I thnk it's been that long - certainly close to it) is that you have been running well and you've moved up in limits rather quickly. Because you've run well, there is a tendency to overvalue both your hands and the edge you have over your opponents. What strikes me about this post is the certainty you express about being ahead on the turn. I may well have played it the same way but I would not have been thinking I was necessarily ahead on the turn. Do you think this player actually has some understanding of your aggression given his calling the check-raise on the turn and then betting out? Or does he just play bad? I'm not sure but that is something to think about. Is he thinking something like: "I've seen Mike try to overpower people often enough that I'm calling him down with my pair". If so, then it's time for you to shift gears and start playing differently against this man. If he's truly a calling station who's going to the river with this hand regardless of what you do, then it seems to me playing against him in this manner is a losing propositon. As you well know, the way you make money against calling stations is by making them pay when you have it and getting out when you don't - bluffing or even semi-bluffing calling stations is generally not wise.

Just my random thoughts Mike and take what you like or reject it all. I do want to say that I appreciate you baring your sole on this forum. I feel like I've sort of watched you move up and I find myself rooting for you vicariously. Now that one daughter is in San Diego I'll be visiting more often and hope to run into you sometime at Oceans 11.

[andyfox]

Let me think. Oh, yes, I remember. Saturday, the last time I played. I raised on the button first in with Q-T, the flop came J-T-x, I bet and as called by the BB. Turn was a K, river was a K, and I raised BB's river bet. He called and showed me K-Q. I was lucky he showed first after I called and I got to muck without showing or comment.