QJo raised PF -- but I posted

[private joker]

Live 2/4, 9-handed

UTG is a tricky player. Not necessarily very good, but he'll raise PF with A5s, and slowplay a set of queens. He likes to check-raise. I never quite know if he's got a great hand or a poor one. The rest of the table is loose.

In this hand I'd missed my blinds and came back to post $3 in the CO

Preflop: Hero is CO with Q /images/graemlins/spade.gif J /images/graemlins/diamond.gif and posts $3
<font color="red"> UTG raises </font> , 4 folds, Hero (poster) calls, button calls, SB calls, BB calls

Flop (10 sb): K /images/graemlins/spade.gif 9 /images/graemlins/spade.gif 7 /images/graemlins/heart.gif (5 players)
<font color="red">SB bets </font>, BB folds, UTG calls, Hero calls, button calls

Turn (7 BB): T /images/graemlins/diamond.gif (4 players)
SB checks, <font color="red"> UTG bets, Hero raises </font>, button folds, SB folds, UTG calls

River (11 BB): K /images/graemlins/heart.gif
UTG checks, Hero checks

A couple of questions:

1) Because of my position and my post, is my PF call easier to make? Or is it still too loose? Or would it be an easy call even if I didn't have position -- like from the BB?

2) Given my read on UTG, was my river check that bad? Or did I still miss the value bet on the river?

[TripleH68]

1) Preflop call seems loose to me, given you cannot be sure of the action behind you. Then again it is likely only 1 SB.

2) I say value bet the river and call a raise.

[stinkypete]

definitely bet the river.

[Michael Davis]

If his range of hands really includes stuff like A5s you should threebet preflop and go from there. Must bet the river. You should DEFINITELY NOT fold preflop.

-Michael

[joker122]

[ QUOTE ]

1) Because of my position and my post, is my PF call easier to make? Or is it still too loose? Or would it be an easy call even if I didn't have position -- like from the BB?



[/ QUOTE ]

Is A5s at the low end of his raising range or the high end? This is the question you should ask yourself rather than considering position. The position helps obviously, but it doesn't overcome the domination of a typical UTG raise. A5s is LAG obviously, and if he's raising these tpyes of hands routinely you have a call. It's an easy fold from the BB against a tpyical/unknown player.

[ QUOTE ]
2) Given my read on UTG, was my river check that bad? Or did I still miss the value bet on the river?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is honestly one of the worst river checks I've ever seen.

[River2Pair]

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2) Given my read on UTG, was my river check that bad? Or did I still miss the value bet on the river?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is honestly one of the worst river checks I've ever seen.

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Seriously. . . maybe if he 3-bets you on the turn, you can think about checking here.

Hard to imagine you not having the best hand here.

[private joker]

Here was my thinking on the river check:

1) If he has a naked king, he'll bet the river because the K just helped him.
2) If he has a boat, he'll check-raise and I lose 2BB
3) If he missed a draw and the K didn't help him, his check means he'll fold to a bet.

Basically, I saw this as either a check-fold or check-raise situation from him. If he had a marginally decent hand, he'd bet the river into me -- since I raised him on the turn and he called it.

I'd like to get some more opinions before I post the results...

[mikeyKay]

muck pre-flop, bet the river. if CR'ed on the river, just call. i dont see him putting you on straight, and i see him being scared of the K.

-mike

[StellarWind]

I understood the A5s remark in the context of this player being tricky. Something he does now and then to throw off the table. He's not a LAG in the normal sense.

The PFR needs to be evaluated against the probability distribution of his hands and not just the range. If AKs is a 90% raise and A5s is a 10% raise, you need to give different weight to these possibilities when deciding how well QJo will match up against his raise.

I really don't know enough about this player to say what you should do preflop. General remarks:

1. QJo is a poor hand against a raise. He needs to be much more aggressive preflop than a typical 2+2 for me to play because of the domination risk. I don't want a great flop like Q85r to be a source of fear.

2. Cutoff position is a huge advantage versus BB.

3. It's good that no one else called so far. QJo doesn't play well multiway.

4. The button is a nice thing. Take a second to turn around and look at that player. I'd be much more inclined to call if I thought the Button would respect the raise and fold.

Checking a straight on the river is mind-boggling. If you need a guarentee I suggest you try chess. You are not going to get many higher percentage shots than this one.

[Nick C]

I'm thinking it is possible he has trip kings but sees the straight and is worried the river king didn't help him enough.

I also think he might have something like QQ or JJ. Maybe the king scared him on the flop. But then when SB, who was the only one to show strength on the flop, checked to him on the turn, he decided to go ahead and bet.

Of course, he may also have a boat or even quads. But I do think there are worse hands he might call you with on the river. He did call the turn raise. And the fact that he bet the turn increases the likelihood that he wasn't just on a draw.

[private joker]

So I checked behind, and UTG sighed miserably and slammed down his cards face up -- 77 for the boat on the river. (!!!)

The other Joker and River 2 Pair may be right that this was a terrible check, but for Worst River Check of all time, I'd give it to UTG in this hand. I'm lucky I stupidly checked behind, or I'd have lost at least 2BB.

I guess my question was -- and the reason I posted this weird hand (for if it had just been a straight up turned-the-straight-and-won hand, I wouldn't have posted) -- is did I overanalyze the river check and accidentally do the right thing? Or did I just get lucky and amazingly pick the one time that I'm beat here on the river? I'll tell y'all one thing: this hand isn't going to cure my nasty habit of checking behind on the river.

"Try not to be results oriented,
Try not to be results oriented
Try not to be results oriented
Try not to be results oriented
Try not to be results oriented..."

[thirddan]

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did I overanalyze the river check and accidentally do the right thing? Or did I just get lucky and amazingly pick the one time that I'm beat here on the river?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, you overanalyzed the river and did a horrible thing /images/graemlins/smile.gif
Seriously, this should have been a very easy value bet and call raise...

[private joker]

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No, you overanalyzed the river and did a horrible thing /images/graemlins/smile.gif
Seriously, this should have been a very easy value bet and call raise...

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I guess. I dunno, I suppose something about that guy just made my Spidey-Sense tingle that he had me beat. Maybe you had to be there. He was one of those dudes who wears sunglasses to a 2/4 table, and when he checked the river to me I detected some "acting" when he checked a bit too defeatedly. But maybe I'm projecting that onto him after seeing that he was lining up a check-raise (or was he? When another guy at the table asked him why he slow-played for so long, he said he thought I had pocket TT on the turn, but I don't believe that's what he put me on; I think he just said that to make himself look less stupid).

Justice: he was playing out of his rack, so I always knew what his profit and deficit were, and when I stood up I was up 28.0 BB for the day and he had about $25 of his original $100 buy-in left, so like -19 BB.

[thirddan]

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He was one of those dudes who wears sunglasses to a 2/4 table

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this makes me laugh...

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he was playing out of his rack

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this makes me mad...

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I suppose something about that guy just made my Spidey-Sense tingle that he had me beat. Maybe you had to be there.

[/ QUOTE ]

perhaps the check is more correct then, but i don't have the confidence in my reads live to make me check this river, but online this same situation becomes a terrible river check...

[private joker]

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perhaps the check is more correct then, but i don't have the confidence in my reads live to make me check this river, but online this same situation becomes a terrible river check...

[/ QUOTE ]

This must be it. I think I'll get scolded (and rightly so) by more online players for this check than by live players. Online, you just have to go by the math and value bet this. But one of the main reasons I love B&amp;M play so much (besides the feel of the chips and the social environment) is for the tells. It's hard to even compose a post including all the little signs you pick up, but I've made a ton of decisions in my day that went against the "correct" play because of tells and reads, and those decisions turned out to be correct.

What I need to do, though, is use this message board and responses to my post to keep me in line so that I know what the default obvious play should be, and then make a judgment call on whether or not to trust the tell that the opponent is giving off.

For instance, I posted a hand a couple days ago (another one I check-called instead of bet/called a raise) where the board paired on the river and I had an overpair. The tell I went off of was that once the board paired, I saw the opponent go right to his chips and grab a bunch before I even reacted. Pretty obvious tell that he liked that river -- he hadn't made that grab ever before in the hand.

I also like to not post these little actions and tells when I write hand posts because
a) I'd rather hear what people think the "correct" play is instead of going off of subjective psychological interpretation;
b) Much like posting results, I wouldn't want to unduly influence the responses.

Is this wrong? Should I include live tells that I think I'm picking up whenever I write a hand post?

[thirddan]

i would post reads, but i wouldn't post tells for the reason you stated. If you have a tell then by all means you should use it or else why bother...

As for the tell about him grabbing chips it has be specific to your player because some people will grab chips to induce a check from you (they are showing that they will call, but would rather showdown for no more bets)...Check out Caro's book if you haven't already...

[Nick C]

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Should I include live tells that I think I'm picking up whenever I write a hand post?

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I think this could be taken too far, because it's hard not to let your retroactive evaluation of the live tells (the outcome of the hand) influence what you write here.

Still, I do agree that live tells can influence a player to (reasonably) handle a hand differently than seems correct when looking at a text of the hand history.