KJs -- "is this a boat?"

[private joker]

Live 4/8. Villain is slightly loose and very aggressive. He likes saying "cappuccino!" but he also plays good cards and isn't a total moron -- just way over-aggressive. He also wants revenge against me for a 30BB pot I scooped in against him (took me 3 hands to stack all the chips and my pyramid was daunting) not 20 minutes ago.

I'm in the BB with K/images/graemlins/heart.gif J/images/graemlins/heart.gif

A couple limpers, Villain in MP raises, a couple cold-callers, I call, limpers call. 6 to the flop for 12sb

Flop is T/images/graemlins/club.gif 7/images/graemlins/heart.gif 5/images/graemlins/heart.gif

I bet out, limpers call, Villain raises, folded to me, I call, limpers call. 4 to the turn for 10BB.

Turn is T/images/graemlins/heart.gif

I bet out, limpers fold, Villain points to me, turns around to his buddy sweating him and says "he hit his flush!" and happily raises me. Goddammit. I'm getting 13:1 now and 15:2 to call him down, even though I'm 90% sure he's got a boat. I think for a while and try to get a tell out of him.

"Do you have a boat?"
"Do I have a boot? What's a boot? Hahahaha!"
(sweating friend laughs)
Dealer: "He said 'boat.'"
Me: "Do you have a full house?"
LAG: "No, no. I don't have a full house."

It sounds pretty convincing. But now I can't tell if it's a reverse tell or a regular tell. Does he think I won't believe whatever he says, and is thus telling me the truth? Argh. Now I really think I'm beat. He does know I have a flush. If he had a lone T and a boat redraw, he'd just call and see if he hit it on the river. Raising now means he made his hand. I think, "if I posted this hand, the SS forum would call me an idiot for laying it down; they would just argue over 3-betting the turn vs. calling the raise" So, for pot size, and for 2+2 credibility, I call his raise and check-call the river brick.

He turns over 77, and says, "Is this a boat?" And laughs, raking in the chips.

What's the moral of the story? I don't know, really. I'm thinking I should start going with my gut instead of playing purely based on pot size. It cost me $16 Sklansky bucks to make the "correct" play (actually, the correct play was probably 3-betting the turn), money I could have spent on the new "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" DVD special edition.

[GrunchCan]

Pretty much the exact same thing has happened to me twice live. In both cases (different sessions) I made the nut flush, and bet. The villan said something like "I knew you were drawing to the flush," and raised. (In one case he waited for the river to raise).

In both cases, he had the boat. I'm now convinced this is a solid tell, and from now on I'll fold every time.

[Avatar]

This exact tell happened to me in a tourney a while ago.

Opponent said "damn you hit the flush!"
Raises me.
I call him down just to see if I read his tell right. He did have the boat.

[MoreWineII]

I've seen all kinds of BS come out of B&M players. There have been times that I've been convinced, due to a player's words and actions, that he has a certain hand only to stare in amazement as he turns over something completely different than what I had him pegged for.

How dumb would you have felt had you folded and chumpy turned over pocket nothings?

[GrunchCan]

You don't think this is a reliable tell?

[gaming_mouse]

joker,

I really feel this dilemma. I find it comes up alot, and there is nothing I hate worse than finding out my gut is right after making the "correct" play, often calling a raise. I still do it, though, as my gut is not always right.

However, I suspect at this point that my gut is +EV over correct calls on these turn or river raises. I've actually been planning on being a little more scientific about it. I am going to start keep tracking of every time I want to lay down when the pot size dictates a call. After I have 100 or so of these hands, I am going to do a "what if I had laid down all those times?" analysis -- and see just how good my gut really is.

Keep in mind that, since the pots are usually good in these cases, you'll probably need over 95% accuracy to be +EV by following your gut.

And there's no way I do that until I have real evidence that it is true.

gm

[bozlax]

Or, more to the point, if you'd folded and Chumpy had mucked while he and Sweaty laughed? At least now you have a decent tell on the guy, and you got out cheaper than you might have. You can't throw away the second-to-nut flush, but I think it's a good idea to stop-loss to the boat when the cards come up.

[James282]

The pot is too big for all of these head games. You have the second best flush. He could easily have AhT or just be trying to outplay you to show off for his friend - especially if you just pulled a big pot from him. Generally speaking, you're killing yourself by routinely making folds in these spots.
-James

[Dangeresque]

7-1 after you call the river. Even less when you consider he may be looking for a cheap show w his set of 10's if they don't hit and more money if they do. Call. So he had 7's full this time, so what? Play was correct and guys like that (I too play one at my local cardroom. [And are they all called Tony?]) will run a bluff often enough for this to be profitable.

[private joker]

[ QUOTE ]
7-1 after you call the river. Even less when you consider he may be looking for a cheap show w his set of 10's if they don't hit and more money if they do. Call. So he had 7's full this time, so what? Play was correct and guys like that (I too play one at my local cardroom. [And are they all called Tony?]) will run a bluff often enough for this to be profitable.

[/ QUOTE ]

First of all, his set was 7s; if he had a ten it would be trips and much easier to read. Secondly, my point is not about how often he'll be bluffing -- it's about how I can pick up when he is bluffing (in which case I'll call down) vs. how I can pick up when he has a boat (in which case I should fold). It's about reads and tells.

[gaming_mouse]

[ QUOTE ]
It's about reads and tells.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, and even more to the point: Being able to trust your reads in the face of overwhelming pot odds.

It's a tricky subject. On the one hand, playing truly high level poker requires that you do this from time to time.

On the other hand, every poker player's favorite vanity is his miraculous ability to read people. And I would say that almost across the board people overestimate their own ability in this department. That is the reason for my suggestion above (which I just started doing myself) of actually keeping a record of the accuracy of your reads -- so you can get some sort of objective measure on something you are likely to distort otherwise.

gm

[private joker]

Furthermore, take a tournament situation. It's limit HE and you're at the final table heads up with a shorter stack. The blinds are enormous and every hand is like NL. This same situation arises, and if you call down, the 2BB is all your chips. You're out. You know he has a boat. You desperately want to fold and save your chips for a hand you will win. But "most of the time he's bluffing," and "the pot is so big you might as well call" so you call and he turns over a boat and you're out of the tourney. But hey, the pot was big.

This is a highly extrapolated example and it's advisable to play much different in a ring game than at a tourney, but the point is that there are times when you "know" you're beaten and should fold against the odds. If you were wrong and he turns over a bluff, well good job Villain. But just because this is 4/8 ring game and not a huge tourney, doesn't change how strong your read on the hand may be.

I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here because I did make the call and I did do it because of pot size and the off-chance my read was wrong. And it was "only" $16. But these questions will still provoke me. If you don't play your game with a little bit of "feel" added to your math, you won't elevate your game.

[holdemfan]

I've just started playing online recently but have played B&M for a long time. Tells and gut feelings are something you can't put your finger on but you did percieve something real in most cases. It may have been so subtle that only your subconcious connected the dots. Gut feeling is a part of reading tells. Its like when some one says something to you at a party that you just get the feeling they don't like you. Your usually right even if they didn't do anything that sticks out. Many tells work the same. All the same it does pay to occasionally invest the bet to see what those signals you are getting actually mean.

[MoreWineII]

Tell? Maybe.

Definite enough to dump the flush on the turn? No way.

[Alexthegreat]

Ok. So. You have the second nut flush on the turn. The board is paired. You bet. A half-decent player says "I like nachos!" and raises. What do you do??

[TightInn]

Just because he said, "you've got a flush" doesn't mean you should fold. A lot of the time when I have something like KK on an underpair board and someone reraises and tries desperately to represent a set, I'll say something like, "You've got trip 3s eh? Well I'm all-in." This isn't to make people confused as unless I'm in a big game I'm usually too lazy to do it and so my carelessness usually throws people off enough and makes it fun for me (and just by playing the cards I win the vast majority of the time anyway).

Also, the whole gut thing seems dumb to me. How can you rationalize it? The pot is giving you 7-1 odds, so I'd say a call is warranted (I don't think you should 3 bet if you were reasonably confident that he had a boat). Most of the time when my gut tells me something, it's that I need to go over-the-top all in. Usually when I do that I find myself buying back in immediately afterwards (I usually play NL).

[arkady]

This is a hand that you would never fold online, why would you fold it live? I would never consider it unless villain is hooked up to a lie detector and the machine is 100% accurate. Even then I would think about it carefully.

[Evan]

I'd call for reasons that others described already. Pot is big and your hand is good, yadda yadda.

How would everyone feel about 3 betting the flop?

[Wepeel]

I know everyone is talking about the turn here. But my question is, is it +EV to reraise this flop on a flush draw knowing your flush will most likely be good if it hits and your King will win some of the time because of your pretty good kicker? But then it becomes will the villian reraise here so all the limpers have to call 2 more cold and force them out which is what you don't want? And in this case I think there is a lot of people drawing gutshot straights and playing overcards so if they call they are making huge mistakes in the pot especially if you hit the flush and they make their straight or top pair. As for the turn be happy because he saved you two bets if you played this normally.

[cold_cash]

This weekend I made the second nut flush on the turn and immediately after the river card was flipped over, pairing the board, my weak-tight opponent leans toward the dealer and asks "Can I buy more chips in the middle of a hand?"

I still called.

[Monty Cantsin]

I think most of the "feel vs. numbers" dilemma comes from thinking about this situation in binary terms like he either has a full house or not. Of course this is true, but it's also true that the next card to be dealt is some specific pre-determined card, but we never think of it in those terms, we think of it as a range of possible cards.

By the same token, your opponent's hand is in a semi-indeterminate state. You shouldn't use your instincts and gut feeling and psychological insight to collapse that down to one possibility, you should use them to put the most accurate estimate of likelihood next to each possibility. Then you do the math.

It's not like equations vs. feelings, it's like feelings should be an essential component in determining the terms that go into the equation.

After all, the concept of pot odds doesn't tell you to call down, it tells you to call down if you believe you are good x percent of the time. Pot odds doesn't tell you anything about generating x, which is the hard part.

/mc

[Russ McGinley]

Its hard to act that way with nothing. If he's carrying on a lot about it, most of the time they do have it. Why would he bother making a scene if he had nothing? If he knows you have a flush (or in this case maybe AT) and raises, then he knows you aren't going anywhere. And if he has the best hand, why would he WANT you to fold? He wants you to think he's lying.

Most typical live players who do this have the nuts. Its hard to get away from, but you should usually say something like "No, I think you have the flush" and fold, or something like that. He'll probably show you his hand anyway because he's so proud.

[Spook]

I think Josh Ariel hit a flush on the river and ended up folding because he read his opponent as having a boat.

[cnfuzzd]

[ QUOTE ]
How would everyone feel about 3 betting the flop?

[/ QUOTE ]


Im glad someone said that. Seems ideal, especially in a live game, where players almost always have a penchant for calling, no matter what.

oh. and if someone told me they had a boat, i would still call down. In fact, i would just push 2 BB's to the edge of the playing field and say im calling down.


peace


john nickle

[River2Pair]

I believe John Murphy made a mistake by betting that large on the river.

His better chance of busting Arieh would have been to lead out for like half the pot and hope to get raised.

Anyhow, I don't see what a hand from a no limit tournament has to do with a 4/8 hand. In no limit when you are playing with deep stacks, your opponent can manipulate the pot odds to where calling down can be very unattractive, even with a pretty strong hand.

[GrunchCan]

I would. Equity seems high enough.