the gangsta, the killer, and the dope dealer [an image consideration]

[Schneids]

Three handed high stakes online interesting set up. Get ready for a lot of open ended questions with a strong focus on image considerations and other factors you may need [the hand itself is real and the descriptions aren't far from the truth].

In one seat is the gangsta. He's raving angry shouting 2pac style. He thinks everyone is catching on him and he's very likely tilting in some forms. The world is out to get him but he isn't just going to sit there and take it. But he is paranoid.

In another seat is the killer. He's been playing slick and smooth lately, and the last 20 minutes has been murdering the game.

In the third seat is the dope dealer. Without a doubt, this guy is high. Or somehow else [censored] up. He's normally an ok player, but tonight is beyond gone and playing awful horrible aggressive poker. Anyway, other than the description [and fitting a third character in since i was listening to the song that is the title], his role is irrelevent in this particular hand... However, as a tidbit, he has been sucking out lots on both players. The gangsta in particular.


So, the killer opens in the SB with 9c7c. The gangsta calls the raise.

Flop [Jd 8c Jc]. The killer [TK] bets, the gangsta [TG] raises, and TK calls. How good/bad is it to not 3 bet against TG?

Turn [Jd 8c Jc][6h]. TK checks, TG bets, and TK calls. How bad is it to not check raise against TG? What are some advantages/disadvantages?

River [Jd 8c Jc 6h][Ad]. TK bets. How good/bad is this bet into TG?

What are the respective advantages and disadvantages to TK's line and what considerations do you think he makes in all of his decisions?

[BreakEvenPlayer]

The hand is played perfectly.

On the flop the Gangsta has a draw that he won't fold or a mediocre made hand that he is pretty sure that he wants to showdown. He's tired of getting run over. If The Killer takes the lead against him here with a flop 3bet out of position it is going to make the hand more difficult when The Gangsta calls or raises the turn.

The turn is similar. A donkbet or checkraise may cause us more trouble because he is fully capable of higher level aggression as well (especially because he might be tilting). Check call is good.

On the river any card 9 and above is good for the Killer. Perfect opportunity to bet at it. Gangster either mucks his draw or small pair like fours or fives and types "FU" in the chatbox, or he calls or raises, no big deal (remember that gangster will most likely 3bet PF with the Axs he plays). This line gives The Killer the best chance to take the pot.

edit: Killer has to make a bet at any river whether he hits his draw or not.

[ToneLoc]

That's an interesting line, exploiting well the cases where TG is on a draw.

A turn C/R followed by a bet on the river on any card achieves the same, but is more expensive. You also risk being C/R by a proper hand. I prefer the checkcall turn/bet the river line...

Happy to see there are other people still listening to Westside Connection, makes me feel better about the whole thing!

[Alobar]

My opinion is that people in the The gangsta's situation, who have think everyone is sucking out on them, and the world is out to get them can NOT be bluffed. They will take their A high or whatever to showdown, just to see what you had, so they can bitch that they got sucked out on again.

[Nate tha' Great]

From our AIM conversation last night:

Schneids: i just got creative (though yuo may have seen the hand already)
Schneids: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=2650018&page=0&view=colla psed&sb=5&o=14&fpart=1
Nate: i object to the fact that you're asking people to think in your post
Schneids: well duh i figure it will probably get 2 responses
Schneids: haha

[RunDownHouse]

Move along, Normals, nothing to see here.

[EvanJC]

its unfortunate that "terrorist threats" was so very, very bad. "bow down" is an all time favorite /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[bobbyi]

On the other hand, check-raising him on the turn and then making your hand on the river may put him on total tilt if he has a jack. I don't think it would be paying the extra bets when drawing if you knew for sure that he had a good hand and wouldn't fold it, but if you believe that the decision is borderline in terms of immediate (i.e., on this hand) EV, your tilt equity makes me lean towards check-raising the turn.

[Alobar]

[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand, check-raising him on the turn and then making your hand on the river may put him on total tilt if he has a jack. I don't think it would be paying the extra bets when drawing if you knew for sure that he had a good hand and wouldn't fold it, but if you believe that the decision is borderline in terms of immediate (i.e., on this hand) EV, your tilt equity makes me lean towards check-raising the turn.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hes already on tilt, so I dont think that should be a concern.

[bobbyi]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand, check-raising him on the turn and then making your hand on the river may put him on total tilt if he has a jack. I don't think it would be paying the extra bets when drawing if you knew for sure that he had a good hand and wouldn't fold it, but if you believe that the decision is borderline in terms of immediate (i.e., on this hand) EV, your tilt equity makes me lean towards check-raising the turn.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hes already on tilt, so I dont think that should be a concern.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, that's why it is a concern. When someone is in a good mood and playing well and winning, you have almost no tilt equity here. Losing one hand is not usually going to have much effect on him. But when a guy is already sick of getting sucked out on, and you check-raise him and then his flopped trips get rivered again... that's when you push someone over the edge and make htem start playing much worse.

[sthief09]

ok so TG hates TK becasue TK is winning and TG is losing his shirt. so, for one he probably wants to make you fold the best hand. the way you describe it, he's on angry tilt. but he's paranoid too so he's not folding anything remotely decent.

preflop, figure he can have AA-QQ or worse hands. say he 3-bets with any A or pairs down to 44. he also 3-bets with suited broadway and bigger offsuit broadway. so we're probably looking at some assortment of trash, ro big card little card.

you flopped a really nice hand, even after he check raises you. you have lots of outs, plus we know he could be raising angrily loose so you have some bluffing equity if you can feel him out right. 3-betting encourages him to call one, then another, then another. I like a call here. I think it's likely he's on some kind of draw, has a naked K and figures you're being a douche, or has an 8. I think this guy slowplays a J, and maybe even a good 8.

nothing changes when he bets the turn. raising is definitely an option here. I see two problems with it though. one is that he's calling you, as the 6 gives just about any 2 cards a draw. this means you're going to have to lead the river. I don't see this as a big problem though because you have so many outs, including the 9 which is usually good enough. problem #2 is he's probably going to overplay a pair or something, as this being shorthanded I'm sure you've gotten out of line
en route to running over the table. paying 3 bets still sucks here even though you're probably less than a 2-1 dog.

still, you need to take some sort of shot at him here. you have 9 high but lots of outs and he could be raising very light. what can he fold? I'm assuming he's seeing a showdown with a K
maybe he has QT or Q9 or T9. these hands all make sense. you'll have to lead again on the river, but that's ok. I think this is more effective than a river bluff, whose success depends mostly on the card that slides off. a turn check raise is also a more powerful move. if you wait until the river, anger might cause him to slam the call button and drag a nice pot with Q high, taking him off tilt. and as I said, I think with this many outs, a bluff is necessary because it has to work so infrequently to make up for the times you miss.

on the river, given that you didn't make a move on the turn, the bet is solid. it's tough for him to call with Q high or maybe even K high. I think this is an excellent time to show the hand if he folds. it's an uncharactaristic type of move for you and it'll tilt him further

[helpmeout]

Yep check/fold the river you cant bluff this guy.

[Zygote]

[ QUOTE ]
Three handed high stakes online interesting set up. Get ready for a lot of open ended questions with a strong focus on image considerations and other factors you may need [the hand itself is real and the descriptions aren't far from the truth].

In one seat is the gangsta. He's raving angry shouting 2pac style. He thinks everyone is catching on him and he's very likely tilting in some forms. The world is out to get him but he isn't just going to sit there and take it. But he is paranoid.

In another seat is the killer. He's been playing slick and smooth lately, and the last 20 minutes has been murdering the game.

In the third seat is the dope dealer. Without a doubt, this guy is high. Or somehow else [censored] up. He's normally an ok player, but tonight is beyond gone and playing awful horrible aggressive poker. Anyway, other than the description [and fitting a third character in since i was listening to the song that is the title], his role is irrelevent in this particular hand... However, as a tidbit, he has been sucking out lots on both players. The gangsta in particular.


So, the killer opens in the SB with 9c7c. The gangsta calls the raise.

Flop [Jd 8c Jc]. The killer [TK] bets, the gangsta [TG] raises, and TK calls. How good/bad is it to not 3 bet against TG?

Turn [Jd 8c Jc][6h]. TK checks, TG bets, and TK calls. How bad is it to not check raise against TG? What are some advantages/disadvantages?

River [Jd 8c Jc 6h][Ad]. TK bets. How good/bad is this bet into TG?

What are the respective advantages and disadvantages to TK's line and what considerations do you think he makes in all of his decisions?

[/ QUOTE ]

Flop:

three betting would not be the correct play because:
-You do not figure to have the best hand right now
-You are very unlikely to push your opponent off a better hand

Turn:

Raising would be a good idea here because:
-He respects TK's image... does he?
-You might get him to fold a pair of 8's, a small pocket pair and Ace-High

Basically, i'd say if you thought there is a chance he would fold any better hand and buy into you bluffing the jack, then, absolutely raise this turn. You have now picked up an opened ended straight draw to add to your flush draw and you know you are going to call anyway so why not represent the jack and possibly push him off a better hand.

River:

You should bet this out. There are too many hands he might check off that you can charge him a bet for. If he had nothing, he is unilkely to continue his bluff right through the river and, therefore, you cannot expect to induce a bluff. I made this conclusion also because you said he is paranoid. If he is paranoid, he is unlikely to bet the river with a weak hand or as a bluff. To restate, by this point, he is probably sold that you have something and will give up on his attempts if he doesn't have a strong hand.

All in all, there are too few strong hands that he can have that he would bet compared to the amount of weak hands that he would call with that make betting in this situation a must.

[sthief09]

[ QUOTE ]
Yep check/fold the river you cant bluff this guy.

[/ QUOTE ]


he can't have trash or have Q high and fold that infrequently?

[Zygote]

[ QUOTE ]

River:

You should bet this out. There are too many hands he might check off that you can charge him a bet for. If he had nothing, he is unilkely to continue his bluff right through the river and, therefore, you cannot expect to induce a bluff. I made this conclusion also because you said he is paranoid. If he is paranoid, he is unlikely to bet the river with a weak hand or as a bluff. To restate, by this point, he is probably sold that you have something and will give up on his attempts if he doesn't have a strong hand.

All in all, there are too few strong hands that he can have that he would bet compared to the amount of weak hands that he would call with that make betting in this situation a must.

[/ QUOTE ]


Ignore this river analysis. I for some reason thought you hit your flush on the river. If i had just called the turn, i would check/fold this river. I don't think a bluff will work a proftiable percent of the time.

[bugstud]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yep check/fold the river you cant bluff this guy.

[/ QUOTE ]


he can't have trash or have Q high and fold that infrequently?

[/ QUOTE ]

or go motherf*** this at the river seeing you hit your ace and fold his bottom pair out of frustration?

[StellarWind]

A consideration not yet mentioned is that getting yourself caught on the river is going to make him feel better. That's the flip side of your tilt equity in bluffing the river.

One reason to bluff is that tilt does more than cause you to do things for emotional reasons. It also narrows your perception and degrades your reasoning ability. He could do something really stupid on the river not because he "wants" to do that thing but simply because he's incapable of analyzing the play properly. This leads to a much more random mix of blunders than a pure "he's mad, so he'll call" analysis would indicate.

[Nate tha' Great]

I guess I should contribute my thoughts.

The natural play seems to be to go ahead and 3-bet the flop and to continue to bet at it from there. Your equity on the flop is surely fairly high and you may well be a favoite. This at the very least out to get him to fold some kind of draw that would beat yours at showdown. I don't think he's folding a pair, unless you get some help from the board.

I guess the question is whether you can get him to increase the range of the hands that he's willing to fold (e.g. folding a pair or perhaps ace high) if you take some other line at the pot. My guess is that you probably can't if the board blanks off. If a card like a K or an A comes, then you may have some more flexibility, but those times that he does fold some kind of pair when this happens, my guess is that he might well have folded to your 3-bet/lead/lead line anyway. I suppose there's an argument that, given the mood that he's in, he's somewhat more likely to fold to discontinuous action than continuous action (e.g. you bluff at the pot when a big card comes off and it looks like you've hit something), but I'm not sure that by itself makes something like a turn check-raise +EV.

Come to think of it, in fact, the turn-check raise seems like a particularly bad idea, especially on a blank. The main reason is because I suppose the turn check-raise line is intended to represent trips (or perhaps an overpair), but in this situation, 3-betting trips would be a much more natural play, especially in a game at these stakes (in 10-20 6-max for example the texture is different since lots of people donk around and try to play fancy; the turn check-raise would probably be given more credit in that game, since more opponents actually would play trips that way). Plus the turn check-raise line is expensive.

Given the way that you played it, the river bet seems like an easy choice. There's also an argument that one effective and relatively cheap way to get some bluffing equity would be to donkbet virtually any river card, not just the ace.

EDIT: In summary, I'd rank the lines about thusly.

1. 3-bet flop/lead/lead.
2. call flop and turn / lead most rivers.
3. don't make a play at the pot and fold unimproved.
4. call flop raise / check-raise turn.

[Schneids]

So I posted this hand, then got busy and went to Vegas, and am finally back and remembered that I said nothing yet in it.

In the actual hand, I was hero with the 9c7c (and perhaps a convulted image of himself /images/graemlins/wink.gif). The villain folded to the river bet. Right after the fold, villain typed into chat:
"do you ever miss against me?"
So I say, "wut if i bluff?" and then add in a " ::hug:: ." Villain responded, "that wasn't a bluff."

I think it's important in short handed (ie 3 handed or HU or sometimes 4 handed) to really strongly consider how you're playing a hand and how the opponent is looking at it (see ** below for more). In the case of this hand, I was playing it weak. I decided that in addition to the outs I could hit, I thought if he did have an 8 or lower pocket pair (doubtful but he might just call with like 55 on down PF) I would be able to represent queens, kings and aces by donk betting any of them if they hit.

I agree with Nate that we're probably going to win the pot either way quite often if we bet-3bet the flop and continue to lead and happen to hit one of those overs, or if we just call and donk it when those cards come; but, I think just calling is better because without hitting those cards I believe our fold equity to be almost zero because he is tilting and isn't just going to decide we've got him beat if no scary cards come (and as such I think he truly is apt to call down with any pair, ace high, and king high a lot if no scary cards hit). I know our hand has a lot of outs on the flop and even more on the turn, but I don't think we have enough pot equity to make up for the almost zero fold equity that exists if we spray the pot and no scare cards hit. If you estimate your fold equity to be higher (and in some situations you might since you may notice other hands with this opponent that'll lead you to believe he's raising the flop with 7 high and will give up with continued pressure).


** for instance, when short handed, I like to consider how i've been playing my flopped pairs versus flopped nothings, especially when I'm out-of-position. So for instance, if I have gotten into my opponent's head by check-calling the flop and checking the turn a few times with top and mid pair (to which he then checks the turn and calls my river VB), I like to begin mixing it up by check-calling the flop with absolutely nothing (I mean overcards or overcard + backdoor draws) and checking the turn then if he checks behind betting the river with nothing and often dragging the pot. There are many other techniques and combinations to employ but in general it's critical to know that doing one particular thing often enough opens up other doors or lets you gain extra bluff outs.