88 hand 15-30

[mike l.]

i have 88 in the cutoff 7 handed 4am 15-30. pretty good game. early guy limps. he plays tons and tons of hands and chases with all sorts of stuff. plays quite predictably non-bluffing style postflop. definite losing player, but not awful given we've been looking at pots bloated from preflop and flop silly-aggressive tendencies. i raise in the cutoff w/ 88. bb makes it 3 bets. he's been doing this a lot when i raise. i think he thinks im full of sh*t more often than not which is actually a little far from the truth this morning. this bb normally plays 40-80 so i think he's kind of bored or something. btw this guy stinks and plays a bunch of chumpy hands out of position and makes other similar common losing player errors. again, not the worst ive seen though. anywho now limper caps it. this could be a really big hand (or just semi-good) in disguise, or this could be frustration at mr. any 2 will doo looking at another aggressively played hand where he's taking way the worst of it. so it's capped at 4 bets and 3 of us see the flop.

flop: 973 rainbow. bb checks, ep bets, i raise, bb calls two cold, ep 3 bets. now i know im behind. i call, bb calls.

the turn is an 8. bb checks, ep bets, i raise, bb calls two cold, ep calls.

the river is a 3. bb checks, ep checks, i bet, bb checkraises, ep folds, i reraise, bb calls and whines showing AA and i win a nice pot.

comments?

[astroglide]

sounds perfect to me. i would call 2 back against these 2 players here as well preflop. on the flop when you get 3bet you've still got any 6, t, or 8 to give you steam and plenty of odds. rest is automatic.

i thought it was a 5bet cap where you play?

[astroglide]

EDIT: removed duplicate post

[glen]

Just the fact that you saw his cards, you can outplay him after the flop. . .

[glen]

[Ulysses]

comments?

Yeah. When I got to bb checkraises on the river I was waiting for him to 4-bet with his JT.

I see guys who stink cold-calling w/ the nuts, then pumping when it turns into second-best all the time.

I don't see a thing you should or could have done differently. I agree with you that bb stinks.

[elysium]

hi mike
as usual played perfectly.

[andyfox]

4-bet cap in So. Calif.

[andyfox]

Hey, he can outplay him after the flop even if the guy saw his cards.

[andyfox]

What do you do if BB bets and EP raises on the flop? Or if BB 3-bets and EP caps?

[mike l.]

good questions!

"What do you do if BB bets and EP raises on the flop?"

i think this is a clear fold. im beat no matter what if this happens. these players are NOT betting and raising the flop w/ overcard gutshots, underpairs, middle pair A kicker, AK, etc. and the likelihood theyll raise and reraise more is too strong to chase slim backdoor stuff.

"Or if BB 3-bets and EP caps?"

this is closer, id lean towards a loose call. if the cap were 5 bets it'd be an easy fold. but once youve put in 2 bets on the flop here, it'd be pretty big pot and not as yucky to call two more on a pure chase.

as it went down though bb's check meant overcards to me since he would 3 bet w/ a wider variety of overcards against my late position raise, but not push postflop against this peculiar semi-unreadable 3rd player scenario without a strong hand. so i wasnt really fearing a check-reraise from bb on the flop, i was just trying to get him to fold in case my hand was good, which i genuinely felt it might be. also even if limper had JJ or something i felt my flop raise might back him off a bit and i could get to the showdown for one more big bet (or less if scarecards came) so that's why i was eager to try and get it heads up with him.

[mikelow]

You were behind on the flop, way behind. But what's $15 to your two-outer?

[andyfox]

"even if limper had JJ or something i felt my flop raise might back him off a bit and i could get to the showdown for one more big bet (or less if scarecards came) so that's why i was eager to try and get it heads up with him."

I think this is a valid point. Guys will indeed slow down in a situation like this, whether because they're genuinely scared you have an even bigger pocket pair or because they want to rope-a-dope. Since you did flop backdoor straight potential, it was not unimportant to try to get to the river, as well as the showdown.

[Tommy Angelo]

"i raise in the cutoff w/ 88. bb makes it 3 bets. he's been doing this a lot when i raise. i think he thinks im full of sh*t more often than not which is actually a little far from the truth this morning."

May I translate?

Ready?

I am in fact pretty much full of sh*t often enough that the big blind was correct in assuming so, except that on this particular tilted 4:00 morning, I was folding about 1.843% more hands before the flop than usual, and he had not adjusted accordingly optimally, yet. So I put him on nothing, as usual, and he put me on nothing, as usual, and we were both committed to a showdown anyway if we got the third guy out.

Tommy

[andyfox]

". . . of all sides he was the man the most fond of to bet which one have seen, betting upon all that which is presented, when he could find an adversary; and when he not of it could not, he passed to the side opposed."

Mark Twain, from The Jumping Frog in English, Then in French, Then Clawed Back into Civilized Language Once More By Patient Unremunerated Toil [this is from the clawed back section]

[mike l.]

not bad not bad

this was the most precise tell that youve been there:

"we were both pretty much committed to a showdown anyway."

exactly! that's why the third player capping preflop made things weird and unknown.

all said, it's thinking about it later that's making me so much less at tilt at 4am, stuck, against untrusting opponents. still tilted, still 4am, still stuck, but still getting there. just give me ten more years otay?