Lose bets not pots?

[Rickjohn]

I have often heard Ed Miller says that's its better to lose bets than pots, especially on the river. Did I take that idea too far here? i.e should have have folded to the raise on the river or not?


Paradise Poker 0.25/0.50 Hold'em (7 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with 8/images/graemlins/club.gif, 8/images/graemlins/heart.gif. CO posts a blind of $0.25.
UTG calls, Hero calls, MP2 calls, CO (poster) checks, Button calls, SB completes, BB checks.

Flop: (7 SB) 4/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 9/images/graemlins/club.gif, 3/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="#0000FF">(7 players)</font>
SB checks, BB checks, UTG checks, <font color="#CC3333">Hero bets</font>, MP2 folds, CO folds, Button calls, SB folds, BB folds, UTG folds.

Turn: (4.50 BB) 7/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets</font>, Button calls.

River: (6.50 BB) A/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Button raises</font>, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 10.50 BB

[jrz1972]

If you bet this river, you should be prepared to fold to a raise. If you can't bring yourself to fold, just check and call instead.

On this particular hand, button either had you beat on the flop (like 33) or spiked an A on the river. There is no way your hand is good 10% of the time here.

[Henke]

You're probably beaten since the only hand villain possibly could have that you beat is a busted flushdraw (diamonds). But then again, you're getting 9.5:1 on the call, and with no read I wouldn't be over 10% sure that villain didn't misclick/is a donk/is tilting/is a really bad player/really likes to bluff on suited rivers/suffers from FPS.

[Duerig]

I'm not sure if I like your flop bet. Betting 2nd pair into 6 opponents with 2 cards to come where half the deck is overcards seems like a bad idea.

[nomadtla]

[ QUOTE ]
If you bet this river, you should be prepared to fold to a raise. If you can't bring yourself to fold, just check and call instead.


[/ QUOTE ]

Bingo!

[Rickjohn]

[ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't be over 10% sure that villain didn't misclick/is a donk/is tilting/is a really bad player/really likes to bluff on suited rivers/suffers from FPS.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL love it, what is FPS?

[nomadtla]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure if I like your flop bet. Betting 2nd pair into 6 opponents with 2 cards to come where half the deck is overcards seems like a bad idea.

[/ QUOTE ]

Giving those overcards/flushdraws/inside &amp; OE straight draws/BDFD infinite odds to beat you when this is a above average flop for your hand is a far worse idea.

[nomadtla]

FPS = Fancy Play Syndrome

[@bsolute_luck]

gotta raise preflop.

fold the river.

Grunch

The pot is fairly big, but I don't want to put in two bets with a scare card like the A/images/graemlins/club.gif I'd check call on the river.

[Ed Miller]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you bet this river, you should be prepared to fold to a raise. If you can't bring yourself to fold, just check and call instead.


[/ QUOTE ]

Bingo!

[/ QUOTE ]

No bingo. The play is to bet and fold to a raise. Checking and calling shouldn't be listed as a "if you can't bring yourself to fold" second option against a standard unknown.

[MarkL444]

i almost want to c/f, but c/c is the play

[crovax4444]

are the reasons:
you are most likely beaten?
You are heads up?

what about:
the pot is big (what counts as big anyways? 7BB+?)
You only need to be good 10% of the time?

What are your criteria for raising and folding for a single bet? It's something that I really strugle with, and I'm sure it's a major leak of mine (besides the usual n00b reasons of being passive)

[Ed Miller]

[ QUOTE ]
are the reasons:
you are most likely beaten?
You are heads up?

what about:
the pot is big (what counts as big anyways? 7BB+?)
You only need to be good 10% of the time?

What are your criteria for raising and folding for a single bet? It's something that I really strugle with, and I'm sure it's a major leak of mine (besides the usual n00b reasons of being passive)

[/ QUOTE ]

You understand the principles involved, the rest is hand-reading. The answer to your question, "When do you bet and fold to a raise?" is:

1. Your opponent will usually have a weaker hand and will often call with it
2. Your opponent will occasionally have a big hand and raise, but a raise will almost always mean you are beat

In this hand, what hands do you think are most likely for his opponent? I think most likely is a dinky pair. But it's possible he picked up a flush draw on the turn (or has A4/A3) and has now gotten there.

You might check-call if you think you could induce a bluff. But against standard opponents, you bet and fold to a raise.

[Nick C]

I'm responding blind, and I don't know Paradise 0.25/0.50 at all, but my feeling is that unless your opponent is capable of a bluff-raise with a busted diamond draw or bluff-raising the scare card, your best move is just to fold when you get raised on the river.

Now I'll see what Ed said.

Edit: Whew! I did okay.

Grunching:

I think it was well played. He may have AA, but then again he easily could be bluffing you here HU (read would be helpful).

However, I don't think this is a "large" pot (it's decent sized), which I think is what most of Miller's comments concerned. Not to say you shouldn't also call here for similar reasons, it's just that the argument loses its force the smaller the pot gets.

EDIT: Or you could just listen to Ed.

You know, it seems to me that a lot of my struggles with river play (and I think others have the same problem) is that we see so many absolutely insane plays online. We also see these plays often before we have a chance to get a good read on a player.

So we get conditioned to have almost an existential reaction: "I can't 'know' that he's not completely bluffing, therefore I can never 'know' that I have less than a 10% chance to win, therefore I always call for one bet on the river when pot odds are 10-1 or greater."

And it seems like this reasoning actually works -- maybe enough, maybe not -- when we call and win against something we just cannot believe our opponent actually held! So, we come back here and have a discussion about what our opponents "rationally" held.

Problem is, our experience tells us there's an abundance of "irrational" thought. So it starts to feel like apples and oranges.

I feel like I have to continue to assume some rationality on the part of my opponents in order to become a good player (absent a read to the contrary), but I do struggle with this.

[aargh57]

Stonewalled, I think that your thinking is correct in a way when it's bet into you and you have to only call one bet. However when you're raised on the river as in this case I think that you can probably make an easier fold as bluff raises are much more rare.

[GrunchCan]

[ QUOTE ]
You might check-call if you think you could induce a bluff. But against standard opponents, you bet and fold to a raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

Given that the river came A/images/graemlins/club.gif, I'm less likely to try to induce. There are 2 reasons. Most importantly, an opponent is very likely to actually hold an ace here, probably along with a 4 or 3, and in some opponents the 9 is possible. Much less importantly, a draw was completed on the river. This draw completing on the river isn't enough to stop me from inducing by itself, becasue the draw was runner-runner. But it makes inducing a little less attractive to me.

If the river had come anything other than A-anything, I'd think more about inducing.

Even then, frankly, at this level I'm not inducing very often unless I read the opponent as a maniac.