My first day of moving up!!!!! (Low to No Content)

[El Tigre]

Okay I've been playing .25/.50 at full tilt for about 2-3 weeks now. I've built my roll from 200 up to 310 in that time, and another 90 will be coming soon for rakeback. Today I decided it was time for some .50/1. Is this a bad move, should I have stayed longer at .25/.50?

Yesterday I was hit with a golf ball from about 25 feet at full speed (long story) so I made this saturday poker/college football day. I decided jumping str8 into 4 tabling .50/1 might not be the best idea so I did 2 tables of .50/1 along with 2 of .25/.50. I played 2000 hands today, and have had some very very large swings. Up and down all day. A win in an 18 person $3 HORSE tournament kept me even. My net total today was 0. This is somewhat encouraging. I beat the small online rake and have generated a lot of money for rakeback and my sign up bonus. However thinking back, I think I lost a lot of bets on careless mistakes and misplaced agression. Look at this one for me please.

FullTiltPoker Game #206447991: Table Casada - $0.50/$1 - Limit Hold'em - 23:39:23 ET - 2005/09/03


*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Q /images/graemlins/heart.gif A /images/graemlins/diamond.gif]
UTG calls
2 Folds
Hero raises
2 folds
Button coldcalls
1 fold
BB calls
UTG calls
*** FLOP *** [7 /images/graemlins/club.gif 2 /images/graemlins/heart.gif J /images/graemlins/heart.gif]
BB checks
UTG bets
Hero calls
Button calls
BB calls

Okay first mistake? I'm gettin 9 to 1 and I have 2 overs with backdoor Q high flush draw.
*** TURN *** [7 /images/graemlins/club.gif 2 /images/graemlins/heart.gif J /images/graemlins/heart.gif] [9 /images/graemlins/heart.gif]
BB checks
UTG checks
Hero checks
Button checks

Simple check here does anyone get fancy with a semi bluff?
*** RIVER *** [7 /images/graemlins/club.gif 2 /images/graemlins/heart.gif J /images/graemlins/heart.gif 9 /images/graemlins/heart.gif] [Q /images/graemlins/diamond.gif]
BB bets
UTG folds
Hero.......

It's these rivers that can make a 2BB difference. I've hit top pair but wait where is this BB betting from? Is a raise a good idea. Who flat calls? Thanks for the help.

[RandBriscoe]

I'd either raise or fold the flop. Get yourself a free card (unless you have a read that procludes this). Your hand is decent enough to see the turn, bd flush/straight and two overs...

I raise the river.

FWIW, if you're not bonus whoring and are moving to $.5/1, I strongly suggest you move to Party or a skin. In my experience, the level of play on Party is so much worse than on other sites (it's not even close, The 6-max games, for one, are glorious). Obviously, this means more $$$ for you. Unless whoring, I don't see why people even bother playing elsewhere...

If rakeback is your concern, I think Empire and Eurobet have deals. Not sure though...

EDIT: I call the river. Didn't realize the bet came from elsewhere. Board is a bit scary...

[marchron]

Since you've decided to play the flop, raise to protect your hand.

At the river, BB's bet could be anything. I think I call with top pair and hope it has both BB and Button beat.

[Paxosmotic]

Backdoor draws do not benefit from free cards, so that's out. Raising to protect our hand only works if we have the best hand, so that's out. I think it's an easy peel, but there is no value at all to raising except to get rid of a weaker ace or queen and leave us facing only made hands.

I call the river. It's tempting to raise but we'll see a scraggly two pair too often on this river.

[El Tigre]

What is a reload bonus and how do u get them. I've searched some sites like bonuswhores.com and found nothing about how to get them.

BTW. I called and won, he had A8

[RandBriscoe]

Backdoor draws benefit from free cards if the turn helps and quite a few help us here. If one comes, I don't want to call a turn bet when I could've just raised the flop. Even if the turn is ass, it gives us one more shot at our overs... A flop raise may even get us a free showdown (although unlikely)...

[RandBriscoe]

You have to have accounts at the skins before you'll be told about reloads. You'll usually get emails or the infor will be on the lobby when you first sign in. The forums at bw.com are an absolute goldmine for this stuff...

[Paxosmotic]

[ QUOTE ]
Backdoor draws benefit from free cards if the turn helps and quite a few help us here. If one comes, I don't want to call a turn bet when I could've just raised the flop. Even if the turn is ass, it gives us one more shot at our overs... A flop raise may even get us a free showdown (although unlikely)...

[/ QUOTE ]
Backdoor draws only benefit from a free card the 21.2% of the time we turn a suited card. The rest of the time, it took us an extra SB to fold. It's tremendously -EV to raise for a freecard on a backdoor draw that will so frequently be ruined by a missed turn card.

[RandBriscoe]

I suppose you're right considering Hero's equity will be is much influenced by the turn.

However, there are just so many cards that can help us on the turn, might it not be worth it to raise the flop? Any K, Q, T, A or heart is a good card for us. Thats 18 cards, 38% of the deck. If we miss the turn, we have 6 overcards to catch on the free river which are probably clean...

Having said that, I'm probably all wrong. Feel free to let me know why...

[Paxosmotic]

You're right that those are all very good cards for us, but the problem is you're calculating the 38% number as if it was equity, and since we have 38% equity and only contribute 25% of the pot, the bet should be for value. Unfortunately we don't have 38% equity. To wit:

We have a 17.02% chance of the turn being a King or a Ten, two cards we'd certainly like to see. This does not mean we have a 17% chance of winning. Whichever card we get, we need the other one to come, so say we have get our King on the turn, we then have a 8.7% chance of hitting our Ten on the river for the win. So we have a 17% chance of having an 8.7% chance of winning, or specifically a 1.48% chance of winning this hand with a straight. Quite a drop from the 17% we were using earlier.

Backdoor draws add a lot of strength to marginal hands, but they don't make the hand.

[RandBriscoe]

I'm not really saying that this is equity or suggesting it's a value raise.

I'm saying that since almost 40% of the deck will help us on the turn, we're probably gonna want to see the river anyway. Doesn't this make it a worthy time for a free card play? Have I missed some fundamental principle that says free card plays have to double as value raises? I'm not being sarcastic, just trying to get my [censored] together...

[Paxosmotic]

If 40% of the deck helps us, then we're folding over half the time (when the other 60% falls), meaning we're either paying 2sb to draw or paying 2sb to fold, neither of which wins us the hand. I prefer to pay 1sb, check out the turn, and if I have a draw, I'll pay 2sb to see the river.

Free card play is for draws, right now we're drawing to a draw.