55 Hand. So....

[fnord_too]

I think we are at level two and I am in the big blind with QTo and call a mini raise with one limper left to act and likely 6 way action (I think, that makes my memory of the pot sizes work out, but it my have been 5 way post flop).

Flop comes an incredibly ragged Q high rainbow. Checked to the mini raiser who bets 100, folded to me, I call early limper calls, 3 to the turn, 465 in the pot. My plan here is to peel one off and see what develops on the turn since I think there is a good chance my hand is good right now but no where near good enough to commit a lot of chips to.

I check the turn (some brick) and now ep limper comes out and fires an "I want to freeze the raiser so please come over the top of me and push me off my hand" bet of T100. At this point I think I physically cringe since I think the probability of seeing a cheap (or free) river have just dropped precipitously and I am busy labling ep as a fish in my mind. Raiser raises to T300 I muck and ep, well he doesn't fold like I thought he would, he calls. Sucker.

River comes some card and ep open pushes his last T550ish into a 1kish pot, and raiser calls with AQ, which loses to ep's flopped set of 4's and I quickly relable ep in my mind as far from a fish (and give him credit for being a good tricky player later on).

So what do you think of ep's line? What about raisers? (His mini raise pf is just awful, but post flop what do you think?)

Personally, I like EP's play a lot. I think raiser's turn raise is very debatable.

[kyro]

I think EP's bet works best with small stacks like in a tourney. It's the best way to get what's on the table in the middle.

[durron597]

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I check the turn (some brick) and now ep limper comes out and fires an "I want to freeze the raiser so please come over the top of me and push me off my hand" bet of T100.

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I dunno, I read this and the first thing I thought was "set".

[fnord_too]

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I check the turn (some brick) and now ep limper comes out and fires an "I want to freeze the raiser so please come over the top of me and push me off my hand" bet of T100.

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I dunno, I read this and the first thing I thought was "set".

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This was the first STT I had seen the guy in, so my first thought was donk. I see so many weak leads without the initiative that are blocking bets in these games. The most blatent (and common) being the mini flop lead from up front when someone in the back open raised pre flop.

[durron597]

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I check the turn (some brick) and now ep limper comes out and fires an "I want to freeze the raiser so please come over the top of me and push me off my hand" bet of T100.

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I dunno, I read this and the first thing I thought was "set".

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This was the first STT I had seen the guy in, so my first thought was donk. I see so many weak leads without the initiative that are blocking bets in these games. The most blatent (and common) being the mini flop lead from up front when someone in the back open raised pre flop.

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Well, maybe I'm giving him too much credit because I honestly don't know much credit to give a typical $55er. You don't give the actual numbers of the low cards, but maybe the turn put a 2 flush or a 3 straight on the board so it was time for him to come out betting, and hopefully the PFR would come over the top, make it HU and he could stack the good PF hand that he crushes. But if he's limp-calling with reasonable hands, the only hand that makes any sense at all for him to take that line is a set.

[fnord_too]

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Well, maybe I'm giving him too much credit because I honestly don't know much credit to give a typical $55er. You don't give the actual numbers of the low cards, but maybe the turn put a 2 flush or a 3 straight on the board so it was time for him to come out betting, and hopefully the PFR would come over the top, make it HU and he could stack the good PF hand that he crushes. But if he's limp-calling with reasonable hands, the only hand that makes any sense at all for him to take that line is a set.

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There had to be some odd straight draw at least on the turn, but the board was incredibly ugly, and not in a scary way.

If you are thinking in terms of the segment bolded section, the first statement in the first bolded segment is dead on /images/graemlins/smile.gif. Players in the 55's utterly suck in the early levels. Occasionally I get stacked by a slick player taking a donk line (tricky bastards) but usually you will be correct by assuming players you have never seen are just bad.

So post flop, what line do you take as raiser (or ep for that matter)?

[durron597]

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So post flop, what line do you take as raiser (or ep for that matter)?

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Preflop, if I'm going to raise I'm going to put in a real raise and limit the field. If I decide not to raise this time I'm going to proceed very carefully and fold to heavy action. But I usually raise in this spot. This makes post-flop much easier to play.

As the EP limper, my default line (though not always, obviously) is to lead and hope someone has at least enough of a hand to give me some action. I figure if no one has anything at all then I'm not going to get action anyway, and with a queen on the board multiway I expect to get at least one caller. Then unless the board is particularly scary I usually check the turn and decide to check-call turn/bet river, check-call turn/check-raise river, check-raise turn, depending on the board, stack sizes the pot size and my opponent.

I dunno, checkcalling the flop and donkbetting the turn just seems hugely strong to me. If I got into that spot with AQ in the first place I'm probably calling the turn bet and calling a reasonable bet but folding to a push on the river.

[fnord_too]

I like leading with sets a lot, too. I also think it is ok to check on a really ragged board like that, and will mix it up.

I also think raiser raising the turn is bad. He pretty much has to pay off small bets, but the board is just not scary enough to make him need to protect his hand. Raising will get the BB (me) out a lot, which may be good or bad. Raising for a free showdown does not make a lot of sense here since it really just builds the pot and costs as much as a showdown probably would anyway, with no gurantee that ep will check the river. OTOH, if ep is a typical 55 player and has something like KQ, there is a good chance raiser can stack him here, but I think the down side suggests caution. If I am raiser and it is HU on the river after I call the turn, I have a hard time getting away if a blank hits and ep pushes, since that then is an overbet that is looking like it does not want a call.

Oh, well, I thought it was an neat little hand for the 55's, but my basis for that is the belief (which may not be accurate) that the small turn donk bet is more often weak than strong in those games.