55: Need a post-flop line against this Ultra-LAG

[downtown]

Villain is a super-duper-ultra LAG, is not good at poker, and is absolutely running over the table to this point, though only the tighter players are left.

So then, what's your line on the flop and turn?

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (6 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx (http://www.zerodivide.cx/converter)

Hero (t1740)
UTG (t705)
MP (t1534)
CO (t4066)
Button (t895)
SB (t1060)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 4/images/graemlins/heart.gif, 8/images/graemlins/club.gif.
<font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, CO calls t100, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, SB completes, Hero checks.

Flop: (t300) 5/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 8/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 7/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(3 players)</font>
SB checks, Hero checks, <font color="#CC3333">CO bets t225</font>, SB folds, Hero calls t225.

Turn: (t750) 2/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
Hero checks, <font color="#CC3333">CO bets t225</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero...

[zambonidrivr]

i like shoving the flop.
get this monkey to fold this hand, adding chips to your stack. focus on busting this a-wipe out in the next 2 orbits.

funny, i was playing last night and caught QQ, KK, AA, AA all in consecutive hands. After the second preflop raise with KK, I got 2 people moving in on me when I was holding AA. It was a 50, and it was over when blinds were at $200.

[kyro]

Your stack is healthy. I'm not sure why you want to tangle with the only guy that can knock you out when you're sitting with...well, not much.

but if you feel the need to take him on because you're confident your TP is good, I'd rather just push the flop. That's 550 chips right there, you could definitely use those.

[downtown]

[ QUOTE ]
Your stack is healthy. I'm not sure why you want to tangle with the only guy that can knock you out when you're sitting with...well, not much.

but if you feel the need to take him on because you're confident your TP is good, I'd rather just push the flop. That's 550 chips right there, you could definitely use those.

[/ QUOTE ]

He is absolutely and literally on any 2 cards, and I in no way feel a need to tangle with him. I do however feel my TP is very likely good.

Thus, the post.

[kyro]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Your stack is healthy. I'm not sure why you want to tangle with the only guy that can knock you out when you're sitting with...well, not much.

but if you feel the need to take him on because you're confident your TP is good, I'd rather just push the flop. That's 550 chips right there, you could definitely use those.

[/ QUOTE ]

He is absolutely and literally on any 2 cards, and I in no way feel a need to tangle with him. I do however feel my TP is very likely good.

Thus, the post.

[/ QUOTE ]

Alright, fine. But look at the board. 2 diamonds. 3 to a straight. There is a very good chance he is drawing very live on you. I'd rather just get my chips in the middle while I still hold top pair, rather than wait and call down bets and then turn over our cards at the end and find out he has hit on me. This isn't the hand or the board to be letting him bet for you.

[tigerite]

I'd fold the flop because your reverse implied odds are all shot to pieces.. if he bet less I would call to see the turn but 275 is just too pricey for me.

[kyro]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd fold the flop because your reverse implied odds are all shot to pieces.. if he bet less I would call to see the turn but 275 is just too pricey for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

In actuality (is that even a word?) I would fold the flop too, but pushing is much better than calling here. It would have to be a MUCH smaller bet to get me to call, and even then if I'm playing I'm probably raising it. That is one UGLY board.

[tigerite]

I agree, FWIW, but I don't see the need to get in a tangle with him, so just let him have it in this case

[fnord_too]

Against a super lag, when I have a decent hand, I just call down. If he spikes a better hand on the river (which happens a lot more than I like), I just eat it.

[bigt439]

[ QUOTE ]
Against a super lag, when I have a decent hand, I just call down. If he spikes a better hand on the river (which happens a lot more than I like), I just eat it.

[/ QUOTE ]

This sounds like pretty bad advice. No offense. It's sometimes applicable, but should be far from general advice.

[citanul]

[ QUOTE ]
Against a super lag, when I have a decent hand, I just call down. If he spikes a better hand on the river (which happens a lot more than I like), I just eat it.

[/ QUOTE ]

i think that this is a reasonable strategy sometimes and a much less reasonable strategy other times. a concept i've talked on and off with unarmed about is the relative v absolute strenth of your hand. i don't know why i threw in that last sentence, but whatever.

the point being of course that some top pairs are better than other top pairs, and that some boards are better for top pair than other boards. (ie, top pair 8s is less cool than top pair A, but at the same time, the strength of top pair Ks varies.) this is all semi obvious, i suppose, but it means that particularly with a hand like 8x on a 8xx board, with some kinds of draws and such out there, i'm much less likely to call down flop turn river. usually against a super lag i'm quite happy to be playing my top pairs of all types to the felt, and if they beat me they beat me. especially the lags who have no concept of changing speeds and such. if they are a lag in that they will bet and then call a raise on the flop with second pair, then all the better, those guys seem to fold all the time on the turn /images/graemlins/wink.gif.

i'll semi frequently bet into a lag, if he's a raising type, with a hand like top pair, on any old board, so i can 3 bet all in, with a deepish stack. with a stack as deep as ops, it is somewhat awkward to checkraise all in on the flop, but not entirely ridiculous or anything like that. i think that i like check calling the least of the options on the flop, including check folding. i'm not a big fan of putting in chips that aren't an insignficant fraction of my stack, not having a clue where my opponent is, and then being OOP the rest of the hand with a million cards that could make a hand for a player who plays any two. the big problem of course is that a player who has any two, when he improves on a board like this, is often to always going to improve to a hand that beats your pair of 8s.

alright, that got a little wordy,

c

[tigerite]

Yeah, but good post. Even if it did agree basically with what I said, but nevermind /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[citanul]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, but good post. Even if it did agree basically with what I said, but nevermind /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

nah, i don't know if i was that close to agreeing with you. the sub or super text of my post was that i would likely checkraise all in on this flop, whereas you fold. /images/graemlins/smile.gif 500 chips isn't very few chips.

c

[tigerite]

True, but 1600 is a lot of chips on this table at 50/100 - surely that has to come into the equation somewhere.

[citanul]

[ QUOTE ]
True, but 1600 is a lot of chips on this table at 50/100 - surely that has to come into the equation somewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

a bit, surely.

i think that a bit more than just the ultralag usually shows up with these guys. does he tend to call too much after doing his lag bet on the flop? he did limp from the co, that's just plain out weird for some lags, but that might be the norm for this guy, who knows... in general when i'm looking at 500 chips and most likely the best hand by a lot (i mean, what hands are we thinking he can have here, and which can possibly beat us?) i'm not too sad if he calls with a draw or something, i'd love to take the shot at the double up while ahead, that's cool by me. wow, i'm getting truly rambly, probably a leftover from working on my "bad players play badly" section of my book last night.

meh.

c

[downtown]

IIRC, the reason I did not raise the flop or raise the flop AI was because my stack was a little too deep, but in retrospect I feel that would have been the correct play. Overpushing in this spot and against a non-thinking villain should make little to no difference, whereas against a more astutue opponent, overpushing could obviously have other +/- considerations.

Part of the problem, I think, is that when there is a player throwing his chips around, we salivate and think to ourselves, "When I get a hand, I'm gonna take all this guys chips," and then proceed to overly discount what we need to call down, for example. This was going to be my initial line, but then I hated it on the turn. So...

I shoved the turn, and he folded, but I really wished I had shoved the flop - I like this line the best.

Folding outright... it's not terrible, but I really feel like I'm leaving those 500 or so chips on the table when they are mine for the taking, especially with villain's huge range.

I posted this because I knew I had made an error, but I wasn't sure how bad it was. Appreciate the comments, all.

[RobGW]

You made a read that villian was full of it. You catch TP on the flop which by your read is plenty good enough. Now all you have to do is pull the trigger (check raise on the flop) before he spikes an overcard on you.

[fnord_too]

The thing I don't like about pushing marginal hands against lags is that they will usually only play with if they have good equity if you have any sort of tight image, but will continue to bet into you if you just sit there, especially if they think you might be on a draw. The stacks here are a bit problematic. About the best reason I can see to push this turn is to get a big draw to fold incorrectly, but folding incorrectly is not something lag's usually do. Even a better hand that will call if you push could easily check behind the river in this case. A hand like 89 with the 9 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif fits into this class of hands, and I think you really need to weigh these hands heavily since they make up a large portion of his possible holdings. If you think he will fold incorrectly, fine, but with a huge stack and probably a feeling of invicibility right now, I would not cout on that. There are a lot of hands like 7T he may fold that you are happy to see him fold, but there are a lot of hands where he is in milking mode, too, and will continue with the small bets if you don't play back (where he happily complies and stacks you).

[citanul]

i'd also like him to fold all his Ax, Kx, mid pair, etc hands, as well as the nuts, if he'll do that. the thing about lags is they'll bet many things, and some of them will call too much too.

if he wants to call me down on a push with a draw of some type that i'm ahead of, i'm more than happy to run it out with him. maybe that's unclear in my last post. i'm quite fine with getting it all in with the better hand here if he'll let me.

yes, there's a chance he has you beat, but there's also a big chance that he'll have nothing, and continue to have nothing on the turn and river, but that you'll be in a very bad spot due to the large number of scare cards for your hand.

c

[microbet]

Top pair of 8 absolutely has to be protected or dumped, IMHO.

You should have seen ultra-ultra-lag play a lot of hands and the only question is, is the limp completely out of the ordinary?

[downtown]

[ QUOTE ]
You should have seen ultra-ultra-lag play a lot of hands and the only question is, is the limp completely out of the ordinary?

[/ QUOTE ]

No. There is nothing to indicate anything about his holding. The limp isn't weird for him, and he's likely holding any 2. He's been really aggro post flop.