Bad play or bad beat?

[Justaloser]

UB tourney. 55 of 110 players left. Blinds are 30/60

I have T1385 which is a small stack, but about 5th biggest at the table.

UTG I get 99. I've been playing very tight, but aggressive when I play. I make it 250. Folds to the BB who raises to 1260. I have him covered by T70. I go all-in. He calls the remaining bit.

He turns over K /forums/images/icons/heart.gif 4 /forums/images/icons/heart.gif !!????!!

Flop comes 3 /forums/images/icons/heart.gif 7 /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif T /forums/images/icons/heart.gif DOH!

Turn is 6 /forums/images/icons/heart.gif and I'm crushed.

Should I beat myself up for calling such a huge raise and lose or should I tell myself that I did the right thing because I had the better hand preflop?

[Rickfish]

Depends why you called. If it was because you had noticed that his re-raises were often bluffs then fair enough. If you just called without thinking about the player and thinking you had the best hand then it is a bad call. You are either a small favourite or a big dog against any solid player (and even maniacs get good hands sometimes).

[Justaloser]

My feeling was that he was trying to bluff/bully me out.

My style is to pot raise when I have a good hand, but I do seem to fold a lot when others raise me first.

I hadn't seen many of his hands so I wasn't sure what he had, but the bet seemed too high.

[ohkanada]

Obviously based on his hand calling his re-raise was correct. And if your call was based on previous action then fine. Seems 9 times out of 10 your opponent will have 2 overcards or a bigger pair. Occasionally he will have a smaller pair. Only rarely would he have K4s.

I would have raised a bit less and mucked to the re-raise all-in.

Ken Poklitar

[Justaloser]

If he had made a pot sized reraise, say to 500, I would have folded without thinking.

And I'm not just saying that /forums/images/icons/grin.gif

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Well, there's two ways of looking at it. You DID get your $$ in with the best of it. In that respect, it was a bad beat. Your opponent played TERRIBLY, but beat you anyway.

However, this is online. I saw the EXACT same thing today, K4s reraised an UTG raiser all-in. Online seems to attract an inordinate # of complete morons to the table. I believe it's the WPT combined with the ease of availability of low limit no limit games and tournaments. It's making for a lot of maniacs at the table, trying to "play like Gus." /forums/images/icons/grin.gif /forums/images/icons/confused.gif

On the other hand, if your opponent had been a reasonable or tight player, you would have been making a mistake to call such a huge reraise BTF. The reason for this is that a decent player will either be way ahead of you, or just slightly behind, and you won't know which.

al

[cferejohn]

"Online seems to attract an inordinate # of complete morons to the table. I believe it's the WPT combined with the ease of availability of low limit no limit games and tournaments. It's making for a lot of maniacs at the table"

Of course, it should be pointed out that playing this way in NL is going to be a lot more effective than in limit (as illustrated by Sklansky's 'system'). A limit player who played like this will get their heads handed to them in a very short time. In NL, they are going to buy the blinds quite a bit, and they only need to get lucky once to double up (wheras in limit, if they get lucky, they will win one pot, and probably proceed to give it all back with interest quite soon).

As to the actual hand, I would usually muck anything worse than JJ or AK here, unless I had a read on the opponent as being very loose-aggressive (some opponents will make such a move with any pair, however its still dicey since there are nearly as many bigger pairs as smaller ones). You were watching his play and whether by observation or by luck, you read him correctly, so it seems to me you made the right play.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Against such an aggressive player in NL, you just wait for a good opportunity to double up against them. Play tight and give them an opportunity to hang themselves, they usually will too. Their play is more effective in no limit, but you can bust them for their whole stack on one hand, which you could not do in limit.

al

[cferejohn]

Don't get me wrong, its still not a winning strategy against a good player, but while you only have to trap him once, he only has to suck out on you once, and even 72o vs. AA is going to suck out better than 1 time in 10. A more likely situation (say J9s v. AKs) will suck out about 37% of the time, and it only has to happen once. Plus the times when you 'catch' him and you have QQ and he has KK.

I'm just saying that in NL being a maniac a more effective 'bad' strategy than playing weak-tight. Whereas in limit frequently the opposite is true.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Just because he might catch you is no reason not to play strong hands really hard against him. Sure, your KK might get beat by his AA, or his J9 might beat your AK, but other than playing your strong hands hard against him, you're just laying down and dying, like the rest of the table. Just because he is more effective at no limit does not mean you should play in a less effective manner. In a ring game, I'll take AK vs J9 anyday, for all my chips, every single time. If he gets lucky and sucks out, I'll buy more chips and hope I get a chance to do it again. I won't let someone who's playing crazy keep slapping me around, period, tho most players usually let them keep doing it over and over. Sooner or later him and me are going to play a pot, probably for all our chips. These players inevitably win when the first start playing crazy, but the vast majority of the time they go bust, just like they do in limit, it just usually happens in one or two hands.

al