Top two pair on turn, opponent flopped trips, any escape?

[Magician]

Or do you just pay him off with your stack that time?

$200 tournament on Pokerstars:

I had top pair + decent kicker on the flop, bet the pot (there were both potential flush and straight draws on that flop), opponent called, on the turn I had top two pair (with no help for either potential straight or flush draw), I bet the pot again, he re-raises me for the rest of my stack (rest of my stack is about half the pot size by then), I call, and then it's all over (he had bottom trips).

On a similar play earlier in the tournament, I had pocket Aces (baby-raised by opponent, re-raised by me (for twice the then-pot) and called by opponent before the flop), there was a K 5 8 flop, my opponent checked, I bet the pot, he raised me, and I moved in on him. He calls, turns over pocket AKo and I double up early.

Seems to me that we have a lot less control over the game than we think.

What can be a stupid call one hand can be a great call on another and the circumstances are exactly the same. On both hands it seems to me there's no way you can tell if your opponent has trips anymore than you can tell he has just top pair + great kicker to your overpair. If I had folded on that earlier hand it would have meant a crippled stack rather than doubling up early.

Conversely, with top pair + a good kicker, and first to act (I was the BB, opponent had limped in), and with flush and straight draws on the board, what else can you do but bet on the flop? Do you check or bet small and let him draw out on you?

When he just calls, and you hit top two pair - how do you escape that? Of course you come out betting.

I'm becoming very cynical about whether anyone really makes money long-term (on tournaments at least) - maybe the guys who think they are positive EV have had one or two big wins that have kept them safely in the black for their lifetime. I mean, how many fish can there be, and if the fish play tight how much of an edge can even the Chans and Hellmuths have on them?

Maybe we only hear about the Chans and Hellmuths due to survivorship bias - we never hear about the guys who blow their bankrolls and are forced to retire from poker.

Sounds to me like the only way to consistently make money is to seek out weak games and play fundamental, conservative poker and grind it out like Joey Knish - one big bet in B&M, or 5-6 big bets online per hour.

Me, I think I'm taking at least a month off and will spend the time just practicing on software or reading the archives on this forum.

For the record, I've played about 50-60 (not sure, maybe more?) tourneys on Pokerstars in my brief one month multi-tables career, and made 4 final tables (if I remember right a couple of $30s and a couple of $50s), but never finished higher than 5th. Buy-ins ranged from $10 to $200 although most were $30 and up. I'm nursing a loss on tourneys of about $1,500 - mostly due to the buy-ins for the big ones ($100, $200) where I never final tabled.

I think considering my relative inexperience (a month ago I didn't even know that a standard bet is pot-sized or that there was such a thing as stealing blinds) I've become a decent player.

For sure, with more time and experience, I can improve - but the question is, can anyone really win what is essentially a negative sum game (not even zero sum because of the rake).

Watching Matt Damon talk about it in Rounders ("same 5 guys at the final table in WSOP each year" - which by the way is B.S.) you'd think it's all skill but I say that at a certain skill level, the skills almost cancel each other out and it boils down to luck.

Sometimes you can trap or trick somebody, but it's just as likely that you get deceived too.

[gunbuster]

When I raise pre-flop, bet the pot and am called, lead out on the turn and get raised on a board that has no draws, I start to get suspicious that I've been trapped. A lot of this will wind up with your read on the opponent, of course. If the player is a calling station, a lot of times you'll end up paying off the player. I've found that TP/TK, especially when the money is deep is overvalued. A lot of people will limp or even call small raises with pocket pairs for the implied odds of hitting their set. So I'm always wary when I am flat called by a good player through the flop. I might have slowed down a bit on the turn -- you still want to lead out, but perhaps a pot sized bet isn't necessary. Bet the same amount as you did on the flop. Sure it's underbetting the flop, but there aren't draws to be concerned with giving odds to. You can't check, because you'll invite the bet, but you might be able to keep a few more chips in case your opponent comes over the top.

I don't think with a month of table experience, that you could make a valid argument that the game boils down to luck. In fact, in another post you mentioned flat calling the SB w/ 72o, then busting out --- with more experience, you'll find that you'll make better decisions at the table and stay away from the kinds of hands that get you broke.

[Magician]

On the turn I'd just hittop two pair, and there were both flush and straight draws on the board, hence my pot-sized turn bet.

If my opponent were on a draw that bet would have been right.

Now the point is, if I underbet the pot on the turn and it turned out he had a flush or straight draw, I could have lost out on what would have been a big pot in my favor if he hit on the river.

Thoughts please?

[fnurt]

Well I agree that a raise on the turn often makes me feel trapped. But when I've just improved to top 2 pair, I would still feel like I have the better hand. There weren't a lot of details given but I agree that it's tough to get away from this one.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Of course the best players can make money over the years. That point has been demonstrated many times by many players.

It is of course true that many more players do this playing exclusively ring games than playing exclusively tournaments. However, there are those who succeed at both.

It is MUCH easier, IMO, to be a consistent winner for stakes that are high enough to make a very good living at live games than on the internet. While low limit internet games are historically easy to beat, they offer a lot more fluctuation compared to the win, and it is much harder to play the opponent rather than the cards.

In live games, there is a plethora of information that is available that you can never see online. And while things like length of time before a player acts do work as tells, often the long delay means things like the guy's phone rang, or his kid interrupted, or whatever, rather than just he was thinking about his action. Or, if you play two tables like me, sometimes the delay on one table is because I'm thinking about the hand on the other table. In any event, I see tells in live tourneys and ring games that are extremely valuable in the play of the current hand, and these are things I will never see online.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[Magician]

When I got raised on the turn alarm bells were ringing in my head but I still thought I had a good chance of having the better hand. The pot odds were too big by then to just fold. The possibility that he was bluffing, semi-bluffing or had a strong but 2nd best hand made it too costly to fold.

[Guy McSucker]

Magician,

On that hand, I think you're buried. The cards are playing you, not the other way around. Nothing to be done.

About tournament profitability: I know exactly how you feel. For the first 18 months that I played tournaments, I made steady, consistent losses. Every week I would put my money in with the best of it, and get outdrawn. I made several posts here and on RGP asking for help, and the advice was always the same: keep playing right and you'll get there. I felt like banging my head against a wall. It was horrible. Every time I had AK I *knew* it would be my last hand of the night.

Now, 18 months further on, I have a positive return from tournament play, both live and online. Playing online really helped me I think, since I could play more than once a week and try different preflop strategies and so on. I have become better at adjusting to the table, and more confident in betting my hands. Still, sometimes there is nothing you can do. Glenn who plays the Foxwoods tournament posted a while back saying that he had lost 100% of 50-50 matchups for the year, or something extraordinary. I believe him. In the face of this kind of misfortune, you're going to have a hard time winning.

You *do* need the run of the cards to win a tournament. When you have that night when all your good hands hold up and all the times you're outflopped are screamingly obvious to you, you'll take first place and the reward will be very great. All your previous losses evaporate and your confidence soars.

Hang in there. Try not to focus on the hands that got you knocked out; focus on hands you misplayed earlier, or opportunities wasted. Was there a hand where you could have made more chips, or lost fewer? Was there a pot which was up for sale but you let it get checked round so the BB won it with a rivered pair of 3s?

Also, you're right, lots of the players who are a long way ahead in tournaments are just having an extended lucky streak. Tournaments are profitable for good players, but not *that* profitable, and even a great player needs a big bankroll to survive the worst that lady luck can throw her.

Guy.

P.S. when I was having a tough time in tourneys, I was also a magician. Perhaps you should hang up the old wand like I did?