Commerce 20-40

[anatta]

I stayed at the Commerce this weekend for my first LA poker experience. I had a great time. They have movies that are still in the theaters that you can order, which is great after playing until 3:00 am. I played mostly 9-18 and some 20-40. The 9-18 players are quite possibly the worst players I have ever played against.

I played in two 20-40 games, both were surprisingly tight. There was some cold-calling raises, but I thought the games were pretty tight-aggressive. From what I hear, this is rare. I think this hand is boring, but I am posting it anyways /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

I raise with AcKs UTG. Small blind and big blind call. Flop AdQd4c. SB comes out betting. He is a older guy, I don't know much about him. He probably thinks I am tight since I have been playing tight. BB folds. I raise. I thought about doing the old wait to the river to raise with AK like in HEPFAP, but raised the flop anyways. Maybe he has a flush draw and will go crazy with it. He just called my raise, and said "my queen no good?"

Turn, blank, check, bet, call.

River: Queen. He bets out. I call. I know the suspense is killing you, so he had AJo. Did he get all that he deserved for his bad preflop play?

[elysium]

hi anat
you played it fine. i like raising the flop and betting, and since you don't know this player well, betting strongly with the leader is usually best.

the play you're refering to, if i remember correctly, is what i call 'the sklansk'; yeah, that may have been put in there by mason, but i didn't know enough about mason's playing style back when i first read it to have named it 'the malm', and the name 'sklansk' stuck. i think though that the opponent should be ok-ish and a little tricky. you have to know a little about the opponent in this situation in oredr for this type of SP to be correct. and from first position, you check-call the flop.

by the way, this play really enhances the drive out power of your check-raise on the turn if you have a hand that likes to win on the turn. if you get one of these middle pair, good kicker heads up and over-carded type hands on the turn, and have recently shown-down one of these slow-plays, you have a little extra kick with your check-raise.

yeah, you played it fine. that Q on the river scares me. i don't think i could raise it unless i had a better read.

[mike l.]

seems good to me, it'd be a pretty thin tough river raise to make. the 4 chip games there are tougher than the 3 chips game. stick to the 15 and 30 there.