200-400 hand

[snakehead]

last night at the commerce. the game just started, and everyone wants their share of the live out-of-towner's money. utg +2 opens with a raise, next player folds, loose player to my right calls, I call with 77. the player on my left calls, and both blinds call. the flop is 67Jr. blinds check, raiser bets, loose player calls, I call and so does the next player. blinds fold.

turn is 8. raiser bets, loose player raises, I reraise, and next guy caps it. raiser hims and haws for a while, then calls. loose player calls, too.

river is a J. board is 67J8J. raiser leads out, loose player calls, I raise, tears well up in the capper's eyes as he mucks his hand. raiser reraises, loose player lets out a whimper as he folds.

what would you do?

[Coilean]

I think you missed your 1-outer, but I'm sure as hell not letting him walk off with $12K without showing me his 4 jacks. If I folded, I wouldn't be able to sleep for weeks /images/graemlins/tongue.gif.

[Paluka]

I'd call. What else can you do?

[andyfox]

Well, seems I have 3 choices. Folding is out of the question because I can buy a new car if I win the hand. Raising seems wrong because I probably don't have the best hand and I'm not going to get a better hand to fold. So I call and pray he somehow has pocket 6s or T-9s (although is seems the capper must have had the T-9) and has fallen in love with his hand.

[Coilean]

[ QUOTE ]
Folding is out of the question because I can buy a new car if I win the hand.

[/ QUOTE ]
LOL, Izmet would be proud.

Anyone who doesn't know about the furcoat dilemna should go here: http://slicer.headsupclub.com:3455/16/31 . You'd be doing your game a great favor to read the other stuff on that site too. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[lefty rosen]

You have to call, if not pound.....

[sleepyjoeyt]

call.

I have a hard time imaging any different responses that can be supported by reason, but i'm willing to listen.

[NLfool]

?

[Diplomat]

I would have considered folding pre-flop.

I would call the river.

-Diplomat

[Robk]

I would think that in order to call on the turn and bet the river, raiser can beat a straight. And as far as hands that beat straights go, yours isn't looking too good on this board. So I would have just called on the river in the first place and gone for the overcall from capper. Once he reraises you can't fold because he might have 66.

[budman]

I would call. I would also be tempted to raise, but you are vulnerable here. The pot is too big to fold.

[PokerPrince]

I would have mucked this hand before the flop unless the game was being played short handed. As far as postflop goes, I'de more than likely raise the flop instead of the turn. On the river you must call.

PokerPrince

[Duke]

I'd call, and kick myself later for not having the stones to re-raise him. You can't fold. Well, I suppose you can, but I really don't think that you're behind 95 percent of the time or whatever it would have to be.

I like the big laydowns, but in this case I think that it warrants a call. Without extra information and a tell on one of the guys, well, I'm calling even with a tell at this point. Pray for an over-played straight, or that he's retarded and has AJ or something. Who was the fish in the game? Him?

~D

[ZeeJustin]

I'd just call here, but I don't think you winning this hand is as out of the question as everyone seems to think it is. I think AJ is a definate possibility, although that doesn't mean I think the AJ is properly played.

[mike l.]

first the preflop raiser bets the flop. then he thinks for awhile on the turn. what does he have to think about? he has pocket 66, or AJ or an overpair or some other wack no good hand, that's why he's thinking. he's out of line on the river and snakehead reraised and was called.

let's think a little deeper here: despite the action on the turn there's no reason to think there must be a straight or even a set out there. these 200-400 guys play very very aggressively, and they can be tricky as well. the loose players raise on the turn means nothing or close to nothing. snakehead's 3 bet also doesnt need to mean much more than top pair or even something less plus a willingness to put preflop raiser and loosey to the test.
turn capper is likely a set or straight, but who knows, maybe it's some wack two pair or something.

one last thing: preflop raiser may figure he and snakehead may have the same hand with something like an overpair or AJ or something and he may figure a reraise on the river may slam loose guy out of the pot. it's an extra $400 investment to chop or take down a $12k pot that may belong to loose guy. so i could see a trickier player reraising the river here with a lot more hands then might initially seem likely. the guy does NOT need to have 88 or JJ to make this play.

[Rushmore]

Reraise.

You're only conceivably losing to JJ and 88.

I'm surprised everyone here is just calling, and I must tell you, anyone who would advocate folding here needs to just send me all of their money and forget this whole poker thing, cause it ain't gonna work out for you.

[Riverman]

maybe things are different at 200-400, but i dont care how aggressive the game is this guy's 3-bet on the river can be nothing but a full house or quads. you cant fold because the pot pays your mortgage for a few months. hope he had 66.

[snakehead]

I left out some information that leads to my decisions in this hand. first, calling btf was not a bad play because the game had just started, and I knew the other players would be anxious to get involved with the new guy. he had about $20,000 in bills in front of him, kind of in a messy pile. I was sure there would be more callers, especially after two of us called the raise. the new guy was the sb.

raising on the flop wouldn't have lost the loose player if he had any hand at all, since he had already called the first bet. I might have lost the guy behind me, though. I prefer raising on the turn in this situation because it gets more money into the pot.

when I reraised the loose player on the turn, I though his hand could have been AJ just as easily as a straight, but two pair was very likely also. when the next guy capped it, I thought I might be in trouble.

my mistake in the hand (and mike l.'s analysis) was not giving enough weight to the raiser's call on the turn. had to call three bets cold. this is a guy I play with almost every day, and he's no fish. he had to have very good hand to call here.

that's why my raise on the river wasn't a good idea. the only way I had him beat was if he had a straight. 66 was a remote possibility, because he probably wouldn't raise btf with 66.

anyway, I paid off like a slot machine. he had 88. guess I'll have to wait a while for the new corolla.

[mike l.]

thanks for the analysis. longest snakehead post ever?!

hey would you do us all a favor and post a couple more hands from this session?? we'd all be very grateful since you seem to be the only one around here playing that high up.

here's hoping you won it all back and then some.

[Tyler Durden]

[ QUOTE ]
guess I'll have to wait a while for the new corolla.


[/ QUOTE ]

Dude, don't buy a Corolla. Total chick car.

[andyfox]

Well, he was present and in a playful mood the next day, so my guess is it couldn't have gone all that bad in the end.

[mike l.]

"he had about $20,000 in bills in front of him, kind of in a messy pile."

did he lose it all?

[andyfox]

Do more players use cash at that stakes to avoid the $10,000 threshhold at the window?

[snakehead]

no, he didn't lose it all. about 15 minutes after the game started, the floorman came over and told him the limo was waiting for him. the game didn't last too long after he left. I lost, but that's no reason to be in a bad mood the next day.

most people at those limits use markers or large chips. very little cash.

[Duke]

You can keep chips in a box too, Andy. 5k and 10k chips are in circulation commonly.

~D

[andyfox]

"I lost, but that's no reason to be in a bad mood the next day."

Best one I can think of.

[andyfox]

"5k and 10k chips are in circulation commonly."

I once was scheduled to meet an Asian supplier at dinner at Caesars Palace. He comes to Las Vegas twice a year for a trade show and gambles excessively while there. He told me he would be playing baccarat and would meet me at 7:00. By 7:30 he's not there and I surmised (correctly) that he had gotten stuck and was attempting to get even. Sure enough, he strolls in at 7:45, and proceeds to tell me that you just have to have deep enough pockets to wait for the tide to turn. I ask him if he got even, and he says yes, but it took a lot. He then reaches into his pocket and pulls out about 30 $10,000 chips.

I ask him if he's afraid of having a hole in his pocket.

He replies, "Well, I wasn't up until now."

[Andy B]

People who play $200/400 don't typically drive $12,000 cars, do they?

[Dan Druff]

Bummer. I must have literally missed this game by a few hours. By the date of your post (and your "last night" claim), this aforementioned 200-400 took place on Monday, 11/24. I was there on that night, but apparently not early enough. There was a "live-one" out-of-towner with a limo waiting, who was playing 80. I wonder if that was him.

Regarding your hand, there was absolutely no way you could lay that down. How much you should raise is up for debate, though I would personally back off once there was a lot of strength shown on the river. However, a fold is certainly not an option here.

Someone here (I think Andy Fox) asked for some more 200-400 hands, just to see how they differ from hands played at the mid-limits. One image that you certainly don't want at a game like 200-400 is that of a folder, or conversely, someone who is afraid of the limit itself. Once you are branded as someone who can be run off of good hands, you will find yourself subjected to a much higher number of bogus/semi-bogus turn and river raises, and your folding to save extra bets will become progressively more incorrect.

The biggest difference I have seen between the upper (80 to 200) limits and the mid (15 to 40) limits is the extra prevalence of cold-calling in the higher games. People are much more willing to cold-call hands like T9s on the button (even without a lot of other players), hoping to either flop a pair or draw and pound the missed AK/AQ into folding, or alternatively suck a lot of money when the T9s actually turns into a flush or straight. For similar reasons, there is a lot more cold-calling of small/medium pocket pairs at the higher limits. After the flop, there tends to be a lot of action if any two players hit anything quasi-decent (such as middle pair).

Some pretty good 30 and 40 players have wondered aloud to me as to how they'd fare at a game that's 80 or higher. I tell them that they should use the "loose-aggressive test" to judge. If loose-agressive mid-limit games (i.e. ones with relatively little pre-flop limping and post-flop checking) give them problems, they should stay away from the higher limits. Also, if the money of a higher game makes you nervous, you should also stay away. You simply cannot play your best poker when worried about how much money you might potentially lose in one hand. There's also the "limit shock" factor. When you grind it out all month at 40-80 and make $20,000, only to lose every penny of it due to a few bad beats at 200-400 in one night, it can be depressing. It's natural to feel like you just wasted all of the hours you spent dutifully building up your roll.

By the way, was there also an 80 Hold 'Em going at the same time as the 200? Or was this 200 game a "converted" 80? There's actually a big difference between the two, as a converted 80 game will feature a lot of players who aren't comfortable with big limits, while a separate 200 sometimes features people who are a little bit TOO comfortable.

-Dan Druff