UGLY mathematical catastrophy post

I'm playing in a great game against a near perfect lineup. There are three very loose, clueless players spread around the table. Tilt-Master-2000, or T2K (from my previous post on general forum), is two to my right. The rest are fairly tight, decent players, but they are pretty much weak-tight and unimaginative. I love this kind of game. Most of the hands I play are against the loose ones, as the tight ones are rarely in the pot, and when they are, I know what to expect from them and play accordingly.


This one player, I'll call him "loose one", or L1, limps into the pot UTG. He likes to limp-reraise regardless of what he has. Exactly what his standard are, I am not sure, but I have seen him fold an occasional hand. But T3o and 82s are definitely limp-reraising hands, that's fer sure. It's folded to T2K, who raises. I have AcKc and reraise. L1 puts in a California Cap* and we take the flop three handed.


The flop comes Tc 2h 7s. L1 checks, T2K bets, I raise, L1 cold calls, T2K calls.


The turn is the 5c. L1 checks, T2K bets, I call, L1 calls.


The river is the 6d. L1 bets his last 2 bucks. T2K completes the bet. I think about it for a long time and finally throw my hand in. I just can't fathom that L1 would try to bluff with his last 2$ into a pot that big, and figure he MUST have a pair, and even if he WAS that stupid, T2K's completion of the bet makes me think that he must have paired as well.


So you know what's coming, right?


T2K has QcJc and L1 has KhQs. L1 wins the pot with king high.


Obviously I made a COLLOSAL mistake on the river here. I also feel that I made a mistake by not raising the turn.


flame away.


Dave in Cali


*The California Cap. It's a classic and common move out here. My favorite version of it is when someone limps into the pot, then another limps, then another raises, then the original limper limp-reraises, then the second limper puts in a cap. Only the original raiser has a legitimate raising hand. Try it. It's the California way.

Having read your posts, you seem to know your competition pretty well and can (and usually do) put that info to your advantage. So when loose players are in the hand on a board full of low cards, that seems like a good time to get out when you don't improve. So you got surprised and it cost you a pot. Has your read on these players been right more often than wrong? I would guess that it is and has won you more over time than this one pot. Against one or the other alone, you call because you know either could have gotten this far with lesser overcards. The scientist in you properly multiplies the chances for each to find that the chance both have lesser overcards and did not pair is very small.


However, I'm interested as to why you think a turn raise would have helped? Would they have folded a 2, 5, or 7 on the turn? If so, then maybe that would be the way to go. Otherwise, it was no-foldem time because they had overcards.

A turn raise MIGHT have gotten L1 to fold. He is hard to drive out of a pot, but he will sometimes let a hand go. I'll estimate perhaps a 20% chance of him folding (knowing what he had!). If he had a pair, he would probably call to the river, even for a raise. Also, a turn raise shows T2K that he ain't always boss. I suspected that against either ONE of them, I may have still had the best hand. But perhaps a turn raise wouldn't have been good, I could have been wrong about that. As these mathematical catastrophies go, I wasn't really that upset about this one, because as you said: "The scientist in you properly multiplies the chances for each to find that the chance both have lesser overcards and did not pair is very small". I couldn't have said it any better.


Your observations are very insightful on this hand. Thanks.


Dave in Cali