Hand analysis

[Charlie K]

The game is 30/60 HE (1/2 kill 20/40).

MP (the killer) opened raised.
I had 77 on button and called.
SB called.

MP is generally solid; occasionally loose and/or hyperaggressive. I have image similar to MP.
SB - only played with him a short time - seemed tight
and ? weak.

The flop is 9,8,T rainbow.
Check, bet, call, call.

The turn is J. No flush draw.
Check, bet, raise, call, call.
I had distinct feeling that MP was tentative.

The river was 2.
Check, check, check.

Please critique.

Charlie K

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
The game is 30/60 HE (1/2 kill 20/40).

MP (the killer) opened raised.
I had 77 on button and called.
SB called.

MP is generally solid; occasionally loose and/or hyperaggressive. I have image similar to MP.
SB - only played with him a short time - seemed tight
and ? weak.

The flop is 9,8,T rainbow.
Check, bet, call, call.

The turn is J. No flush draw.
Check, bet, raise, call, call.
I had distinct feeling that MP was tentative.

The river was 2.
Check, check, check.

Please critique.

Charlie K



[/ QUOTE ]

Well i think you played the river well as a bet at that point would put you as a dog to win the pot and would probably only be called by a queen given your turn raise. HOWEVER, the lack of a reraise on the turn does indicate your hand will probably be best and you may have given up a bet or two on the river.

That being said I think that your preflop call needs justification. When MP open raises and its folded to the button where you hold 77, i think you need to limit your options to r-r or fold. if you call, you are in danger of letting the sb in, which you don't want even though you state he is "tight ? weak." which means to me that you watched him not enter enough pots to classify him as tight but not enough of his post flop play to determine his true ability and used the old unknown=bad=weak link to come to that "?weak" conclusion.

EITHER WAY, when that MP open raise is folded to you w/ a medium pair you either want it heads up IF you are a better player than MP post flop (is he too loose calling? overly aggressive?) and you're play in his eyes is good enough for the r-r to make his heart sink or at least his eyes widen a bit (which is why you should look at his eyes/neck/chest when you r-r while he is just looking at your chips you put in the pot).

therefore we're down to the old basic questions: how does he play postflop (if you've seen enough of it)? how does he play compared to YOU ? and, most importantly, how does HE THINK YOU PLAY?? this last one is key and would swing a fold to a r-r in this situation if the answer is favorable. But this is a clear RAISE OR FOLD in my book (my book may have a few pages missing here and there and certainly isn't publishable).

the call on the flop is another question in my mind. i see you did it to get "the most" out of you're "draw." BUT, in the future, when you do reraise and are bet into (will he check to reraiser? or bet into him?), you should consider raising here since a call limits your hands in his mind to a q or unsure pair or even two overcards like he probably has. A raise still puts control back in your hand and he might check to you and you can take your card or bet to set up a steal on river if you've seen him play too tight on 5th steet.

on the turn when that jack hit the raise was good b/c you can lay down if r-r'd or play on if just called. Come to think of it, given your play during the whole hand (preflop w/ the cold call) i think a bet on the river was probably right b/c you would likely get called by an overpair, two pair and neither player would likely have you on the 7 but most likely the q. but its still a questionable bet and really comes down to what they are willing to call with given the turn raise.

Those are just my thoughts/opinions. questions? comments?
-Barron

[Zele]

Do not call pre-flop. If MP is solid, lay it down. If he's wild, raise to isolate. Calling is never correct.

Also, fold the flop. You're drawing to the idiot end of a flopped 3-straight. Live to fight another day.

[DcifrThs]

agreed on both accounts. i was trying to give the poster a birds eye view of the situation and not just point a and point b... which you presented and are both clearly correct. Mason said once that cold calling a raise preflop with nobody in but the raiser and its folded to you is such an obvious mistake that he only needs to see it once to label that player as poor. thats how big a mistake it is.

take care
-Barron

[elysium]

hi charlie
you must raise the flop to get the SB out. if a 6 comes off, you want to give your hand the best chance to win. you also might have the best hand.

when you have a one card draw (actually this is called a mirage), particularly when you hold the low end of the one card draw, with the high end of it touching broadway, you must get heads up. if the SB had bet into you, you could fold on the flop, but against the MP, you must raise to force out the blind. with the blind out, you can call the turn. the raise on the turn is terrible. in fact, this is a strong contender for the worst raise i have ever seen. look at that thing.

has anyone here ever seen a worse raise than this one? the interesting thing here is that it isn't a mindless raise; some thought went into this.

wow, this is really a classic charlie. bad plays come in here all the time, but the turn raise here transends the definition of bad. the turn raise here is so bad, it's art. you're a poker artist charlie. it may be kitsch type art, but there it is. please send in more of your work charlie. this is precious. if this hand were played in the mud, it would be our first fresco.

[Charlie K]

Results
SB -QTs
MP said he had AA

Looking back, as the hand played out, a rr preflop *may* have won the pot for me. I did not want to take the hand far if the flop did not bring improvement. Yes, I was remarkably under odded, but MP was probably going to call me down giving me adequate implied odds.

I am not impressed with the effectiveness of the flop raise to thin field inless you can put a few limpers to the test.

In my view, the turn was a raise or fold situation. I wanted to give the opponents a decision to make if they had two pair, a set or a gut shot, all of which were not unlikely. It had the advantage of getting to the show down on the cheap.

Thanks.

Charlie K

[DcifrThs]

Elysium,

given the play of the hand, do you think the MP or SB had a q? ESPECIALLY when he wasn't reraised? Clearly most of us would not even be in that position because we don't draw to idiot straights. Further, imagine how bad the other players were to lose to this straight!

Like i said in my post, i'm either out preflop or he's getting popped. and a raise on the flop is more correct now that you think about it b/c you certainly don't want a 6 in the hand. The MP guy's hands he's worried about are kq, aq, qj. those hands are pretty possible given the play so i guess i definately overlooked the redicularity of that turn raise: when i answer these posts i try to think about what i'd do or have done in a given situation with similar opponents. I don't think i can remember being in a game like this where i have the idiot end of a straight so i don't know exactly what to do with it! I still think the biggest mistake (play wise, not ev wise) was the cold call on the flop. the raise on the turn was clearly silly but his other option to call it down might give the ak a chance to catch a q or otherwise queer his hand.

and another thing...if you think that this turn raise is the worst play ever...as bad as you say it is...then you've got to see some of the crap people do in stud or draw. maybe its a candidate in holdem (it is hard to come up with a raise that has thinking behind it that is similar) but i've seen some crAAAAAAzy sh*t at times!

come to think of it, the ONLY way to play that on the turn was call and call the river bet as a bluff catcher (assuming the sb isn't there also). i think MP probably has aa, kk, qq (in which case he's screwed) or ak. it definately is best to get to the showdown without putting bets in there you don't need to when you're in last position and have the option of just calling a bet nd then hopefully induce MP to bet hoping you'll fold on the river.

blah blah blah i clearly talk to much...back to the original post: IMO and when i play this situation preflop, it is either a ruitine fold (not even a thought) against the typical players or a reraise against the crazies and bad/poor/looooooose ass raisers or r-r if i have some tell that lets me know i'm NOT against a bigger pair.

take care elysium,
-Barron

[Zele]

[ QUOTE ]
I am not impressed with the effectiveness of the flop raise to thin field inless you can put a few limpers to the test.


[/ QUOTE ]

If it doesn't work, at least you have charged them full price when you had the goods. Isolation raises are FUNDAMENTAL to winning poker. Sine qua non.

[Monkeyslacks]

http://www.travelodge.com/Travelodge/images/fish.gif

See above...

[elysium]

hi dc
no, it's not that the turn raise is silly or even wrong for that matter. and every day we see hands butchered and slung about so unthoughtfully that advising on them is a pitiful waste of time.

at first sight, that's what the turn here looks like, until you realize that for a micro-second the raise on the turn has a primitive fleeting moment of sanity and uniqueness tainted by guey utter hopelessness and individuality; the raise is this player's way of breaking the endless cycle by doing something, anything different than the great majority of players who would just sit back and let the cards devour them in total silence. so here, we see negative ev motion where we are used to seeing positive ev inertia.

we are getting a look at rare individualistic motion against a still, passive back-drop, hinting at rare artistic poker kitsch.

[mike l.]

the rest of your post is nonsense but this line on it's own is so lovely and true, not just of this hand discussed, but of all raises of all time, and of the whole poker process:

"the raise is this player's way of breaking the endless cycle by doing something, anything different than the great majority of players who would just sit back and let the cards devour them in total silence."

[j.k.]

[Kenshin]

I will neither call you a fish nor an unthinking player (I simply have no idea of the quality of your play); however, you flop call here fails to pass a very simple test of mine. I call it the "would I want" test: namely, would I want someone holding 77 who calls a mp raise with no other callers to play in my game. My answer is a resounding yes.