Pocket 6 in the SB

[DocHollyday]

I was playing a tourney at an austrian casino. After I busted out, I joined the side games, which were much higher stake than I am used to play (in fact it was 40/80$, the lowest they offered that night).

Ok, I get dealt 66 in the SB. One limper and a guy in MP raises, two coldcallers (including button), and I somehow like my pocket 6, so I decide also to cold call. First limper calls too, so its 5 to the flop.

Flop: K /images/graemlins/spade.gifK /images/graemlins/club.gif3 /images/graemlins/heart.gif

It's checked to the raiser and I see, he doesn't seem to like the flop at all. He hesitates a millisecond and bets. First coldcaller mucks and button calls. If she'd fold I'd go for a checkraise. I think a second and call too. Limper folds.

Turn: 4 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif

I check, better bets out again, button folds, and I call again.

River: 5 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif

I check/call his last bet and he says: banana! My hand is good and I drag a decent pot.

I hate being a damn calling station, but I didn't have the guts to raise, although I had my tell and was very sure I had him beat.

Comments appreciated.

[AJo Go All In]

based on your position relative to the raiser you should be betting out here rather than going for a check-raise. ideally you will bet and the raiser will raise with his AQ or whatever and knock out the other two people. check-raising the field with your hand is not generally a good idea.

of course, with five players seeing this flop it would not be out of the question to simply check-fold here.

[SpaceAce]

[ QUOTE ]
I hate being a damn calling station, but I didn't have the guts to raise, although I had my tell and was very sure I had him beat.


[/ QUOTE ]

Here's how I see it: if you were "very sure" you had him beat, there was no reason you wouldn't have raised. I think if you're honest with yourself, you weren't all that sure your sixes were good.

SpaceAce

[DocHollyday]

Ok, honestly I was calling down because I thought I spotted a tell. I was pretty sure, but I think the main reason for not reraising was the high limit (was the first time I played 40/80$, usually I play 20/40$). But I agree, if I were a 100% sure, I'd probably reraised.

[Paluka]

You think you picked up a tell that the raiser "did not like the flop". If I had pockets aces, got 4 callers, and the flop had 2 kings I might not like the flop.

[DocHollyday]

Thanks for you input, I never would have guessed that someone wouldn't like flopping two kings when holding aces. Fact is, that he's much more likely holding two face-cards, than a high pair, and that my play was depending on what the other players were holding. When I was left alone on the turn, check-calling him down seemed reasonable. But thanks anyways for your comment, although it was useless to me. /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[elysium]

hi doc
the pre-flop call here is o.k. you're already in for 1/2 a bet. you don't like the prospect of a reraise, but that's unlikely to happen. even if you do have it come back around 1 or even 2 more to you, you are still well within the safety perimeters of math. can you see why this is a pre-flop fold from UTG? the small investment you already have in this hand, combined with SB pre-flop info, makes the risk posed by the BB and UTG at an acceptable level given your small investment and knowledge prior to your pre-flop action. now doc, that's not to say that if there was a slightly greater chance of the UTG or BB reraising that folding still wouldn't be correct. so a lot of gut instinct is needed here too, and neither would it mean that folding would be correct always if it was clear that only 3, rather than 4, other opponents would be entering in. but this situation would be of greater risk and concern than even a reraise in the present situation. in that situation, you would need a better opportunity to get heads-up by the turn. if the UTG had the awful habit of always betting out if checked to after raising in, you need to realize that in that case you would be a little on the hand heavy side. but even that isn't a fatal mar for your entry if the MP are looser pre-flop than post. then, the reraise threat on the flop isn't so great. what you want to avoid is this; entering under the sometimes allowable, slightly sub-optimal, less than marginally acceptable odds or risk exposure unless you can be sure that you can close the action by calling 1 bet or be reasonably sure that there is a likely possibility to get heads-up by the turn, assuming a non-horrifying board should flop of course.

what is usually necessary, therefore, is that in cases of just 3 opponents, you usually want the MP's to be weak tight or calling stations, because when you enter in sub-optimally, your focus and concern is centered on taking a commanding lead on the turn. so the MP's opponent tendancies, not the raiser's, are the key ingriedients for maximum turn acceleration. from UTG, before entering in with this hand, do you get that little floppy foot feeling in your right foot? i get like that there with this. like the accelerator peddle is dead. let's look at those MP's doc and see if you should have called in cases when the BB was weak-tight.

i feel it doc. you can get accelerator limp from the SB as easily as you can from UTG, it's just that from UTG you get it the moment you're dealt this hand. and the conditions that partially restore your foot's precious acceleration virility, and give you hope, also lower the over-all octane rating of your hands earning potential. so while from UTG with 66, your foot may benefit from passive conditions, and may have gained back some of its vital pressing sensation, your win isn't quite so copious. add to this the higher risk of getting drawn-out on due to passive conditions, along with the fancy extra nuances to contend with due to an increasing number of decisions to be made because you must act first, and therefore, from UTG, or relative UTG for that matter, your steering wheel will have the most play. so now, to tighten the wheel you need a single aggressive MP, and weak-tight or passive relative MP's who will remain relative MP's; something far more complicated and nearly impossible to determine to within a realm of reasonable expectation. what it usually means is having a very loose aggressive on your immediate left who is on a hot streak. now you can slip stream behind his streak if the opponents in the field who are usually isolating him are, instead, calling. this isn't usually the case. could be good though. this isn't the case here, however. you have everything you need here to make the pre-flop call. by the way, we will limit this to only issues arrising out of early position entry with small pairs.


let's look at the flop.

it's a little dicey, but well within reason. and yes, you get a very mild slip-streamie feel of lessening betting resistance behind the lead bettor as a race car driver has when drafting directly behind the car that is plowing through the wind in front of him. the less aggressive the driver in front of him is, the less beneficial draft or slip-steam is of course; but yes, you're getting a little of that here on the flop. you want to navigate with sensor setting on high its highest level here. if the BB goes for the lead by raising, you may get hung up in a calling vacuum, left in his wake, that is hard to get away from.

on the flop you're doing a mild variation of slip-streamimg on about a bicycle level or so; greater than perhaps a runner's. but look at this. a short-cut has been made available to you. the very thing for which you've been rooting , and of which has been one reason that has kept you in this thing until now, has finally presented itself; you have relative last position. and you're on the turn without a hitch. now, do you feel that driving lurch forward? that's wake enhancement. you see your slip-stream has been enhanced with an opportunity to take the lead. your cards are enhanced with opportunity, making them feel like they just got washed; just like a race car feels. the expert drivers say giving a car an opportunity to take the lead is the next best thing to washing it. the car just seems to run better.

let's see if we can possibly make use of this lurch on the turn;

yes! look at the opening lane. now!

o.k. now, do you feel that that shock-like vibration to your shifting hand? that's what drivers get when motor, transmission, and hand meet up on a shifting miscue, and the car sends up vibrational deep hand bone correction therapy a'la stick-shift. need to check-raise these doc.

you took the long way around the course. if the prize is large, when the inside lane opens widely, but it's not clear that you can power around on the high side, rather than going for a motor to motor showdown across the finish line the long way, deploy your good, strong short-cut tactics, and take a commanding lead. if your opponent has a stronger motor than yours, but won't risk the extra g-force diving down after you would exert on his tire tread worn thin by hands like 77, 88 and even stronger, then you must increase the g-force, even if you too are risking the wall, if that risk relative to the size of the prize is less than his assessment of his risk of pulling the extra G's; and the more you are able to convince him that a G pull would be futile, the risk to you lessens as his assessment of that risk rises, when there is a reasonable expectation that you can convince him that his risk is too great, or even better, efforts futile; either/ or.

does that mean you should also lighten the load and discard the safety parachute in the trunk? no. if you get reraised, you'll need to bail out of the race. the risk of that here though is small enough not to be a deterent to your do everything within your tactical arsenal to win the pot.


this situation is precisely the type of situation that arises with small pairs played out of position. you must have this eventuality somewhere on your contigency list, and some basic game strategy. all throughout this hand, you see this player with 66 face an unusally high number of decisions in complicated areas that expose him to a high degree of risk of error. you need to understand the problematic scenarios that develop with this holding in early position. you may easily not have sufficient remedial means of attenuating the many EP wildly careening compound chain of unpredictable eventualities and merging centrifigal forces, that can result in a messy chip hemorrhage. often, if chances are that you won't win the maximun amount that you can reasonably expect to win, as many times as you will lose the greatest amount that you could have reasonably expected to lose, then it's better not to enter into the hand. if you're going to enter in anyway, then you must navigate with the highest efficiency in the areas that expose you to the greatest risk. and that's where we run into our problem. the high efficiency you attain here may also increase your risk. so often with this holding and position, you should muck, but when you do enter, you must have a handle on when taking a greater risk increases your efficiency and ev, and when it can spin out of control and expose you to far greater risk. you will not always flop a powerhouse, but through a large number of chain reaction events, you could find yourself holding an unimproved contender whose mucking would prove disadvantageous in a dollar to dollar ev computation. however, things could spin out again, and how you handle the situation will make or break the ev status of your holding. few things have a more generally negative impact on our over-all ev for the session than mucking a hand that we are into for more than we planned, only to find out that it would have won played correctly. now you convince your opponent of only one thing; that he can beat you; and you are convinced of another; that you have beaten yourself. so if you lose these as sometimes you will, at least do so knowing that you minimized your loss in a situation where most other opponents maximize it, and gave your hand the very best opportunity you could have reasonably been expected to give it, while safely within the statistical safety perimeters of math. now you don't feel as bad, and have improved your ev.

[cornell2005]

wow i didnt think so much could have been written about this hand, as its IMO highly reliant on a tell.
as for the hand, I think calling is fine if your info is based on a tell like this.
nice post by the way

[DocHollyday]

Thx for all your answers guys, special thanks goes out to elysium, who wrote a big essay, (I liked the car race influence very much /images/graemlins/grin.gif). It was again an improvement for my poker game and the next time I'm gonna press the pedal, when I sight the opportunity.