What do you do in this spot?NL 5/10 blinds casino boat

[DcifrThs]

NL 5/10 blinds 500 min. buy in casinoi boat in FL.

tourney's going at the same time so people are moving back and forth to play both tourney and live game. game is good. a few real loose spots (call hundreds of dollars with t2s on a flop of ajt rainbow...just love to gamble people). and one pro two seats to my left(has 5 pyramidal stacks 20 high each of green-25- and a 10-13 chip stack of black on top plus a few hundred bills). this pro, call him "steve" does definately play too loose though since he feels he can outplay people...and for the most part hes dead on!.

two guys who obviously know the pro and play with him a bunch and gamble with him on random stuff like "liars poker". two people on my right are speaking hebrew and just seem to be happy playing here, they call and call and call and never seem 'em raise once. folks to their right just came in from tourney (3 of em) and i have no read yet but i'd have to guess they just went all in around the same time and lost...

the three guys all just bought in for 1500. steve has at least 3500 in front of him, his two buddies have about 2000 each, loosey guy has damn near 4000. i'm a little short with about 1400. others on the table have between 1000-3000.

now i'm dead on the button and the two jovial guys are UTG and UTG+1 and steve is in the sb. looooose guy is in the bb...calls postflop much more readily for hundreds than he does preflop.

this is one of the hands that i've selected randomly where i look at my cards when the action gets to me(about 2/3 of the time i wait to look and 1/3 i look immediately). so i watch as all people except two of the three new guys put in 10 chips a piece. as this happens i start thinking about the various catagories of hands and i of course say "self, if you've got a big one now you can make a lot of money buy just betting a bunch now"...is this what you guys would be thinking? what else goes through your minds at this point without seeing your cards? should i even be executing this type of random card looking system?

i look down and see AdAc. i raise to 300 assuming at least two or three will call and i'd have a nice 900-1200 pot to work with plus all the dead loot in there already. steve, the pro calls after looking right at me and all else fold.

FLOP: tctd3h. what's your play? you have about 1100 now and steve WAAAAYYY has you covered. by like 3:1.

all other thoughts appreciated as well.
-Barron

[Garland]

Hi DcifrThs,

There's no draws on the board. Nothing really scary on the board except for the possibility of a 10 in Steve's hand. Do you really hope he'll bluff at this pot?

I'd bet around 500 and call an all-in immediately and hope he was trapping with KK, QQ or JJ or is trying to bluff you out of the pot. If he has a 10 or pocket 33, God bless him. I would do this option only if you were willing to call his reraise of all-in.

Another option is to go all-in immediately since you know you'll call it anyways and hope it appears you're trying to buy the pot.

Play the player accordingly.

Garland

[jumpthru]

Salivating over what must be a fun game...

My advice: Push.

[DcifrThs]

This raise was the first such raise i've made all game. usually when i make a raise like this i'm playing players and position but this game was too loose for that so i changed from my normal NL strategy a bit and just didn't do it at all...what i didn't consider is that it now makes me an open book to the good players in the game.

further, just because i was relatively short doesn't mean i wasn't ready to call his all in. i was thinking at the time the way in which to get the MOST money in the pot...if i lose it here i lose it so if he's calling 300 with 33 or tt or any random ten then like you said, "god bless him."

now what do ya do?
-Barron

[Garland]

Hi DcifrThs,

Yeah, your image and what you think the pro thinks of you means a lot too. I mean, it's not like you've shown a lot of hands or raised a lot. So it's not likely you're out of line with your raise pre-flop. Steve should give you credit for a big hand.

My thoughts are along the lines of: This is my pot. I want to win it here and now. I would definitely not give a free card here and give him something that would take the pot away from you. The only way you're going to get value from this hand is if he has a hand like 99, JJ, QQ or KK and he thinks you don't have the goods. I think Steve should be smarter than that. He shouldn't be calling with JJ, QQ or KK without willing to push on a favorable flop. This is your best case scenario and the only way to get more value from that hand.

As far as your random look thing. I think it's far more advisable to look at what's going around you and always look at your cards when it's your turn. This is especially true in NL. Also..."look left". See if you can get some tells when others are looking at their hole cards early. The cards will always be there. Evaluate the situation when it gets to be your turn.

How many people limped for 10 when it got to you? My general feel is, don't overbet the pot ($300 is a tad much), especially since you haven't been raising before! How much was in there when it was your turn? I would count the money in the pot and basically triple the amount. This would make it tempting enough for 1 or 2 people to call with inferior hands and not scare all the players away. I wouldn't mind one more player calling my AA. Just think if everyone folded how sad you'd be. I think you're even lucky Steve called you on this given your image.

Garland

[AJo Go All In]

ii know the player you're talking about, and have probably logged in the area of 100 hours against him. i'll assume he checked, since you never explicitly said it.

what you really want to do is put out a puny little bet, like you just missed with AK, in order to induce him to come over the top of you, which he may very well do if he thinks he can move you off it. then you will flat-call that because he may very well put a big bet at you on the turn which is what you want in this spot.

also, i have played liars poker with them, you make it sound like it's such a big deal, it just kills time and the most you can lose is like $3.

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]

How many people limped for 10 when it got to you? My general feel is, don't overbet the pot ($300 is a tad much), especially since you haven't been raising before! How much was in there when it was your turn? I would count the money in the pot and basically triple the amount. This would make it tempting enough for 1 or 2 people to call with inferior hands and not scare all the players away. I wouldn't mind one more player calling my AA. Just think if everyone folded how sad you'd be. I think you're even lucky Steve called you on this given your image.

Garland

[/ QUOTE ]

thanks for the response.

the reason i don't like to wait is because sometimes i like to think WHAT 'im going to do if such and such happens looking left and right given my cards and how much i'm going to bet...i think i overbet because i didn't have time in all my looking and searching the players to correctly evaluate how much i'd have to bet with such and such hands.

i noticed steve was ALWAYS only looking at his hands when the action got to him.

one solution i thought of after the fact was simply taking TIME after looking at my cards even when i'm going to fold or limp or whatever so i disguise the times i DO need to think for a bit.

i like the part about tripling whats in the pot..it was 7 callers to me so $85 in the pot...3 times that woulda been 255...not too far from 300. would 200 be a little better here?

i wanna get a few more responses to see what other good players would do here on the flop before i reveal what happened for the rest of the hand.

thanks again for responding
-Barron

[Garland]

[ QUOTE ]
what you really want to do is put out a puny little bet, like you just missed with AK, in order to induce him to come over the top of you, which he may very well do if he thinks he can move you off it. then you will flat-call that because he may very well put a big bet at you on the turn which is what you want in this spot.

[/ QUOTE ]

It depends on how the "puny little bet" looks and who you're trying to deliver a message to. From a weak player to a strong player, it means "I missed my high cards. Please fold and have mercy on me". Strong player will respond by going over the top. From a strong player to a strong player it reads "I have a powerhouse, please call me or go over the top". Strong player will respond by folding.

Garland

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
ii know the player you're talking about, and have probably logged in the area of 100 hours against him. i'll assume he checked, since you never explicitly said it.

what you really want to do is put out a puny little bet, like you just missed with AK, in order to induce him to come over the top of you, which he may very well do if he thinks he can move you off it. then you will flat-call that because he may very well put a big bet at you on the turn which is what you want in this spot.

also, i have played liars poker with them, you make it sound like it's such a big deal, it just kills time and the most you can lose is like $3.

[/ QUOTE ]

i CERTAINLY did not mean to make liars poker a big deal lol...but i did mention it to show he will gamble and knows to keep the mood up in that spirit so its worth the gambling it produces...at least thats what it did for the first little bit...just a mood setter.

i really like your line here ajo. especially since you know him. i didn't think of trying to get HIM to move ME off the hand.

earlier in the session was the AQ vs. QT hand i told you about a while back. KdQd3c flopped all check, about 150 in pot, Qc on turn. i bet 150 he calls. Jd on river. i check to try to get him to bet not too much. i didn't want to bet since he would probably try to move me off it since it looks like he's drawing but. he bet about 200 and i looked right at him, said, "are you trying to sell me your hand, steve?" and he kinda froze up...i then went with my instinct and called. he showed QTo and i took it down with trip queens ace kicker. point of that story is he thinks he's good enough to play qto in a raised pot...i think he's a bit loose against unknowns like me,...but hey, i'm not complaining. you will agree though, i think, that his hand selection is based on what he thinks his ability is. that amounts to a bit too loose but he's obviously had success with it.

again, i like your line and will definately use that info next time im down there.
-Barron

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
what you really want to do is put out a puny little bet, like you just missed with AK, in order to induce him to come over the top of you, which he may very well do if he thinks he can move you off it. then you will flat-call that because he may very well put a big bet at you on the turn which is what you want in this spot.

[/ QUOTE ]

It depends on how the "puny little bet" looks and who you're trying to deliver a message to. From a weak player to a strong player, it means "I missed my high cards. Please fold and have mercy on me". Strong player will respond by going over the top. From a strong player to a strong player it reads "I have a powerhouse, please call me or go over the top". Strong player will respond by folding.

Garland

[/ QUOTE ]

this is the thing too...although i played as described for the whole session, i was a bit oblivious to what liars poker was and accidentally commited a string bet once and was forced to take it back. another time i had AA and it was 2 callers to me and i wanted to make it a quarter and only had greens in front of me so i said, "a quarter" and then the dealer turned to the guy to my left and said ten to call. in a moment of stupidity i amiably stated i said i'd like to make it a quarter, he said he thought i said call and nobody would vouch for me so the call stood. i took down the pot on the flop w/ a pot sized bet. so i don't know how he thought i played but it was our first session together. in fact this hand went down LAST YEAR and i've just been thinking about it for that long.

so i just can't be sure EXACTLY what he thinks of me.

-Barron

[Krytemaster]

First of all I think his call preflop seems a little strange unless he actually has a decent pocket pair himself. He might also call with a lower pocket pair hoping to get some other players into the pot as well - giving him better odds to draw to a set, since he doesn´t have any HU vs you.

So, the two options I would be thinking about here are either a small bet - something like $200-300 to lure him in to the pot or overbet it and maybe even push it all. It all depends on what you think he will think of you and what he will take your bets for.

As someone else pointed out, a good player might fold JJ, QQ or KK here to a smaller bet here if he is quite sure you are trying to trap him and maybe call a bigger bet since he didn´t think you would do that with AA, rather do it with an AK or a smaller pair (that you might have been making a play with).


Krytemaster

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]

As someone else pointed out, a good player might fold JJ, QQ or KK here to a smaller bet here if he is quite sure you are trying to trap him and maybe call a bigger bet since he didn´t think you would do that with AA, rather do it with an AK or a smaller pair (that you might have been making a play with).


Krytemaster

[/ QUOTE ]

Well this is what i was thinking. So after taking about 90 seconds to think after steve quickly checked (by the way steve is not the guys real name obviously so if somebody named steve DOES play here any connection is entirely accidental) i moved in and he thought, looked at me hard for about one minute and finally slowly and deliberately mucked his cards.

i think he had QQ or JJ. everyone at the table wondered what i had and spoke verbally to the fact i always take time ...usually more than just 90 seconds anytime i was in any kind of decision and of those times i'd made one call (previously mentioned in this thread) and one fold that i found out after the fact was good: i folded a flush on a paired board that paired on the river but also gave me my flush, i felt i was being trapped by a set since he was playing differently than i was accustomed too...no longer mr. fast bet, he did things slowly and more calculated.

so after all this he just folded and i took down a few hundred...

any other thoughts?
-Barron