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View Full Version : Opportunity just knocked


Matt Flynn
04-04-2004, 07:36 AM
$5-10 PLHE. Mike's just left for the Duke game. I have finished most of my reading for the night and am finally getting into the game.

Preflop raise to $35 from a player who's been taking a beating. Button indicates a fold. I call in the cutoff with whatever. Whatever happened to be JTo, but really it was whatever. I wanted to play a heads-up pot with position against that player right then, while he was loose in his betting but fearful for his happily medium-sized stack.

BB calls. Annoying. So much for my plans for world dominanation. Flop is A32 two clubs. Check to me. I bet $60. BB folds. Opponent thinks a bit and calls. His body language is vaguely unhappy. He does not have a big hand. But, he has some spunk in him. The occasional nothing bluff-check-raise is in his repertoire, though the looseness of frustration hasn't fully gripped him yet. How to play the next round?

Turn is an offsuit seven. Check to me. Will he lay down now? The pot's still smallish, not much over $200. He's got a $200 call in him....but after that no, he will lay down. Takedown will have to wait for the river. I need to keep him caring about his stack. A real bet but not so big that the river bluff breaks me if he calls. I bet $100. He pauses briefly, thinks, calls. He has $1,400 behind. I've got him covered.

River a 9, completing the flush. He bets $200. What can he have? Can he be bluffing? Can he have the flush? I decide neither. He doesn't have the flush. He's got a made hand and he's thrown a blocking bet. Pot will be $800+ if I call....

I raise $400 more, just enough to get the pot if he's laying down, no more. No need to take unnecessary risk. He thinks, he folds. He claims A9, and I believe him.


"Set of threes"

Matt

SomeName
04-04-2004, 12:22 PM
if i was that poor sucker i would check and call you until the cows come home.

Matt Flynn
04-05-2004, 12:01 AM
If you were that poor sucker I'd check behind. ;-)

tewall
04-05-2004, 12:26 AM
Well played.

It's tough to know where the optimum point is on the bluff question - that is, what bet amount will get the optimum result considering the range of possible hands he could have. Given the result, one can't argue with what you did, but my intution would have been that the optimum point would be a bit higher.

IOW, I would have thought you should have raised a bit more, but given he laid his hand down, I would after-the-fact rethink that. But if I didn't know what happened, that's what I would have thought.

Given the odds you were giving, I would have called a good player without thinking.