This hand has been killing me....

Been playing a little online at Americas Cardroom (www.americascardroom.com). Not a bad joint actually - some great promotions and decent players (for the most part). I turned 2 limit tourney games (called freerolls on there - you don't have to pay any money to enter the tourney, but if you win they deposit $25 real $$ into your account to play in the real rooms) into $50 free bucks and have been playing in some of the lower limit rooms in there...


At any rate - here's the hand. This one has been bugging the crap out of me for days now. Partly because I just wasn't able to put this guy on a hand and even more so because I lost in a showdown because of it.


6 players at the table and I'm on the button and raise with AdQh. Everyone folds except for BB who calls.


Flop:


6h Ks 8d


I bet and BB calls.


Turn is 9s


I bet again and BB calls.


River 6s (6h Ks 8d) 9s 6s


So, of course - I bet again and then BB raises. I call.


I probably should have folded here, I know - but I would have never put this guy on a spade flush draw - not in a million years.


Of course, the guy shows QJs and wins with the flush.


Like I said, I know everyone will hammer my call on the river but I figured even if the guy had AK he would have played it a little more aggressive than that - esp pre-flop.


I didn't ever have much of a read on this guy - this was maybe the 4th or 5th hand that he was in on this game so I wasn't sure how to get a read on him.


I just never expected a flush draw here and I would think that even at the turn he would have tried to bet into me trying to fatten the pot a little to justify drawing for that nut spade.


I dunno - I was probably on tilt a little that night anyway, I was getting busted up no matter what I had in the hole.


Anyway, I'm interested in how everyone else would have played that hand against an obvious moron who didn't know how to bet his own hand.


Damn online poker rooms - I think I'm just about done with them (at least for real money).

My understanding is that everybody folded to you on the button and you open-raised with AQo. This is clearly correct.


I would bet the flop every time when checked to. If the big blind missed the flop, he will often fold.


On the turn, I would bet again. You can choose to check in order to (1) avoid getting checkraised and being put to a tough decision and (2) induce a bluff on the river which you will call with as little as Ace-high.


On the river, you should just check. It is highly unlikely that a hand worse than AQ will call. As a general rule, you should not bet Ace-high on the river.


...against an obvious moron who didn't know how to bet his own hand.


I don't know about that. He bet it damn good on the river.

KenL,


There are very few hands that could call your river bet that you can beat. With the bottom card on the board pairing, and the flush coming in, you facea significant chance of being raised and having to make a tough decision. I think you can check this down on the river.


good luck,

play well,


Bob T.

You do need to occassionally bet unimproved AK's and AQ's on the river against your observant opponents.


The reason for this is that they will simply call the turn and fold small pairs on the river if you only bet your made hands. This allows them to play exactly correctly against you headsup. Also, I have seen unimproved AK get called by worse aces twice in the last week alone. Like everything in poker, you need to find the right balance so that you don't use an exploitable strategy.

You don't necessarily need to bet AK or AQ on the river. You could go ahead and check with these hands and bet worse hands. Just as long as you bet some bad hands.

Unless you are also raising these "Bad hands" preflop, your statement is incorrect.


The key is that when you raise preflop, your postflop play cannot be so straightforward that they can always play the river correctly against you. Of course you will also bluff the river with other hands. But mixing up your play when you DO raise preflop is critical.

Your original statement didn't say anything about having raised pre-flop. It just said you need to occasionally play AK/AQ, so the pre-flop raise must have been an implicit assumption based on the context of the thread. OK.


It's important that whatever strategy you undertake is a consistant strategy so that an observant opponent cannot automatically put you on a hand. I agree completely that you want to mix up your play when you raise pre-flop, not just on the river but throughout.

At ACR most players are playing with their freeroll money. It just doesn't matter and you can't beat people off hands. As you found out (me too btw), there's no way you will get them off. It's just like playing .5/1 or .25/.5 tables. Any sort of draw, they're drawing.


I think you need to check the turn here. If they called the flop bet they ain't going anywhere. When they hit their flush at the river, they're betting. What I would do is then raise the river. Even these guys start thinking "hey he might have a pocket pair, hmm that makes a full house and that does beat my flush". Likely they will call your bet, but sometimes they do fold -- maybe not positive EV but I think better than betting the turn.


And, more importantly they start thinking twice about going to the river with their junk, as even they will figure out it's going to be expensive to get to showdown. So, it buys you future value as well.