another fine mess JTs 40-80

[mike l.]

so i have JdTd near the button and openraise. the game is a must move and it kind of sucks btw. folded to sb who is pretty reasonable weakish chick who calls, and the bb 3 bets. he's a sort of aggro but decent playing little boy (as in he looks like he's 15). he 3 bet me from his bb earlier with 96s and had to show it down so i think he's more likely to have a real hand this time. we both call.

the flop is 952 w/ one diamond. bb bets, we both call.

the turn is another 5. checked to me and i bet and only the bb, after a little thought, calls.

the river is Ah (no flush out there). bb is acting weird. he first doesnt look at the river, he's like staring off into space. then after about 7 second he looks at the card quickly and bets. i raise in tempo.

comments?

[Gabe]

Was this at HP?

[mike l.]

.

[elysium]

hi mike
i don't know what to make of this one. it sounds like he's acting. all you can do is raise.

[Coilean]

It's often hard to judge when these plays are correct, since even if the true odds he folds a better hand are as high as 30%, you still might not see that fold for 3-4 trials in a row, at which point you start thinking maybe it's not the right play. But I think your river raise probably picks up the pot more than 18% of the time here, so it seems like a good one to me. You only called the flop and he only check called the turn, so both of you should suspect the other may have pe-ca-ca (in the 2+2 technical parlance), but your play is not inconsistent with that of a decent ace either, leaving him a difficult time calling if he doesn't have an ace himself.

I don't know what to make of his little river dance, so I would most likely have ignored it, but the bet reeks of a bluff or an ace since that would be an odd way to play a lesser pair after check calling the turn. Maybe he slowplayed a big hand and is looking for extra action if you have an ace, but I think you'll find a kitten under the bed more often than a monster here. If you actually had a K high or a crappy pair to show down here, I would probably just call.

[John Feeney]

Coilean sums it up very well. The only thing I would see a bit differently is that to me his behavior on the river looks a whole lot like classic "acting weak when strong." BUT could it be a reverse tell where he wants you to see it that way? Sometimes one has to read the intent of the poster in describing a hand as he does. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif In any case, I don't think his intention is clear enough to make your raise -EV. I say ya did okay.

[andyfox]

BB's play sure is strange here. 3-bet pre-flop and then bet a flop of 9-5-2. Now another 5 comes and he checks? He either really chickened out or has pocket 9s.

Did the kid use a walkman, constantly futzing with the volume and his headphone?

[mike l.]

here's the results:

after i raised the river he paused and for about the first ten seconds i was certain he was going to call and that he had K high, the vibes were very strong. then after that i was pretty certain he would fold for sure. finally after a good 30 seconds of sweating me he showed his KQo and folded. i told him i would show my hand for $1 so he could sleep well. he tipped the dealer a dollar and the table hooted and hollered a bit and i stopped playing poker and went back to folding for the rest of the trip.

john feeney when are you going to come wandering into ocaens 11 one of these nights? we got some nice 20-40 overs games going lately.