TT 100-200

[mike l.]

i think i liked the way i played this one. i have TT on the button and i openraise we're 5 handed and it's an exceptionally good late night commerce 1-2 game. only the bb calls.

the flop is JJ8 rainbow. bb checks, i bet, bb checkraises, i call. bb is a player i dont know, but first several rounds he seems like a loose sort of weak weird sort of random player.

turn is a 3. he bets, i call.

river is a Q. he bets, i call.

comments?

[Steve Giufre]

Looks good to me. The fact the he check raised the flop makes me like your hand from the start. Very few players will check raise three jacks on the flop there, especially not the type of player you are describing. On the turn, I think the smooth call is best. He will probably call or reraise with all hands that are ahead, and fold a lot of hands that are behind. Also, you encourage him to continue bettng a worse hand into when you are ahead.

On the river, I wouldnt be in love with the queen since 910 is there now, and there is the also a small chance the queen paired him up as well. Easy call though.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

I think if you call the flop check-raise, you call to the river. Heads up I just can't buy that he has the jack he is trying to sell, and those few times he does, oh well, I lose some chips. The Q on the river seems more worrysome than his flop check-raise. He's trying to push you off a hand here. Call him down.

al

[LarsVegas]

I think this may be one of the instances where a case could be made for raising the turn with TT and 99, while only calling with AA-QQ.

The reason is to give the QT and Q9 semi-bluffs a chance to fold.

lars

[BottlesOf]

This is way out of my league, but maybe raise the turn?

[andyfox]

Just calling him down allows him the possibility of catching a card on the river to beat you. But I think this is counteracted by 1) the risk of being more aggressive in case he does have a jack or other better hand; and 2) the advantange of letting him continue with his betting if he does have a smaller pair or less. You can always opt to raise the river if a less dangerous card than the queen comes.

I don't discount the possibility of him having a jack, given your description of him.

[elysium]

hi mike
good post. mike you goofed. the problem is that your hand is very vulnerable to overs. you must raise the turn. i have no doubt that if you were acting first, you would have done done some variation of backing off to the bet or raise; i'd like to think you would check-call and then check-raise; and i am sure that you would have check-raised the turn. what i think happened here is that you placed a greater priority on inducing this opponent into betting over what you should have been on top of, stopping the over card to the board pair. you raise the turn and this opponent folds.

mike i think the over-card beat you here. you can't be dallying around picking up bets when you should be picking up the pot. you got this guy whipped and whipped badly on the turn. take it down now. what are you doing?

[Ikke]

I think you lost some equity on the flop. 3-betting there would have been the best play IMO.

After his flop check-raise his most likely holdings are IMO a J, an 8, T9, a medium to smallish pair and maybe hands like QT, T7 etc. You beat the vast majority of these hands. I don't think he'll lay down any pair (at least they won't in the 100/200 online game, and a lot of players who play there play that high and higher live as well). Also, I think it's more likely that you get 4-bet with a J than check-raised on the turn (fearing a check through on the turn), so you would lose only 1 (often) to 2 (less often) SB more as opposed to check-calling. Since you beat the majority of his hands, combined with the fact that he might make a mistake folding QT to a turnbet (he's getting 1:6 with 7 outs (and implied odds)), I would opt to 3-bet the flop.

I wouldnt raise the turn if I opted to call the flop. You will get 3-bet by a J and you might force your opponent into making a good laydown with a pair. You don't want that.

IMO your play was the second best play. But it did cost you IMO a significant fraction of a SB.

Regards

[mike l.]

"You can always opt to raise the river if a less dangerous card than the queen comes."

this was exactly what i had planned to do, but then i changed my mind when the Q came.

[mike l.]

"a J, an 8, T9, a medium to smallish pair and maybe hands like QT, T7 etc."

remember though, my opponent is a lot less likely to have a T in his hand since i have TT. i figured on the flop and turn there was some chance my opponent had nothing or close to nothing and rather than have him fold, i wanted him to bet to the river (and me showing weakness would encourage this), and risk the small chance of being drawn out on by a hand with probably very few outs. i think the small size of the pot might make this the most correct play.

[Ikke]

[ QUOTE ]
remember though, my opponent is a lot less likely to have a T in his hand since i have TT.

[/ QUOTE ]

I did consider that. See also that there 2 J's on the board so the probability of a hand containing a J goes down as well. And I named (way) more non-J hands than J hands, especially the hands that contain an 8 count for a lot.

[ QUOTE ]
i figured on the flop and turn there was some chance my opponent had nothing or close to nothing and rather than have him fold, i wanted him to bet to the river (and me showing weakness would encourage this), and risk the small chance of being drawn out on by a hand with probably very few outs.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a valid concern, but I don't think a pure bluf will bet the river, but he will call a flop 3-bet and then fold the turn. So in those cases you win about 1 SB more by calling. Now it all depends on the judgement of how often he'll bluff with nothing. In my own experience a typical player wouldnt do that too much, because on these kind of boards the chance of being called down with A high is too big. But that's discussing the tendencies of the opponent and I wasnt there.

Regards

[mike l.]

"I don't think a pure bluf will bet the river"

the way i see it is if he's pure bluffing he's pretty much committed to betting the river if he has any hopes at all of pushing me off A or K high or other hands he cant beat, unless he plans to just give up. my experience is most mediocre players just give up on the turn if they decide to give up on a bluff or they try and push through the whole way, while only very good players sometimes change their mind between the turn and the river and save that extra BB sensing correctly when they will be called down no matter what. i think that's the position youre coming from.

that's not to say i put this player on precisely a pure bluff. i felt there was a reasonably close chance he could have either: a straight draw, an A high hand, a bluff, an 8, a J, or a pocket pair smaller than mine. i think that covers everything. i dont love him sticking around with the straight draw, but i figured id like him to be around on the river for either a bet-i call or a check-i bet-he calls with all the other hands. one big bet on every street felt good on this hand heads up, usually im more greedy but the board texture and the weirdness of this opponent left me feeling pretty pleased about the delicate way i chose to play it.

[Garland]

8-something and underpairs are the only hands you beat. If he had 9-10, he just got there on the river. Still probably had to call him down.

Garland

[mike l.]

i called on the river and my opponent showed 9s6s for no pair no draw nothing and i won.

[builtiz]

Can I get a seat?

[mike l.]

"Can I get a seat?"

of course. just roll on over to commerce and get on the list. bring lots of money.

[rory]

Do you lay it down to a 3 bet, pretending the river blank came and you raise?

[Senor Choppy]

[ QUOTE ]
"You can always opt to raise the river if a less dangerous card than the queen comes."

this was exactly what i had planned to do, but then i changed my mind when the Q came.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like the way you played it. The only hand it makes sense to raise on the river is an 8 or pocket pair, the rest either cost you an extra 1 or 2 bbs, or gain you nothing.

[mike l.]

"Do you lay it down to a 3 bet, pretending the river blank came and you raise?"

yes. another smaller reason i didnt end up raising on turn or river. didnt like the idea of making that sort of laydown at that table if i didnt have to. but really i was feeling pretty confident i had the best hand so i was far more concerned with roping him into betting every street more so than worrying about being put to the test.

[nepenthe]

Without reading any of the other comments, and without being familiar with anything close to the 100-200 limit, I say I would probably have played it the same way. His check/raise on the flop indicates to me that he has an 8 or a smaller PP. He most likely doesn't have a J and since you're not folding, he wants to keep on representing the J's of which you're not convinced. I say you have a fair to good chance of taking this one down.

[Ulysses]

El Diablo likes it. El Diablo believes that Ikke may indeed be correct about 3-betting the flop being slightly better, but El Diablo believes it is a little closer than Ikke says ("a significant portion of a small bet"). El Diablo is too tired to think about the percentages here, but believes it is very close. He will probably revisit the specifics later.

In any case, everyone should be sure to read Ikke's analysis of this hand. Whether or not you agree w/ all of his specific points re: this hand, he pretty much outlines what kinds of things you need to be considering when thinking about situations like this.

[Ulysses]

[ QUOTE ]
Still probably had to call him down.


[/ QUOTE ]

For the second time already this late-night/early-morning, El Diablo's head is about to explode.

[nykenny]

[ QUOTE ]
i think the small size of the pot might make this the most correct play.


[/ QUOTE ]

i think that's the keyword here too.

[nykenny]

i love the non-aggro-pre-flop-but-fancy-post-flop type of fish. they first always deposit a few bets before flop with hopeless hands and then they think themselves into believing either you missed or would lay down a good hand.

is $20K enough for one buy-in? /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[nykenny]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Still probably had to call him down.


[/ QUOTE ]

For the second time already this late-night/early-morning, El Diablo's head is about to explode.

[/ QUOTE ]

mine actually exploded, many times, mostly from my own dreaded unlucky run for the last 2 months, but this one hurts more, just kidding /images/graemlins/smile.gif