KJs big blind 20-40

[mike l.]

this was a somewhat interesting hand that came up earlier today. the game was pretty wild because one guy is stuck 4 grand and his loose play is now very loose and aggressive. the owner of the cardroom is also playing and he is loose and on my direct left (utg in this hand). lastly there is a decent player who is up a lot and screwing around like crazy with all sorts of trash hands. he respects my play a lot and he is in the cutoff.

before the flop, utg limps, crazy stuck raises, cutoff 3 bets i flat call w/ KcJc. utg calls, crazy stuck caps, c/o calls. i call. i bet the flop dark.

the flop is Jh9c8d. utg calls, crazy raises, cutoff 3 bets, i cap it, all call. i bet the turn dark.

the turn is 3c. utg folds, crazy and cutoff call. i bet the river dark.

comments?

[sam h]

mike,

i am beginning to understand the power of the dark bet in general, but i'm not sure i get why you bet the flop dark in this particular hand. there are some flops where you'll want to be minimizing your investment to see the turn. and given that its likely that you'll be facing two more bets anyway after the preflop raisers go crazy, being able to check raise three bets if get a good piece might have more information gaining power (and a better chance of knocking out utg).

[Gabe]

Tc would be cool river card for you!

[Joey Joe Joe]

Okay, I think you're losing your mind a little bit. A dark bet into 3 opponents with KJ capped preflop is just throwing money away. You must be hitting some serious flops lately, because I think this will get beaten right out of you after you look at an A65 of hearts flop 10 times in a row. I think this dark bet thing has some merit mike, but tone it down a bit, would ya? It's getting a little out of control, and this time I think it's completely ridiculous. In 6 months you won't be doing it with KJs preflop with 3 opponents. It's just a fish play, that's all.

[Tommy Angelo]

Hi sam,

"am beginning to understand the power of the dark bet in general"

I'm not so sure.

"but i'm not sure i get why you bet the flop dark in this particular hand."

Because the only time you can dark bet is when you're first to act. He was first. So he bet.

"there are some flops where you'll want to be minimizing your investment ..."

There is no wanting to minimize anything. That's sort of the whole point, and also the main mental rewiring that lights the spark that touches the powder that fires the bullet.

Mike writes of many darkbetting situations that I've been in many times. But Mike has gone further than I'll ever go with darkbetting, partly because I'm mellowing out so fast, and partly because he is, in fact, insane. But gloriously so.

[sam h]

hi tommy,

it appears that the true darkness of the dark bet is multifaceted and resolves itself in more powerful and, yes, more glorious ways than i had imagined. this might be a fun topic for your next poker pages article, if you're still doing that.

[andyfox]

I was trying to think of an eloquent response, when I came across Tommy's to sam h. Anything I could add would be sophomoric at best.

[Schneids]

Mike, I know Joey Joe already more or less said this, but I really think you should take a step back and look at how often you're doing plays like this. It seems like you've been running well lately, and sometimes when one runs well, they start to think they're invincible. And then they start throwing away the money they worked hard to earn.

With this crowd, what good is dark betting the flop going to do with what really is a hand that is a debateable PF fold in the face of calling 3-bets? The pot is so big already you really aren't going to intimidate too many hands with the dark bet, and your hand isn't strong enough to be wanting to be bet cold and then have it 3 bets back to you when most the time you'll flop nothing more than a couple runner runner outs or see an ace on the flop. I know doing this on occasion can be good for your table image and can help you appear to be more of a "gambler," so you can get paid off more later on in the night, but I just can't see it being wise to be more or less giving away so many bets with these blind-bet plays. I liked your J2o play you posted earlier, since that had good rationale for doing it -- but I just can't find much rationale for this situation.

Perhaps you can explain to me and others what advantages you expect to gain with your blind flop bet? And what are you going to do when the flop misses you the 2/3 of the time it likely will? And what are you going to do when you flop top pair, and in spite of your blind bet it's capped back to you? You lose out on info a lot of the times with your blind bet, that you could have gotten without it. Information that will often be vital for you to let go of your KJ when you do hit a piece of the flop.

Please enlighten me -- what are your gains from this blind flop bet? Why are you in on this hand in the first place with a cold call? If you were going to play it this way wouldn't it have been just as well for you to have made it 4 bets PF and THEN blind bet the flop? If you are trying to convey a monster I would think it's a better sell if you yourself had capped it PF.

[rivaridge]

This appears to be a good way to get the poor guy on tilt to take another dip in to his wallet and break out more money so that you can once again beat him like a rented mule.