Re: Fun With 55
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Did he have a Q?
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Yeah, MP had AQ and LMP had 99 (he called both MP's river bet and The Dude's check-raise).
But what's more interesting to me is that so many people seem to think I should be betting out on this river. The more I think about it, the more clearly checkraising seems to me to be the right play. Let me see if I can explain my thoughts here.
- There is virtually no chance I'm losing this pot, so my only concern is pumping the most bets I possibly can out MP and LMP.
- My read on MP is that he is tight preflop and capable of thinking decently postflop, although he plays very straightforward. This read isn't 100% since I've never seen him before this session, but it's what I'm going by.
- LMP is calling one bet with virtually any 2 pair hand (mainly pocket pairs), and calling up to 4-bets with any hand that has a Q in it. He's also not going to raise this river with any hand he could have.
Now, given my read on MP, I think it's a good bet that he will recognize what you all have correctly pointed out: even if he has a Q he's still not really going to like his hand. The ONLY hand I could have that he just improved against would be 54. The range of hands he's likely putting me on after the turn are a flopped set, 76 for the straight, 54 for flopped 2 pair, or possibly an aggessively played AQ. By checking the river, he's likely going to do one of two things. 1) Put me on 54 and bet, or 2) Scratch his head, say "I don't know" and bet any hand that has a Q in it. He's probably going to check through AA and KK.
So by betting the river, I get one bet out of each MP and LMP, netting me two bets. In the very unlikely case that MP raises his AQ (again, note my read on him), LMP is going to fold any hand w/o a Q, so I would only get 3 bets anyway. If I give an average of 2.2 BBs profit to betting the river I think I'm being overly generous.
By checking the river, I'm going get an MP bet from AQ and KQ and very occaisionally AA or KK. (As an interesting aside, I would bet AA and KK in his position, and I think it's correct to do so - planning to fold to a checkraise of course.) LMP will be calling, and occaisionally betting a mid-Q if it gets checked to him. So assuming I get 3.5 BBs when MP has a Q (very occaisionally I do see an LMP type of player call one bet then fold to a raise on this type of river) and 1 BB when MP has AA or KK (since sometimes he will bet anyway and sometimes LMP will bet his Q), my EV is 2.6 BBs.
Now, feel free to challenge my assumptions, but realistically I think it's just incredibly unlikley I'm going to get raised on this river if I bet out. Against one of Nate's said "unthinking, aggressive opponents" sure, I can see betting. But not here.
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