[stripsqueez]

so far in this thread i'm assuming that i'm having a perception problem - i was thinking maybe i did before i posted but just to be sure...

sometimes when i play i play too quickly - this hand i hit the call button after the flop raise too quickly - like i said earlier this sort of player wont have a hand that beats me often - i struggle to define what sort of player this was - not because he was unusual - he was thoroughly common - rather than "passive" or something more pleasing to my vocabulary lets call him "average"

an average player likes to raise the turn when they have a serious hand - what they see is that they hold a big hand - thier thoughts then turn to how best to punish the other guys they are playing with and win a heap of money - the easiest answer to see is to wait till the bets get bigger then spring the trap so thats the answer they see - this is more so because i'm an animal when i play 5 max - to the extent that this bloke is thinking about what i'm going to do its "i'm going to punish that guy that bets all the time"

when an average player flops a big draw they normally feel obliged to do something - the something they usually choose to do is what mainstream theory calls semi bluff - most average players have heard of semi bluffing - if they have a draw they should bet and raise with it - sometimes thier draw comes home and they vividly remember the big pots they win when that happens - sometimes everybody folds at a point where they had nothing and that feels good too

so this average player raised a cheap street and then checked the blank that hit on the expensive street - like the title says where there is ink there is squid - an average player cant see whats coming in a hand and cant see that thier actions may later have consequences - its the experts that base decisions on whats happening in the future - so the average player doesnt see that what they have done before leads to conclusions thier opponent can draw later - in more mainstream language the observation is that poor players dont think about what thier opponents are thinking about

so there i am when the river hits on this hand trying to recover from annoyance that i didnt 3 bet the flop and contemplating the actions of yet another average player - it occurs to me that not 3 betting flop and betting the turn has at least given me the opportunity to confirm the presence of ink - i remind myself that at any given point it is normally best to assume you have a played a hand the best way it can be played

before i do something on the river i'm going to have the full plan - its the end game - i'm not going to check without knowing whether i'm going to call a bet and i'm not going to bet until i know if i'm going to fold or 3 bet a raise

i could look at the size of the pot and contemplate the approxiamate percentage of times my opponent might have a range of hands and do some math and in that way come to a conclusion - that method normally works ok - alternatively i can decide what hes got and act accordingly

so my question is - if i decide to check/fold the river do i need special mind powers ?

stripsqueez - chickenhawk