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I mean, nice article and everything, but:
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First, thanks for the compliment. Hopefully this article (and the one in next month's installment about another facet of 2+2 literature "on the edge" of people's minds proves to be worthwhile and enjoyable, that one regarding the benefits of a friendly table image, as also seen in SSH).
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River: 8. Final board: K 4 6 7 8. Limper No. 1 checks. Limper No. 2 bets -- I now am confident he either has a set or he ran with a six-five suited and now has the straight. Limper No. 4 raises -- I've seen him raise throughout the week with far less than the nuts, and I've seen him smooth call the actual nuts scared he was going to raise people out of the hand. That is if he had the ace-high flush, he'd just call. In fact,
if he just called, so would I ... but since he raised, it was time to reraise.
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Can this be right?
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Yes. At this point, I had played 30-40 hours on the same table as this guy over the past week. Every single time there were three or more people on the river AND he wasn't last to act (naturally, if he was last, he'd raise the nuts) he would smooth call with the nuts. I spoke to him about this actually on my last day asking him why he did it and it was a combination of his belief that he had a tell that people could see so that they'd fold if he raised "putting him on the nuts" PLUS he believed even if they couldn't see, it wasn't worth the raise as it helped his table image. He was an interesting man, to say the least, but I would obviously raise against most but in this situation, it was Interesting Man X and against Interesting Man X, when he smooth calls with you behind him, he has the nuts. He did EVERY TIME it could happen. When he didn't have the nuts, raise it up! Bizarre.
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Limper No. 1 folds. Limper No. 2 looks at his hand, back at the board, back at me, shakes his head, looks back at the board, back at his hand, and then tosses in two four-packs of red in one of the biggest crying calls I've seen in a while. Limper No. 4 stacks up $20, but takes a second where he is thinking about re-raising, so I know I have him, he's absolutely dead but I go into induce-bet-mode1 and get him to raise.
I call, knowing if I reraise [...] I'll never get Limper No. 2 to call, plus the most I can get is another big bet, and there is a slim chance that I'm wrong and I'm beat.
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This can't be right! A second ago you had a super-dee-duper x-ray vision read on the guy and now you aren't even
50% sure?
Slotboom? Is that you?
RAISE IT UP!
/mc
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Slim <> 50%. By slim I mean SLIM chance I'm wrong. But that wasn't the main reason I just called.
If I call 1BB at the end, I am guaranteed Limper 2 will likewise call that 1BB as he's closing out the action. (Guaranteed as much as I can be guaranteed -- I was positive he would call, and he did.)
If I raise at the end, I'm putting in 2BB's. This raise would absolutely get Limper 2 to fold as he didn't want to call the 3-bet in the first place. He was dying to fold and ONLY would call a single bet. So all my raise does is have it that I'm risking 2BB to get 1BB from Limper 4.
I'm winning the same amount of money PLUS there is the slim chance I'm wrong so why give him an extra random BB? No, I didn't think I was wrong and I did think I had him beat but I wasn't as positive as I was that Limper 2 would fold for the additional two bets but would call the one bet. He had likewise played enough with me to know that if I 5-bet it I had him beat. He knew it when I 3-bet it.
Perhaps it's not your standard line for online play when you will get those calls and can't get the best read on your opponents, but that's a big plus to live games.
Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com