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Old 12-20-2005, 10:42 AM
JustPlayingSmart JustPlayingSmart is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 159
Default Re: Time for a heroic call?

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Ok, this is in the Pokerstars 300 from saturday. About 30 left, bubble at 18. Overall its a relatively tough table, fairly tight, and aggressive.

I have about 8000, villain directly to my right has 7000. I have played him before, hes been playing relatively tight and aggro, hasn't done anything out of line. He probably views me similarly. Anyway, he opens EMP to 600 (100/200 25 blinds) I cold call with red 9s. Everyone else folds.

Flop: 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] T[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] He leads out for 600. Er, thats a fishy bet. Usually I'd smooth call a 1/2-3/4 size bet here but that bet was too small for me to just call I felt. So I raise to 2000. He pushes. I puke and...

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You say it's fishy (as in weird I think), but is this really out of the ordinary for this guy. I watch a fair amount of the "respected" Stars tourney players, and they make lots of flop and turn bets that I feel are too small, in like the 40% of pot range. And it's typically not an indication of a particular strength of hand.

If this is out of the ordinary for him, it could mean he missed the flop. But he could also be trying the "weak lead." If he knows you, he knows you are aggressive and certainly capable of raising with nothing here, or making a semibluff with something fairly weak like QsJs. He could also have a hand like AKc and wants to make sure that he is the one who puts in the last raise to maximize fold equity. If he bet 1000, you would probably be raising to 3000 or 3500 (or just pushing), and he would have a hard time pushing over the top because almost any raise you would make to a bet of 1000 would pot commit you.

I really don't like a call here. I find it unlikely that he has total air here (and I'll even put KQh in the land of total air, though it has 23% equity in this pot). I think most of the time he has an overcards + draw combo or pair + flush draw combo (and since the non club is the S, the pair + flush draw has you slaughtered anyway) or just a hand that he thought was best which he wanted to get money in the pot with (read: overpair).

Because of your aggressiveness, I think we might be able to look at this as similar to the situation where you have 15-20xBB stacks and he raises to 3xBB preflop, and then check/raises all in after your 4xBB flop bet. I think his range is very similar to what it would be here.

I should mention that I think he could make this move with A8 and 44-77 which are hands you beat. I wish I had Poker Stove on this computer to run this, since you are getting about 2.2-1 on this call, which is a pretty good price, but my gut is telling me you don't have the cEV to call this.
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