A very tommy hand

[bicyclekick]

Tommy raises in the co. He hasn't raised in literally 2 hours. Still, the button who is an older gentleman - honest abc postflop loose passive pre-flop calls on the button, as does a not good big blind who thinks he's playing good and trying to play good but is far too loose, esp pre-flop.

Flop comes 333. BB checks, Tommy checks. What? I just can't imagine checking any hands there. Given the players in the hand, I think he takes it down on the flop or turn almost every single time and if he's raised it's the easiest fold in the book.

Turn 8, bb bets, tommy folds, old man folds. bb flashes an 8 and drags the pot.

Variance isn't going to kill you, Tommy. Then again, you understand the flow of hands a lot better than I do.

Enlighten me.

[James282]

This hand confuses me.
-James

[BarronVangorToth]

Perhaps his raise pre-flop he intended to be a limp and then a flop bet, and he just did a combo in order to save time?

That is a strange flop check otherwise...

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

[Nightwish]

[ QUOTE ]
Tommy raises in the co. He hasn't raised in literally 2 hours. Still, the button who is an older gentleman - honest abc postflop loose passive pre-flop calls on the button, as does a not good big blind who thinks he's playing good and trying to play good but is far too loose, esp pre-flop.

Flop comes 333. BB checks, Tommy checks. What? I just can't imagine checking any hands there. Given the players in the hand, I think he takes it down on the flop or turn almost every single time and if he's raised it's the easiest fold in the book.

Turn 8, bb bets, tommy folds, old man folds. bb flashes an 8 and drags the pot.

Variance isn't going to kill you, Tommy. Then again, you understand the flow of hands a lot better than I do.

Enlighten me.

[/ QUOTE ]
Have you tried asking him? Cause I doubt any of us can explain what he was thinking.

[skp]

[ QUOTE ]
Flop comes 333. BB checks, Tommy checks. What? I just can't imagine checking any hands there. Given the players in the hand, I think he takes it down on the flop or turn almost every single time and if he's raised it's the easiest fold in the book.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless Tommy raised preflop with 42, I don't know how he can fold to a flop raise. IMO, it's the easiest non-fold in the book. Also, his opponents will not fold to 1 bet on the flop. Never.

But anyway, that's not what your post is about. About what your post is about, well I don't get tommy's thinking on this one either. Betting the flop and turn is clearly best. I am sure that his reason to check is metagame based although I confess I have a hard time figuring out the metagame benefits to that move.

[Josh W]

It doesn't seem that bad, really. Now, understand, I would almost never do this, but, think about it.

The button's thought process is probably something like "Hey, I have KQs, I got a good chance at winning this pot". Now, with a 333 flop, his thought process prolly hasn't changed at all.

The BB is admittedly way too loose. He called in the BB. He's probably going to call the flop for one bet. He will likely only fold if he has to call two cold, which means the button has to raise. If the button raises, he has Tommy beat (I don't know Tommy's hand obviously, but he folded on the turn, so it's probably something like A5 or KJ or some such).

So, by betting the flop, you'll increase the pot size, and eliminate nobody, and potentially bring people along to the river.

But if the turn gets checked to Tommy, he can bet (regardless of his holding) and hands like KQs (and maybe even weak aces) may fold.

By checking the flop, and planning on betting the turn, TOmmy has improved his chance of winning with a beaten hand.

You remember when you were learning poker, and the first time you got fancy with AA, and the old wise guy at the table said "with AA, you either win a small pot or lose a big one"? And remember how it dawned on you that it's better to win a small one than it is to lose a big one?

Well, with Tommy's hand on this flop, he can bet the flop and lose a big(ger) pot, or check and win a small one.

Josh

[arkady]

It is not so bad at all, if you are reasonably sure that the other 2 players are calling the flop with any two - waiting for the turn is not so bad.

mediocre not observant players who are holding xx where x > 2 will call that flop. so unless tommy had a PP the play makes sense to me.

[SA125]

He had 2 overcards and put the button on a PP. So he figured he wasn't folding for 1 bet on the flop and checked.

When another brick dropped and the BB led, he figured it was another one of a thousand hands that were real good pf and now chasing a not so big pot. Fold.

His one mistake in the hand was figuring the button for a pair, not overs, and not betting.

Not taking a stab at it and giving up so easily, with only 1 behind you in a 3 way pot and you haven't raised in an eternity, is obviously .... player dependent. Yikes.

Insert loud ringing nit alarm. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[AceHigh]

I can only guess that Tommy thought that, "I haven't raised in 2 hours, maybe everyone will fold if I raise here" and raised with say T2o. Gets 2 callers and says "awww f*** it" I'm done with this hand. But I dunno.

[Tommy Angelo]

BK,

“enlighten me”

I’ll try!

Josh’s post contains a good rundown as to why dumping postflop might have been better than pumping all the way. Here are a couple more reasons that are less obvious. One is based on a read, the other on my bla-bla.

“Tommy raises in the co. He hasn't raised in literally 2 hours.”

Correct. This was my first wager, and my chips were dusty. Just so’s you know, that fact did not affect my decisions on this hand. I did not assume that these opponents would put me on some huge hand and play accordingly.

“Still, the button who is an older gentleman …”

Faked me out on this hand, sly old dog. I’d been watching him close all night, preparing for this moment, so that I’d have as best an idea as I could as to what he intended to do before the flop if I folded. I’d practiced this already a dozen times, profiling him, watching him before the flop before it was his turn. He was not usually an easy read at this point in the hand (unlike one of the younger folks at the table who was, hint hint!).

So I raised and while he was calling, which takes him a little while, he did something along the way that made me think that he was definitely never thinking about folding, and that he was in fact thinking about three-betting. Don’t ask me what he did. I don’t know. I just know that something happened in that space, and as it turns out, I took it wrong.

“Flop comes 333. BB checks, Tommy checks. What? I just can't imagine checking any hands there.”

I was not checking my hand. I was checking my situation. I’ll explain.

Zoologists classify species in various ways for various purposes. They can classify them by genetic relatedness if they want, or by physical characteristics, or by location, or whatever else. It’s the same as what librarians do. We the people are groupers, we sort things, in different ways, for different reasons. (But be warned. The things being classified, and their relationships to each other, are not altered by our tediousness.)

For my purposes, which are part scientist (understanding) and part librarian (accessibility), I array all starting hands into three groups, all preflop situations into six groups, and all postflop situations into five groups, and then I do subgrouping from there.

The starting hands are:

Group A: Any hand with an ace or a pair
Group B: All non-group-A hands except for KQ
Group C: KQ

The preflop groups are: BB, SB, BN, CO, HJ, and other.

The postflop groups are: Last, next to last, two players behind, three players behind, and other.

The postflop situation on this hand was next to last with an unimproved group B hand. The next menu layers under that heading are the priority estimates. First is the probability that I had a better hand than the player behind me, which, because of the preflop activity, I put at very slim. (I had K9o.) Next was the probability that he would fold if I bet the flop. My estimate on this hand was that there was a very slim change he would fold, even without the preflop misread. Next was the probability that I would follow up with a bet on the turn after betting the flop and getting called behind. This I knew to be a zero probability. And without a group A hand, I was not going to call down, or win a checkfest showdown. So I checked this situation on the flop, ready to dump right there is the old man bet.

Then, when the old man checked behind on the flop, now I focused on trying to catch a pair on the turn. That didn’t work. When the BB bet out on the turn, the situation was that I had no hand, no position, no reads, no momentum, and lots of time to wait for a better spot.

“Variance isn't going to kill you, Tommy.”

Of that I am certain. J