SLHE 1-10, 1/2 Blinds Live hand, 3-handed

[DavidC]

This hand bothered me for like 20 minutes after playing it...

Last night I was playing a dealer's choice session. In a 6-hour session, it was 5-handed for probably 1.5 hours, 4 handed for maybe 2.5 or 3.5 hours, and 3-handed for the remaining hour or two.

By the end of the night, the game is alternating between Stretch-Limit holdem with 1/2 blinds (you can bet or raise any amount between 1 and 10), and pinapple where you see the turn before discarding.

(fwiw, funniest hand of the evening, for me, was a 4-card pinapple where you discarded 2 cards after the flop. I had KK43 double suited, a passive guy bet the flop on Q52 rainbow. I raised on the button, and discarded my kings, got the free card, but missed the straight. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] )

Anyways, lineup at this point is:

Super Passive guy. He will bet, but not raise, without what he feels is the nuts. His preflop raising standards are enormously tight. I think he raised once with jacks (that I saw shown down), but he doesn't like to raise with AJo and stuff like that. He will limp-fold preflop. He will call many preflop raises with pretty bad hands, and he will also tend to call down with any piece of the board. I'm sure that he's not doing it every time, but quite often. He limps into every single hand.

Aggressive guy. Out of say 15-20 people at this club, this guy is one of 2 or 3 players that scare me (I still can't beat the game, because I'm spewwing chips). He's very tight, very aggressive, can checkraise, but will go for the three-bet depending on what he thinks you have, semibluffs, semibluff raises, and is generally a pain in my ass. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] That's at a full table.

At a short-handed table (6 players), he's pretty tough and good too. He seems to be pretty confident, still pretty tight, very aggressive but a little less so than myself.

At a 3-handed table, this is the behavior I've observed: He limps into every hand. He generally raises the maximum if he's raising pf, and as far as I know, he's generally done it with good hands (say groups 1-4, whereas I'm raising with considerably more than that). He's bluffing me a few times and I'm bluffing his quite a bit. As a result he tends to call down quite a bit with ace high or even any piece of the board.

He's sitting to my right and this is really cutting into my winnings in this session, as he's able to take initiative away from me too often for my own good. Push me out after calling on the flop and the turn, sometimes with the worst hand.

I haven't been adjusting my play to this by bluffing less often, and I also didn't adjust my preflop raises according to position at all. I should have.

A few times he'll eye me or I'll eye him before making a move preflop with a good or bad hand. I'm really tired at this point and I'm making the mistake of looking at my cards too soon. He knows to back out when I do this, and I generally will do the same. It appeared that he read me pretty well once when I was on a loose raise preflop or a loose limp.

When I'm out of a hand, the aggressive guy and the passive guy just check to the river, with a few exceptions (mainly if one of them raised it preflop). They're good friends. While this does make me feel a little uncomfortable, their behavior when I'm in a hand appears to be pretty standard. Essentially what this has boiled down to is that the aggressive guy isn't taking as much of the passive guy's chips as he could... I'm surprisingly okay with how this is panning out.

The hand:

I have QTo in the bb. Button (ag) and SB (pass) limp. I raise to $8 (I raise the pot). This is my standard raise. Ag calls and Pass folds.

Flop comes up J75 rainbow. ($20) I bet $5, he calls.

Turn is another blank. ($30) I bet $5. He raises to $10. ($45). He's got this horrible deer-caught-in-headlights look so I mull it over and raise to $20. He raises to $30, I mull it over some more, decide that I'm high-carded, that I can't believe this has just happened to me, get really pissed off, and fold. Pot is $80.

I suppose villain could just as easily have 55 or something like that, rather than a K or an A.

What do you guys think of the hand?

--Dave.

[DavidC]

one bump

[DeathDonkey]

I think you were the fish in that game.

-DeathDonkey

[MrWookie47]

I don't think I'm reraising with Q high against an aggressive player who's broadcasting that he's weak (read: strong). I think I call $5, and then check/fold the turn UI.

Edit: And then I leave the game. I don't think that you're the best player at this table, and there's only one other candidate for the sucker. Furthermore, the only other guy who might be the sucker isn't giving his money away.

[DavidC]

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I think you were the fish in that game.

-DeathDonkey

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Maybe you just don't understand 12th level thinking. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[joeski19]

I think you may have said it yourself. Not in that order but...

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At a 3-handed table, this is the behavior I've observed: He limps into every hand.

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Push me out after calling on the flop and the turn, sometimes with the worst hand.

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He's bluffing me a few times and I'm bluffing his quite a bit.

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