5/10 draw against a rock

[broken_downstem]

Jason, to answer your questions: he would never bet with JJ in this spot; he is a real rock. The fact that he bet the flop with so many people in the hand gives away his strength, as he would check behind without top pair or better. He also would just call a raise with two pair or a set and hope to trap later as he realized how aggressive the game was, but I felt pretty confident the look he gave me means he was caught off guard and unhappy to see the raise.

I agree with your advice (especially not going for a check raise if the draw hits), but I still like occasionally check-raising flops like this against tight players. They lay down often enough to make it profitable even as a pure bluff, and you can still win if they call and you get lucky.

[Lawrence Ng]

Ok, the answer is pretty straight forward here and isn't too trivial. But the one thing about these posts (especially in Live NL games) is that ther Hero must have some sort of read on what the villian thinks about the hero and what the villain thinks that hero thinks the villain has. Come on guys, this is the basic 3 level thought process in all games, especially when it comes to NL yet I never see it factored into the posts when we're discussing hands such as the one presented here.

Your image matters a lot to the rock here. Have you been known to semi-bluff him? Have you been known to re-raise the flop with sets or do you just call and milk sets? Does the rock know you know he's a rock?

These are serious questions that alter the answer and decision making of your play.

Sure the general response is oh bet whatever the pot is on the turn and hope the guy folds and if he doesn't check the river down and give up. But this general reply needs to be tailored to each individual hand and surely as you can see this particular hand might warrant a different answer.

Sometimes you might want to fool your opponent too, especially one's who do pay attention.

For example, you could check the turn, which could say to the rock, "Hey bud, I know you got a nice hand AK or AA or KQ, and I know if I check you are gonna have to value bet if you think I'm on a draw" in which case he might bet a certain amoount and then you can check-raise the turn if you believe there is good fold equity. But be aware doing this is very stack size and opponent dependant.

Lawrence

[vicpanic]

I agree with Law, but to go back to betting patterns for a moment.

Rock or not, i think check/calling the flop is bad. You check/call the flop, i think it'll be hard to sell you've got a strong hand on the turn, and will be forced to check again when that brick fell, and will get blown off your hand.

Check/calling is the monetarily safe thing to do, but you've alluded to his ability to make an "amazing laydown" and seems evident that you were attempting to have him do so here. What ended up happening?

[broken_downstem]

Lawrence, I mentioned in my original post that he would not expect such a semi-bluff from me, as I had been playing my draws weakly up until that point for other reasons. Also, I suppose it might have helped to mention that while I had been very aggressive with the other players in the game, I had stayed out of the villian's way (as he was so tight and had the big stack most of the night). He knew what I was doing, which was what caused me to try the flop bluff.

As for the results, we checked the turn around and the 8 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] hit the river and I check-folded to his bet of 300 and he showed AKo. After the hand I started really wondering if it would have been better to try to move him off of it on the turn. Lawrence's turn check raise would cause him to fold AK here 100% of the time, but the problem would be getting him to bet. If I wanted any action on this street I would have had to have led out; he wasn't going to bet after I showed so much aggression when I had been quiet for so long unless he had at least two pair.