1/2 NL Hand

[tap tap tappy]

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Dude. I 100% understand and sypathize. I, too, and relatively new to poker (I've been playing poker for about 8 months, NL for about 4) and I also have felt like complete crap after getting owned by a complete monkey. In fact, I'm in a bit of a downswing now and even let slip a parenthetical bad beat addition to a post on here (for which I am ashamed). But you clearly know what you are doing and you (and I) should take this as a learning opportunity I guess. Both that sometimes bad plays get rewarded (which we already knew) and also that it is important to play with money we can afford to lose. I feel like my game is at the point where I can definitely beat higher games than the ones I play in, but my poker roll cannot take that high a game at this point. I have the money, but have decided that I don't want to sink savings into poker roll, but rather build it up. Thanks for your post. I definitely have gotten a lot out of it and I'm sure other people have, too.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again haha I have to thanks man. Sometimes I get the vibe I have very individual queries and problems but then I get a down to earth response and come to the realization that perhaps all of the players that travel the path to perfection of play hit many bumps that are all too common but may seem individual. I was once owned by a monkey but that was in india and is another story. Jk (as if you thought that were serious) I am curious as a consensus question, what would you guys do?
Clearly this game is one that I can dominate and these guys are clowns and are feeding me irrational bull [censored] that a fish would feed smoeone when they won and don't even know why they won a big hand.
Would you guys:
A. Go back and play even on a short roll.
B. Build it up again and perhaps months down the road see if the game is still around and go back and play.

[TheWorstPlayer]

Personally, I think that live NL games are a lot more fun than online grinding. And they can be at least as profitable because you can play higher stakes and the level of play is worse. What I would do is go back and buy in short. I would buy in for $100 and try to build up a big stack off of a small start. If I bust out twice, I would leave (because I can't handle more than that in one sitting, I don't think). I would be willing to wager it would be very profitable for you.

[fimbulwinter]

...all that matters is that he got called. esp in live games bigger PFR's and looser preflop calls are common, so bringing it in UTG for $100 is fine if they'll call. Two days ago I made it 50 to go oer a $3 BB with KK on the button after 5 limpers because i knew two of them would call. It doesn't matter how big the raise is, so long as it accomplishes what you want it to.

As for the rest of the post, bet or overbet flop (they'll either play or they won't) and the rest is just a thinly disguised bad beat post.

this however:
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He then proceeds to tell me that the reason why he won was because he had a seven and that being that on the turn he bet 125.00 there he alleviates the pressure on himself which I guess I understand but what pressure is it being that I practically put the rest of his stack in play when he is a fairly big dog.

Thoughts?

I know I hate to say this but supposedly this guy is like the best guy in this club and I am now so heartbroken I don't even want to play anymore. After I saw this garbage by the "best player in the house" I don't even know anymore.

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speaks volumes.

first, he put tons of heat on hand that he thought you might fold. what if you had KK? what about AQs? if he sees you as a weak/tight player who will fold all but AA or the striaght here, then it's a great play with Pair+flush draw, as you won't have that 99% of the time. He made a read and went with it; good players do that and good players are wrong too from time to time. This is not a garbage play if he has the skill to make the read and has the balls to back it with chips; ever heard of semibluffing?

Your whole tone makes me think that you are a person playing a very weak/tight game that is above your bankroll. If you can't afford the game and the beats that come with, don't play it.

As for you trashing his call, when the final bet is to him, it's 250 to him to play a 1K pot and he probably sees himself as a 1/3 shot to win; do you think he actually read your bet as AA? if you've got AKs, which is much more likely, he made the right play for sure.

look:

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=754645
pokenum -h ah kh - 7c 4c -- ac tc 6d 7d
Holdem Hi: 44 enumerated boards containing Ac Tc 7d 6d
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Ah Kh 30 68.18 14 31.82 0 0.00 0.682
7c 4c 14 31.82 30 68.18 0 0.00 0.318



I hate to be harsh here, but your post does miss a lot. I'd probably make the same read (maybe not the same play). If i thought you woul fold all but the immortal nuts, I'd call with many hands worse than 74s, as I'm winning the pot 95% of the time. you can say you lost when you were a favorite to win, but don't trash a guy's play because it is agressive, thinking and gutsy.

fim

[tap tap tappy]

I understand that perhaps this is a bit of a rant. This is my first time posting a hand so I am sorry to disappoint I suppose. The fact is that even if I had AKs and he put the 250 into the 700 dollar pot he is getting 2:5 odds on his money meanwhile even if he thinks I have AKs I am as you had said a 68:32 favorite. From a gambler's standpoint those sound like pretty slim to garbage odds on my money. Do this a thousand times and come back and tell me about net profits on this hand. As I had said before I would never bet a dollar to win a few quarters if I knew I was getting crap odds and long term would not be a winner.
I do understand your supporting his read. He had not seen me throw any hands over that were "nuts" hands. The only hands he had seen me play were pure bluffs. I do understand his semi-bluff here, and yes I understand fully that it is a semi-bluff, I just know that when I make a play like that and get unfavorable odds to win and poor odds on my chip to pot comparison which is really what we do all of the time is compare how favorable a situation from a gambling sense of it would be over and over again I would drop this hand as ten years down the road if I don't this is a great leak of money. Unfortunately few see this perspective and can only tell me about being "pot committed" if there were such a thing.
He made a read, he read himself to be behind, he put more chips a pot that did not favor his calling of my all-in with his perceived (he really had 7 outs not 13 outs) odds of winning, he won, he should have lost and if he keeps doing this will further lose money the other times it happens. One cannot argue the statistical law of large numbers as it would dictate in this situation he is entering a losing proposition.
I got my chips in when I got the best of it and he called with the worst of it and gave me some irrational fish jive about some trash thought process that went into his play. I am sure you would be aggravated too when someone makes a poor play against you, you lose, and then proceeds to try to enlighten you with trash.
Perhaps I was a lil over my head with these level of stakes maybe, I don't really know nor do I care as I see this game can be beat. I don't know how you were able to determine my style from the post I had written, by no means to I have a set style. My style is catalytic depending upon the table. Whatever it is that suits best based on the players and what I have seen and understand of the dynamic of the game will be how I will play. Just as many psychologists have failed to prove again and again one cannot determine an individual’s personality trait by another ambiguous trait, one cannot determine the way an individual acts in other situations after observing a particular situation and therefore paralleling all of this one cannot determine a player's style from a thousand words: ever heard of implicit personality theory?

I am teasing of course I hope you are thick skinned.

Anyways thank you for posting fim, you are definitely one of the posters I was really hoping would get a glance of this as I have read many of your posts and greatly respect your opinion even if in this particular post I do not completely agree with you.

[fimbulwinter]

your hand isn't disappointing, your response to it is. by saying that he played poorly odds-wise given the exact cards you both held, you're really missing the point here (and your comprehension of the odds is a bit lacking, but not terribly so).

If i hold 55 and get it in against your AA on a flop of A55, you didn't play it terribly by losing your stack. just because he put money in the pot without the best hand doesn't mean he played it terribly either.

fim

[TheWorstPlayer]

Fimbul, obviously you're right, but the way that initial post went, it didn't really sound like this guy was semi-bluffing, it sounded like he was just making up some crazy crap about not having to make any more decisions, or whatever. Which is fine (but more justifies pushing, in my opinion, but whatever) but really does sound like something weird to say when you suck out... why give this guy a hard time? Just point out that his opponent may be better than he thinks and may have been semi-bluffing and that's it, right?

[tap tap tappy]

What I don't get not too give you a hard time fim is if this guy is so good how can he not put me on a set. If I supposedly play tight weak and only push the nuts, clearly I have a set. I raise 12.5x under the gun, then I bet 2/3 of the pot on the flop with a player yet to act behind me and I am supposedly "tight weak" one can only assume I am pushing the nuts right here especially when on the turn I am pushing the rest of my stack. This sequence makes it even more apparent that perhaps I have a set and am trying to push the nuts and he is clearly very far behind as many of his clubs are dead, his sevens to make trips on me are dead as I would fill. As for reads and odds and etc. he is reading me very poorly as I have showed a few huge pure bluffs and have tightened up as I knew I would get action in the future and I hadn't played a hand for a while so sure let's go with your pseudo-inference of me being tight weak. If I am tight weak I am pushing the nuts as you said the only thing I am dropping out with is anything but hte nuts. So he has to put me on a set here clearly.
If I have a set here in this situation he loses 250 dollars 82% of the time, he wins 950 dollars 18% of the time we do this. If he makes this play a hundred times over the course of his poker career he loses 250 dollars 82 times for a net loss of $20,500 and he wins 950 dollars 18 times for a profit of $17,100. This makes this particular play and situation not profitable as over the course of 100 instances he racks up a net loss of $3400.
In conclusion on this play and as one must agree that it is fairly obvious I have a set of either tens or aces he will make this play for a net loss of $3400 over the course of doing this as a trial 100 times. This is the law of large numbers, it dictates that long term over a great sample size all probabilities will pan their likeliness out. In this specific instance he made a poor read, a poor play and won. I'll do it a hundred times with him for all I care. How one would consider myself to not understand the odds in this instance is beyond me. He made a mistake and was lucky to make up for it with a luck draw. The poorer players must draw out and get lucky to beat the better players.
I'll put it this way fim, you make that play against me just as he did, I give you props because I know you are an excellent player and very knowledgeable and make a great play. I also would lay money down that you would not tell me that you had to do it to "take pressure off of yourself" which to me sounds more like "I will piss chips away on bad situations so that you wont make me piss chips away on bad situations by calling" and then proceed to tell me that you had to do it because you had a 3rd button pair. Don't go on and tell me that you would or another great player who was being honest and truthful about his move would say this about that situation because I know none of the two plus two'ers would say they bet to take "pressure" off of themselves with a draw and a 3rd button pair.
If he is as good a player as you think he is which as I had just stated is very debatable if not favorable that he isn't the it was a great move even though he was far behind but like I said from his comments he is not telling me he is of your level fim. This is part of the irony of the hand, a poor player makes the same move as a great player on a terrible read in a bad situatoin and gets lucky acting like he is the great player and proceeds to enlighten me with his bs, it really is rather funny when you think of it.
My point in posting was that this is my first hand posted, I have been reading this section of two plus two for a month and wanted to see if there were approvals of what I did because I want to see if my play is picking up or on point. The point of adding his comments and such was just to add a lil zing to how the situation panned out and to perhaps give a perspective on the information I have on this player, his style and what he claims to be his thought processes in this situation.

[fimbulwinter]

Pretend you've never read this hand.

Take the following reads I've made (hopefully I'm not a complete donkey) thus far just via reading the hand:

1. The OP is playing solid poker
2. The OP is not getting out of line
3. The OP is playing with money that matters a lot to him and thus might be playing scared or weak/tight
4. The OP is not making fancy plays and is not pushing every bit of EV out of every hand, thus his hand range on the PFR is very very well defined
5. The OP is a newer player

note: I'm not saying that any of the above are bad.


Now play the hand out in your mind. make it 78[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] if you think the PF call is thin or whatever (if the above are true, especially #3, I think it's fine given stack sizes)

He comes in UTG big, then weakies the flop letting you draw cheacp and you pick up what looks like 13 outs on the turn.

You're running hot and reading well, you make a read and put heat on a hand that's either really really strong or really really shaky.

you're pretty sure he can't take it.

oops

He ends up being stronger than you think and he forces you to make what you think is a plus EV call with the worst hand. you get lucky and take a pot on a ~1/4 shot off what is probably the best player other than you at the table, the one guy who is rocky and paying you very little while you rake in $200 buyins like dried leaves from the rest of the donkeys who are there to gamble. Not to mention you take what may or may not be his only buyin, meaning he'd have to have a good reason to keep playing, even if he does have 2 more 100's in his pocket.


Do you give the guy sound strategy advice?

Do you tell the guy that you've been exploiting the fact that he's been playing scared the whole night and that you were just making a move you thought was right at the time?

Do you say something conciliatory or do you want this guy gone?

I'm not saying it's right, but I'm saying its certainly logical that a very good player, who just made a bad read and subsequent bad move is using it for the maximum amount of advertising and to get rid of another player who is taking money off the table. Hey, everyone gets to suckout sometimes, right? Again, I'm not condoning anything, just hoping to provide an alternative avenue to explain it.

fim

[TheWorstPlayer]

Personally, I think it would have been a bit nicer (and clearer to OP) if you had just made that post as your initial post. And I completely agree with you. I also think it is possible that the guy is a donkey. Where did OP get the info that he was good? Anyways, my point was not that you were wrong (I think you are right) but just that you could have tried not to beat on him since he is obviously feeling down. :shrug:

[fimbulwinter]

Point taken.

I apologize OP: I remember how bad it sucked the first time I lost a pot that had big money in it to a beat. Your BR will grow to the point where it wont even make you blink, just give it time.

fim