Isolating a TAG

[lil']

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I was almost positive that I was ahead with top pair on the flop

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Just curious why you felt this. Was there some history between you both?

There's no need to call this down after he bets the turn. You've shown plenty of strength and he keeps betting. The least he could have on the turn is K-X [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], but that's not likely. He may be betting with the intention of 3 betting you when you raise with 9-9, or he is testing the waters with two pair or some suited ace that is better than yours.

If I were in your shoes I would have called down from the flop on with no raises at all. Betting a draw into a board like that doesn't make sense with a tight player, and if you are ahead, you don't want to scare him off anything else.

edit - I like the idea of isolating the weak tighties, but you might want a little more hand than this in case one of the blinds has something.

[ElSapo]

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UTG+1 was a TAG.

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My turn range for him (in order of likeliehood, IMO): A9s-A2s, K9, K8, 98, 88, 99, JTs, 67s, Kxs. I probably missed a couple but that's close.

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None of this makes sense to me, and I think your isolation move is a bad one. TAG's don't limp first in with crap, and a big chunk of those hands are crap -- especially the way your table seems to play, with a whole bunch of folding and no limping. In fact, the only limper here is the supposed TAG.

If a TAG limps up front, it's usually a small to mid-pocket pair, or a low-suited ace. You're behind all of those. And that's -if- he limps, which, if he's a TAG, he probably wont.

Some will limp with KQs and KJs, but most TAGs are raising the KQ and dumping the KJs depending on the game.

Nothing about your plan makes sense to me. You isolated a good player with a bad hand and then take an approach designed to pay him off.

ElSapo

[SeaEagle]

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Nothing about your plan makes sense to me. You isolated a good player with a bad hand and then take an approach designed to pay him off.


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I'm not sure people are giving crunchy enough credit for recognizing a good situation. If a predictable tag limps, he's not going to have a power hand and he's not going to chase it too hard after the flop. If you can successfully isolate this tag, it's probably a profitable situation regardless of the cards you hold. I don't think this play is very advisable at Party 2/4 because someone is pretty much always going to call your raise and rain on your parade. However, the only information I have is that Crunchy iso-raised and it worked. So I have to assume he correctly assessed the various factors and picked one of the rare situations where he could get away with it.

I think his play after the flop could be improved. But I'll take heads up, in position, with the lead, and against a tag who doesn't really like his hand all day long - with pretty much any 2 cards.

[lil']

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I'm not sure people are giving crunchy enough credit for recognizing a good situation

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I agree, people are making too much of it. We don't know what kind of TAG this player is, but isolating a TAG limper with an ace who will fold if he misses the flop is not that bad of a play. There are a lot of conditions to be met, though. He must be willing to fold, you must have a solid image (that is important, as a loose image will encourage a calldown), and the blinds must clear out of the way. Even if you are dominated, you may win the pot anyway if you both miss.

The post flop calldown after the turn bet is worse than the preflop raise. People should focus more on that.

[peterchi]

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The post flop calldown after the turn bet is worse than the preflop raise. People should focus more on that.

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i think people are concerned about the pre-flop raise here BECAUSE of the postflop calldown.

my feeling is (and again i'm relatively new here so excuse me if i sound too bold), if you're gonna isolate pre-flop with trash, then you better be damn sure of your ability to play better than him postflop.

now i've seen other posts from crunchy and i know he's a solid player, and in fact he's sure helped me out before. that's why this one confused me a ton.

whether you hit an ace or not doesn't really matter. the goal is to take it down on the flop or turn. if you can't do that, then you gotta let it go. if you can't let it go, then you probably shouldn't isolate with A2o.

villain likes his hand -- most people don't stop-and-go with hands they don't like. and since he did this, that completely takes away your ability to take it down, unless you think he'll fold to a turn raise. and i'd bet that he won't.

hero's hand has very little showdown value at this point. the comment about hidden outs to a chop kind of concerns me too. you shouldn't be isolating if it puts you in the situation of hoping to draw out to a chop.

[lil']

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my feeling is (and again i'm relatively new here so excuse me if i sound too bold), if you're gonna isolate pre-flop with trash, then you better be damn sure of your ability to play better than him postflop.


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No, that is 100% correct. The preflop raise in and of itself is not so bad, but hero ignored the information he received along the way telling him top pair no kicker is no good. It appears he was outplayed.

I was more responding to the people who had nothing more to offer than "Pre-flop bad - ugh."

[sfer]

Hey lil', good post and I agree.

[thejameser]

A2o, huh? like any other commonly-used term, TAG is used so often by players of various levels of experience that your definition of a "TAG" might be relatively different than that of another player with either more or less understanding of the game. if you have had success isolating "TAG"-type players in the past i would reexamine those hands and compare the probable factors that led to the success. regardless, it sounds like you are essentially trying to steal the pot. the key to this being a profitable play(if it is at all, but that goes back to the subjectivity of your use of the word TAG)is to know when you are beat and release the hand(i.e. the turn). spiking that A was probably one of the worst cards for you as it gave you a reason to hang on. also, have you been doing this often enough that the alleged TAG might have been observant enough to notice? maybe he just thought, "hey i'm in this hand with this calling station that does some occasional stealing, i can value bet until the cows come home." [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] seriously though, he is not worried about AK which is a reasonable holding for a PFR so either he thinks you are full of sh*t(because you have been over-using the play?) or he has two pair beat(his turn bet seems to be hoping for a raise IMO). either way you seem to be in a less than profitable situation.

[Bodhi]

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Given the type of player they are and the range of hands that this type of player will limp in EP - I find it easy to steal a lot of pots on the flop/turn when my isolation is successful.

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Woah, talk about reverse tilt. Fold preflop.

[Erik W]

I'd put him on ATs or AJo in this situation and that action
after betting out turn.

If he is a 6% raiser those are probable hands.
If he is 8%+ then he'll raise'em preflop.