Trench warfare

[Matt Flynn]

With AA he would fire if he thought I was interested in my hand, and often anyways. He bluffs enough to raise with AA vs the other way around.

[Matt Flynn]

Calling is an excellent option if SB will fold. But it's tough to rely on good karma and reads against two players sitting 1 and 2 to my left who are both tricky and skilled, position or no. If SB will overcall my call, I reraise. If SB will fold, I make more money by calling, but that only works if I can read BB correctly later in the hand. More risk, more reward. The SB made it tough there. I correctly read his betting intention and certainty but not his reason.

Still keeping the day job....

Matt

[Mikey]

good game selection. How did the rest of the session go?

[ilya]

Not bad....but not as awesome as this would have been:

you call...SB re-squeeze-raises, BB flat-calls, you re-re-squeeze-raise, SB calls, BB re-re-re-squeeze-raises, you call, SB calls, sushi arrives, you decide to chop the blinds.

[bogey]

[ QUOTE ]
Small blind is clearly contemplating a reraise. And he looks really, really calm. Sigh.


[/ QUOTE ]

Do you think he projected this image to you on purpose so you would get out of his way or just happened. Thats kickass if he did it on purpose.

[AZK]

[ QUOTE ]
Calling is an excellent option if SB will fold. But it's tough to rely on good karma and reads against two players sitting 1 and 2 to my left who are both tricky and skilled, position or no. If SB will overcall my call, I reraise. If SB will fold, I make more money by calling, but that only works if I can read BB correctly later in the hand. More risk, more reward. The SB made it tough there. I correctly read his betting intention and certainty but not his reason.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is it so bad if you call and SB calls. Or would that never happen?

[hank102977]

[ QUOTE ]
It goes fold to the button who raises 3BB, call, raise to 12BB (16:9 for the first caller). What hands makes sense here? (Button is a small stack on this table with 200BB).

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm having troble understanding why this is such an easy exercise in hand reading. Why can't the BB's reraise here be for value? What amount could the BB reraise to to where hands like AA or KK start to "make sense here?" The only thing I can think of that you may be impling is that with stacks this deep, any reraise from the BB in this spot will almost always be a steal. Is that the case?

- Chris

[Matt Flynn]

It would be bad because then I have to read both of them well postflop, it is more likely one will hit the flop, and either is capable of re-restealing after my resteal.

Matt

[fnord_too]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It goes fold to the button who raises 3BB, call, raise to 12BB (16:9 for the first caller). What hands makes sense here? (Button is a small stack on this table with 200BB).

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm having troble understanding why this is such an easy exercise in hand reading. Why can't the BB's reraise here be for value? What amount could the BB reraise to to where hands like AA or KK start to "make sense here?" The only thing I can think of that you may be impling is that with stacks this deep, any reraise from the BB in this spot will almost always be a steal. Is that the case?

- Chris

[/ QUOTE ]

Caveat: I don't play at this level nor with this deep of stacks so there is a strong chance I am dead wrong in my reasoning.

The pot has already been raised. If he is rasing for value here, with what? If it is with a big pair, with stacks this deep he is really putting himself in position ot win a little/lose a lot IMO, especially offering such a nice price to call. If it is with a good speculative hand, that makes some sense since he can pick up a lot of hands post flop with continuing and occasionally have a well disguised made hand. Maybe he has a big pair and is providing cover for the times he has a speculative hand, but if that is the case this would be the less likely exception (i.e. he most likely has some weak hand, so why not put him to the test pre-flop?)

For hand reading, button raises, discount that as it could easily be weak, leveraging position. SB calls, that does not scream strength. Now, after a raise that does not imply any great strength and a call that does not imply any great strength, a small raise inviting calls looks pretty weak. If he popped it more, then I think you have a real quandry. Also, if BB can squeeze out button, he now has position if sb comes along (and why wouldn't he at this point closing the action?). Also, restealing in spots like this is going to be very natural to a tourney player.

My question is, if BB has a big hand, what is his play here? I'm thinking call and play post flop or raise to 500ish to cut down on implied odds. Of course that means he probably needs to at least occasionally raise his speculative hands that much for deception.

[Matt Flynn]

If he raised to $500 with AA/KK, he'd only get called by pairs (if those), and would have to pay off sets most of the time, since his opponents are capable of representing sets and he knows it. Plus then he gets $150 for his AA. AA is worth more than that. He does not want to pop it to $500 on a bluff because there is a chance one of us has the goods. He will usually be obligated to make a big flop bet since our most likely holdings would be a pair and he'd want to force those out when we miss sets. Also, if he pressed harder he could just get clipped.

The idea in a tougher game like this is to work hard on reading skills to get out of bad situations, make good bluffs, and make good value bets. Much harder and more fun than 100BB online stuff.

Matt