30-60 hand - mike l thinks I blew one street

[fearme]

u said someone 4 bet but then u still want to cap?? dont get it

[Clarkmeister]

[ QUOTE ]
<font color="red"> That's what I did! I didn't bet, I checked. So did the other two guys, neither of whom decided to cap preflop. Then the button bet and I saw that it would cost me 0 bets to fold, 1 bet to call and 2 bets to raise. So from that point, what do you do? </font>

I'll say it again. In my opinion if the pot had not been soooo big it would be different, assuming I was already in the hand. But your raise couldn't even make two overcards, or realy not even a gut shot to draw incorrectly. That's all I'm saying.

[/ QUOTE ]

It made them *fold* incorrectly. I gain from that even more.

[PassiveCaller]

Does this guy really fire here if you check with nothing that often in this pot? At first I thought check-calling was fine but the more I think about it the more I like just firing the river here, but if your opponent will fire that many of his hopeless hands on that river then maybe check-calling is the correct move.

[GuyOnTilt]

What swung me was that the river was the perfect "obvious" scare card with which to induce a bluff, maybe even from a hand with moderate showdown value like an ace. If I check that card, don't his hopeless hands bet somewhere near 70% of the time or more? That means that the times I bet into those hands he'd have to opt for bluff-raise over folding a pretty saucy third of the time or more to get that bet back.

Yeah, I mean, you were there so you're gonna have a better feel for your opponent's tendencies in specific situations than anybody can give you on here. The mental image I get of your opponent for whatever reason is one that I should bet here against though. I get river raised here when that card hits by strong aces all the time in the Commerce 40 game. My table image is probably far different from yours was in that game though, so that may have a lot to do with it. People see me fold what is "obviously" top pair strong kicker to river raises earlier in my session when they river two pair, so they start raising scare cards more often than they should and I readjust and start calling. Unless you have absolutely nothing (not likely with your line thus far), you're not folding this river after you check in a pot this huge, and even though most opponents aren't very good thinkers or hand-readers, most will at least realize the huge pot part. A bluff raise is a lot more convincing than a bet here from their perspective, so it seems like that's their best bet if they don't have a hand worth SD value. If they do have SD value (A-high), they'll probably check behind when they would've called a single bet.

Like I said, your table image is going to be quite a bit different than mine I would think, but if I were playing this hand, I really don't think I should check the river here.

GoT

[GuyOnTilt]

u said someone 4 bet but then u still want to cap?? dont get it

LV has a 5 bet cap.

GoT

[Clarkmeister]

Good points. I had never played with him before, but on this day I had more or less folded for about 2 hours straight and this LAG had definitely noticed it, so I suspect that explains his passive postflop play against me once it got headsup. Given those factors it certainly lends credence to your argument in favor of betting since he may think I'm prone to making a fold, but then again maybe he'd think the same thing if I checked. Tough to say.

But this is a guy who went 5 bets headsup on the turn with a guy with one pair (against 2 pair, and there were lots of straights out there), and who had 4-bet preflop with J7s earlier too. All this while smoothcalling 3 bets preflop with KK and AK.

Frankly, I was astounded that he had a flush, I thought I was good for sure on the river given that it was a perfect bluff card for him and he didn't play it at all like I would have expected him to play a flush. In hindsight it was because my 2-hours-of-folding-then-coldcalling-3-from-the-big-blind scared the bejeezus out of him. He even asked me afterwards if I had aces.

[Slik Rik]

<font color="red"> It made them *fold* incorrectly. I gain from that even more. </font>

True but you can't always look at the result and say that was the right thing to do at the time.

The main thing to me is, you would have to be VERY sure of your reads in a pot that was raised by three different people, to think I would be automatically thinking I'm so far ahead in the hand. While you are thinking I need to try to protect my hand, I'm might be thinking (if I'm really sure about those reads now), I COULD be best but I probably have to play at least three of these people to the turn anyway. If I play it I will take a card off, hope it stays one bet and if a good card comes I have the same opportunity to C/R the turn. If it's bad I might have saved a bet.

[Clarkmeister]

"If it's bad I might have saved a bet"

You can't focus on *maybe* saving a bet when the alternative is *maybe* costing yourself a pot 18x as big.

As far as not counting on people to fold for 2 more, in big pots people fold way too easily, particularly people in the "trying to play well" camp. It's why many ABC players "can't beat those crazy games". It's because fit or fold just doesn't work once the pot gets large. In this specific case, both of the players who folded were Vegas locals which makes them particularly susceptible to making bad folds.

Here's one for you -

<font color="blue"> Crazy raising guy raises UTG and you've seen him do this with JTo. You 3-bet with AdQh. LAG 4-bets on the button. Unknown kid who you've only seen play 3 hands in 2 hours coldcalls 3 (!) in the BB. Lag calls.

Flop is 3h4h8d, checked to button who bets, kid comes to life and checkraises, UTG folds. What do you do?</font>

[MMMMMM]

Preflop: Fold, but your reads and skill vs. these guys makes it probably fairly close, so you don't lose too many points over this;-) Maybe for you vs. them it's even OK.

I know you don't like folding small pairs here, but here is why I think it is generally best in this sort of spot:

You are often in trouble and if you don't start out in trouble you will usually get into trouble. Three opponents seems like the worst number of opponents for a small pair to be facing. Not enough for a great ROI should you hit, but enough overcards to make it all too likely that that's what will end up beating you (if you'e not already beaten). Also, your implied odds are pretty much screwed when you are forced to put in 4 bets preflop. Plus the hand faces playing disadvantages especially from that position. True, you judo-ed it with the flop CR and that is a big thing which offsets a lot, but I still don't like it. Maybe though I'd like it better if I were you, and those guys were my opponents. Are those guys often easy reads throughout the hand, as well?

Flop: of course

Turn: of course

River: How could this guy seriously consider bluffing here? Who in the hell would fold? He might be able to bluff out a certain other famous poster in this spot;-) (or maybe not), but not any normal player, and certainly not you. So you are left with betting and hoping he has something, anything to pay you off with.

My best guess is that mike l. has some sort of deep-seated fetish for river-checking. Not that there's anything wrong with that;-)

[Stork]

[ QUOTE ]
The more I read this thread the more I wonder if maybe old clark was steaming a bit during this hand. He obiously wasn't thinking too clearly.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would guess that Clark plays better steaming than most people here play level-headed. Btw, I really don't think he was steaming when he played this hand.