Hand to Talk About

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi William:

Good post.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Barron:

While you're right, most players, even at the $80-$160 don't think up to as many levels as Two Plus Twoers do. It's sometimes easy in these spots to out think yourself when you understand poker well and your opponent doesn't.

best wishes,
Mason

[SA125]

I say this. "I think you check behind the turn because you're not sure which."

I must have re-read my response 5 times before submitting. Funny.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Everyone:

I didn't get to read all the posts. It's incredible the number of responses we now get on these forums.

After I called my opponent showed me an ace-ten and I won the pot. Needless to say he would have called my river raise.

So after I played this hand I began to second guess myself and decided to post it here. However, after working through many of the posts and thinking the hand through in detail, I do believe my call was correct but it is close. Also, in a less skilled game, perhaps at a lower limit, perhaps out of town, or perhaps around a tournament my thinking would be to make that raise on the river.

But one thing is for certain. Only a few of you knew to think back to how the hand was played on all streets and how the play on these streets, especially the flop, would influence the likely distribution of the hands that my opponent would hold.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi James:

Are you jealous?

Best wishes,
Mason

[James282]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi James:

Are you jealous?

Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]

What could I be jealous of here? I know you misplayed the hand, you know you misplayed the hand, any player worth his salt who chimed in on this thread knows you misplayed the hand. You have played hundreds of thousands of hands of hold 'em(presumably) and yet you choose hands like this to post. Why? Aren't we supposed to post hands that are debatable, or at least hands that can make us think on a higher level? This hand accomplishes neither of these things in the eyes of myself or from what seems like many good players on this forum. But the problem doesn't lie with them, it lies with the people who are still in the lesser advanced stages of learning who see this hand posted by The Mason Malmuth and then try to puzzle out why such a poker authority would ever play this hand in this particular way.

If you are insinuating that I'm jealous that people don't respond to my hands or give me advice, I've never really had that problem(mostly because I post so few hands), but I have heard this complaint from others whom I've tried to bring to the forum to learn. My point was simply that the amount of replies/thread is losing a lot of correlation with how much can be learned by the analyzation of the hand.

Not that I expect you to read this response nor reply to it.
-James

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi James:

Sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. However, I think if you read the other posts plus my responses you'll see that there is more to this hand than you think.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Josh W]

[ QUOTE ]

After I called my opponent showed me an ace-ten and I won the pot. Needless to say he would have called my river raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? Anybody else out there able to fold AT to a river raise at least some of the time?

J

[etizzle]

Mason I think you overlooked one possible thing when deciding not to raise. I believe his thinking went like this.

On the flop, he is thinking that a checkraise would probably blow you off KK or QQ, as that is the way most would play an ace, and you know that.

On the turn he fears you might check it through with KK, and again might not call a checkraise if you do bet. So after he is just called on the turn, he figures you will call again with QQ or KK and bets again for value.

If he is capable of not raising the flop becuase he knows you wont call down with KK-QQ then I think a river raise is in order.

[na4bart]

Hi Mason,

Although I play at the 20/40 level I would be somewhat suspicious of him not raising the flop if he indeed has an ace then leading on the turn. I lean towards popping him on the turn to see what he does with the plan of calling down if I get 3 bet and do not improve the river / he calls the raise and bet the river. With your discription of him he does not sound capable of calling the raise then raising the river.