JJ 20-40

[BarronVangorToth]

[ QUOTE ]


Boy, you suck at this game. Almost as bad as Angelo.

TSP

[/ QUOTE ]


There are a number of people on this site that regularly give bad advice. So as not to exclude myself, I will absolutely admit that I don't think all of my advice is always top-notch. However, of the list of people that I know regularly give bad advice, nowhere are Tommy or Mike's names to be found.

(Granted, in this hand I would've stopped reraising earlier than he did -- but I wasn't there.)

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

[Boopotts]

You miss the point.

There comes a time for many good poker players when they realize that all the time and passion they've pored into the game has been, if not wasted, then not accordingly rewarded. They work on perfecting the art of the semi-bluff check-raise, the isolation three-bet, etc. etc., and one day it hits them that poker, at it's essence, is simply about getting dead money in the pot. To this end, the kinds of lifeless strategies employed by unimaginative types like Jim Brier actually end up getting about 95% of the money that mike l's stragegies will accrue--even though there's something aesthetically revolting about playing 'Jim Brier' style poker.

It's only natural to want to reject this. You get intelligent and probably creative people like mike l and Tommy Angelo involved in hold 'em, and they just don't want to accept the possibility that all their exotic plays account for maybe 3% of their actual profit. After all, it's these plays that make poker 'fun'. Since there's nothing sexy about value betting pocket aces on the river on a KJ963 board, nothing scintillating about betting out and then checking and calling with a flush draw, then they figure there's probably a better way to play the hand. It's an issue whereby the player confuses optimal play with advanced play-- and unfortunately these two concepts are not interchangable.

One thing I've found interesting is how inexcusably boring the imaginations have been of most of the decent limit players I've ever met. They fold, fold, fold, then they get a good hand and value bet, value bet, value bet. There isn't much more to it, which means you don't need to be a Picasso at the felt in order to make your earn. I've wrestled with this fact for years, and I still lose sight of it. When Mike Caro talks about fancy play syndrome he has me marked to a tee-- I'll check raise, or flat call and three bet, FAR more often than I probably should, or I'll make a big laydown on the river, just because I get a high when these plays work, or when they turn out to be right. It isn't that they're necessarily optimal, only that they give me a chance to flex the muscles I've worked so hard to develop.

I wasn't at Mike's table, so I really don't know anything about this guy he was up against. So maybe eight betting and folding to a raise was right, and maybe it was wrong. Who cares? What's important to realize is that if it is wrong it probably wasn't wrong by much, and perhaps more importantly if it was right it wasn't right by much.

In the final analysis this hand isn't nearly as important to a player's earn as finding a way to get a guy to call a bet on the turn with five outs in a heads-up pot. But I can excuse mike if he doesn't want to preoccupy himself with these issues, because nobody worth their salt gets into poker with the goal of simply learning the basic plays. Most of us first dealt ourselves in because we aspired to play well-- it's just too bad that the far more important concern is to make sure we seat ourselves with players who play bad.

[BarronVangorToth]

[ QUOTE ]
So, having said that, let's look at the flop. Mike's opponent is fearless. He does not respect the check-raise one bit. He "knows" that mike does not have an overpair, since mike limped preflop. So after we go bet (hello) raise (hi) 3-bet (I might have something) 4-bet (I know you know I don't have to have much to check-raise and could be restealing) 5-bet (I thought you might think that, but I really do have a pair) we finally get to a point where Mike starts communicating to his opponent that he really can beat top pair. 6-bets - I have top pair or better. 7-bets I have top-pair-top-kicker, eight-eight, or better. 8-bets - I can beat that. call.


[/ QUOTE ]


This is a great analysis of what playing in California means.... I always have to gear down big time whenever I have come back from a trip to California back here to CT as you'd NEVER do what Mike did at Foxwoods with this holding -- but in California ... it's about two more bets than I'd go, but for a local guy like him that knows the texture of the game and the players that well, it's a very revolutionary play.

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

[Turning Stone Pro]

You are exactly the 5-10 idiot I am referring to, with this longwinded crock of s**t.

TSP

[BarronVangorToth]

Few people have mastered the art of criticizing Person 1 (TsP) by insulting Person 2 (JB) -- kudos on that, as it has made me laugh.

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

[Boopotts]

Thanks for the kind words.

Just wondering how that 600 BB losing streak ended up for you.

[elindauer]

You're right. I don't support it. I would never play a hand like this, certainly not in the games I play, and almost as certainly not if I was playing in California. I'm merely saying that in the strange logic of California poker, against a player who's game you know well, when you are known to put in lots of bets with weak hands and your opponent knows this and is fearless, it does make a certain amount of sense.

You have to take this hand in the context of mike's other plays, like moving all-in for 20 bets preflop with ATs and such. You have to assume that the other players have noticed this kind of stuff and are willing to give him plenty of action, and these are players for whom "plenty of action" is an amount of action you can't believe until you see it. At least I couldn't.


my 2 cents.
Eric

[mike l.]

well the way i see it is after we go all those bets on the turn and then he backs down there's nothing he can have i cant beat. see he would just keep raising if he had the straight, i mean why stop and wait for the turn after 8 bets? he might have some hands i cant beat in fact like 33 and 76, maybe even a bigger set although he would surely raise 77 preflop knowing him. but he wont raise those on the turn after i put all those bets in and represent the straight. he will just call.

if he has something like A7 then he will raise maybe if he improves, and if he does im drawing to two outs and must fold.

so what was your question again?

[mike l.]

"To put it another way, if he had 9-bet instead of calling, would you have 10-bet and folded to an 11-bet?"

if we got up into 9-10 bets i would have had to slow down and call down.

as for the turn raise being a fold card, there's nothing he can have that he can raise the turn with after i show all that strength on the flop that i can have the odds to try and catch. plus when i win the reraise war on the flop it means my hand is likely good on that street or else he wouldve kept raising. although as i said before he may have stopped at 8 bets with two pair or a set.

[mike l.]

"So after we go bet (hello) raise (hi) 3-bet (I might have something) 4-bet (I know you know I don't have to have much to check-raise and could be restealing) 5-bet (I thought you might think that, but I really do have a pair) we finally get to a point where Mike starts communicating to his opponent that he really can beat top pair. 6-bets - I have top pair or better. 7-bets I have top-pair-top-kicker, eight-eight, or better. 8-bets - I can beat that. call."

PERFECT! that's so fuucking exactly correct. exactly. excellent.

ive seen the flop/conversation analogy before but it bears repeating here and you did a great job on this one. thanks.