Flat-out adorable

[EverettKings]

What's a better line? check/fold? open push? check/push?

[Exitonly]

i think check/push is better than push.

if you push you're only getting called by hands that have you beat (though you should still have 6 outs) but if you check-push, you should be able to get your money in vs missed overs some of the time. Then if he checks behind i probably push any turn.

[EverettKings]

I didnt consider for a second having the chance to check-push. I fully expected him to push with anything that he liked.

The thing is, he doesnt fold any hand that i open push. And given how the hand went, im behind most of the time here. so check/fold was my idea.

HOWEVER i knew my line would make him scratch his head, so i was HOPING for a free card.

Then he bet 600.

[Punker]

All three options are ok. In all actuality, his call preflop and bet of 600 on the flop is the much weirder play than your particular line. His bet leaves you in the dark as to whether he's betting small to try to steal it with a hand he's unsure is best and will fold to heat, or betting small to induce you to give him action with his monster.

After further consideration, I don't think the specific execution of your strategy really matters; after the flop comes, he's probably already decided whether he's going to play this hand for all his chips or not. It's just a question of whether you can somehow guess whether the answer is yes or no. If you think he's going to play for all his chips, you check fold. If you think he isn't, you somehow get all your chips in in any situation where he is not utterly pot committed.

So, ideal would be to play the hand in such a way to try to get him to give you that information as to whether he's going to play for all his chips, without exposing too many of your own; however, his stack is so short that you never really have a chance to do this in this spot.

So, whatever line you take will should be based heavily on his previous plays; he must have been mid-to-short stacked for a while. Has he been pushing in on steals, or repushing on raises, or cold calling raises, etc? If you don't have that information, what you do here is essentially a straight out guessing game, and given that he's put in half his stack already, I'm inclined to guess "he's going to play for it all".

[EverettKings]

I mean the guy hadn't been noticeabley active or inactive, passive or aggressive. But betting 600 on the flop is one of two things:

A) He's a supergenius that is way ahead of me and knows he can trap me into some fancy line or doing something dumb.
B) He didnt really know what to do so he just... kind of bet and decided to go from there.

So since he was in speculative B mode (I think), I tried to think if there was any way to stir the obscure juices in his head into getting away from something foldable. I didn't think the stars were aligned right for him to fold to a flop push but a turn line might cloud his mind with doubt and get something going for me. It was really very scientific.

Maybe this was too table/timing/feel dependent to have a good discussion on. It's probably better to just push the flop and say "dont f*** with my preflop raises" and go from there, since it cant possibly be much worse EV wise (all lines are close here). But just playing gorilla-style straightforward makes me wince, and my poker fetish is finding lines like this to earn chips in a way that noone else has thought of. Sometimes I'm wrong and just find a new way to spew chips, but hey, if i can find every way to screw up a hand, I should get pretty good at this game.

Next time I'll hit the turn.

Everett

<font color="white"> He thought for like 15 seconds and called with AK. My jaw hits the floor, and that was that. </font>

[Sam T.]

I've had some good success with this play, but under somewhat different circumstances. I find it's really useful out of the blinds in an unraised pot. The usual dynamic:

-I have two cards, and I miss a ragged flop.
-It's checked to button (or whoever is last to act), who makes a probe bet to try to take down the pot.
-Hero calls, and if it's heads up, bets out on the turn.
-Button folds.

Granted this kind of play only works against a weak-tighty, the kind of guy who will bet 1/6 of the pot in order to take it down. A CR might work as well but the check-call, bet the turn line gives you more FE.

In this case, it's a toughie. Villain definately played it weird. In your shoes, with a raised pot and all, I'd like this betting pattern if you had something other than the overs, a mid-pair would work for me.