Reviewing a past post

[Scuba Chuck]

A week ago, I went through the "microposter session" and reviewed a few hands. In this post I had suggested an alternate play from what the player had made, which was to check instead of bet. The subsequent advice and posts on the topic were that they thought our hero had played it well/correct.

I bring this up as I read SSHE for the first time, and I came across the following topic on page 114.
"Evaluating the flop:made hands"
There's a table of the strength of made hands, and a subsequent column on how you should play the hand based on the strength of your hand.

Anyhow, back to the hand in question, our hero is only up against the blinds. I am still having a hard time understanding why checking is not the best play here. I could understand betting out more if there was at least one VPIPer.

Any thoughts?

[milesdyson]

bet because people will call, because they expect you're just betting to pick up the pot.

and from someone who's no longer with us:

"fish like to call. i like to let them."

[aces_dad]

Revisited this post and see that almost everybody advocated betting out. I'm not sure what the best move is but I don't think waiting for the turn is terrible as this hand is small and only 3 handed though our hand not invincible.

One thing to consider is that people with good draws will likely call one on the flop and with the now larger pot may also peel on the turn as well, giving you upto 1.5BB's per caller assuming they fold the river UI.

However if you wait until the turn to bet the baby flush draws may not call here anyway on what is now a very small pot relative to the bet size.

On the other hand, this could work, since A high often calls the turn from your position bet if the flop is checked and they think you're full of it. And perhaps someone paired up on the turn.

Another time I may wait is if I've got a read that one of the villians is bluff prone and we hope to induce a bluff on the turn from a hand that would have folded the flop.

[Aaron W.]

[ QUOTE ]
A week ago, I went through the "microposter session" and reviewed a few hands. In this post I had suggested an alternate play from what the player had made, which was to check instead of bet. The subsequent advice and posts on the topic were that they thought our hero had played it well/correct.

I bring this up as I read SSHE for the first time, and I came across the following topic on page 114.
"Evaluating the flop:made hands"
There's a table of the strength of made hands, and a subsequent column on how you should play the hand based on the strength of your hand.

Anyhow, back to the hand in question, our hero is only up against the blinds. I am still having a hard time understanding why checking is not the best play here. I could understand betting out more if there was at least one VPIPer.

Any thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're at a table that is so tight that you need to slowplay big hands for them to be profitable, you should be fast-playing a bunch of hands because you will flop weak hands more often than monsters.

The "never slowplay" mantra is very very close to being true. There are cases where it's appropriate, but those situations are not the norm. If Hero slowplays here, he doesn't gain or lose much at all. Most likely it's a situation where none of the villains flopped anything, and they're going to give up to a the turn bet 85% of the time.

HE4AP
"For slowplaying to be correct. The free card isn't likely to hurt you. Someone is likely to make a 2nd best hand"
SSHE
"They can't call if you don't bet"

BET.

Don't flame me if the quotes aren't quotes. I'm at work and don't have the books with me. The points are made.

[detruncate]

Hi Chuck. Hope your limit project is going well. The #1 mistake made in low limit holdem is going too far with hands that don't deserve it. You should take advantage of that. People are also not aggressive enough on average, so underplaying is usually more likely than overplaying. Unless your you have a read that suggests aggression is likely, expect average players to call with way more hands than they'll bet.

We also have limited ability to trap people for many bets (no pun intended), meaning that we have to be damn sure that we're going to increase our implied odds when we check a strong hand since it's hard to make up lost bets.

In this hand, there are all sorts of reasons for people to call. The flush draw. Overcard(s). Several possible straight draws. Many people will call any pair. Especially loose opponents will take one off with almost any 2. We also don't love giving a free card here.

In the vast majority of cases it's best to just bet your strong hands. This is one of them.