Curtains Hand #1

[microbet]

Folded to him in the small blind and his opponent is tight. No need to look at cards. Raise.

River call is a bit loose, Sheriff, but an invitation was issued for a steal there and Curtains doesn't like to be taken advantage of.

[curtains]

Ok obviously this hand wasnt well played. Sometimes against regulars I call on the river becuase of a combination of maybe there is a chance I'm ahead, and curiosity, to simply see what they have. When you play with a guy a ton, it can be worth it, and of course there is a chance he's bluffing, although I feel that taken on its own the river call is -EV.

Of course the above is a huge cop-out Ill try to articulate better below. Please realize that every now and then I just go a bit insane and do weird things. But ok, taken in a vacuum this hand looks as though it was played by an idiot, so I should try to formulate some defense, or either condemn my play as bad.

[Marnixvdb]

[ QUOTE ]

Ok obviously this hand wasnt well played. Sometimes against regulars I call on the river becuase of a combination of maybe there is a chance I'm ahead, and curiosity, to simply see what they have. When you play with a guy a ton, it can be worth it, and of course there is a chance he's bluffing, although I feel that taken on its own the river call is -EV.

[/ QUOTE ]

the rivercall is def. the most questionable part of the hand

[curtains]

Ok, so one reason I raised preflop is because of the relative chip positions and the somewhat tightness of my opponent. My opponent however has been playing with me a bit lately and so I probably won't be making such liberal plays with them in the future.

On the flop, of course betting is normal. In some sense this is a dream flop for my hand, as now I have top pair. I decided not to bet, because if I bet, I believe that Im committed to putting all my chips in the pot if I'm raised, and for some reason I didn't feel so comfortable doing that. When I check and he bets 60, probably the best play would be to immediately raise to about 200-260. If he calls/raises me, then I get off the hand. One downside to such a method play is that it completely devalues the strength of my hand. I may as well be making the play with any 2 cards, and I hate to take a hand like top pair, and make it so that the pair actually has no relevance in the situation.

Anyway let me summarize some ideas, valid or not:

1. If I plan to bet the flop and fold to a raise, its irrelevant that Ive hit top pair, and its a shame to waste my hand's value.

2. If I plan to check raise the flop and fold to a 3-bet, again I've rendered my hand worthless. In this scenario and the above, I may as well have 62o.

3. It's possible to bet out and move allin if raised, although this is quite risky and given that my opponent doesn't have a penchant for randomly bluffing against aggressive action early in a sit and go, it could be quite a risky play as well, and one I wasnt comfortable with making.

4. In the end I decided to preserve the value of my hand at all costs by checking. If my opponent bet the pot, I would now probably check raise allin, as I have shown such little strength that their bet could easily be a simple continuation bet, and if Im called I probably have a few outs anyway. When they made the smallish bet, I decided to play passively and keep the pot small. I didn't believe my opponent would just fire away on all 3 streets without a hand. Sometimes I go into weird passive mode, which isn't so bad for my image, because a lot of these times I plan to call/raise my opponents bets, thus people cannot just expect to always steal every time I check.

Anyway obviously this hand wasn't perfect or anything. I just decided to mix it up against this guy. For those who want to know, the opponent had JJ and hit a set of jacks on the river. So I did manage to find at least one way to not double him up. I mean he slowplayed his big pair, I hit top pair, and he only got 260 chips out of me, not a terrible result for me.


5. Please note that the river call I felt there was some chance I was ahead and also I just really wanted to see what my opponent had. What kind of hands would they play in such a weird manner? The information gained MAY be worth the 200 chips in this case. Everytime you get to see your opponent's hand in such a situation it helps you formulate an overall idea of how they play, and given that I played about 10 sit and gos with them last night, and expect to play with them very often, this can be valuable. However I would never make such a call unless I felt there was some chance my hand was good, which I believe there is, given the weakness that I exhibited throughout the hand.

[ravensfan]

Thanks Curtains, this is great analysis and very helpful!

Just out of curiousity: if you bet say 1/2 pot on the flop, what percentage of the time does the average villian fold/call/raise? And, how often does a very tight villian who called this bet react? I'm guessing that since they'd rarely defend this early in the tourney, you figured there was at least an outside chance (i dunno 25%-30%) that they had an overpair and therefore well worth your while (implied odds) to wait for one of your 5 outs for free?

[curtains]

I didnt consider for a second that my opponent might have an overpair actually [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Most normal people would reraise there. I dont think my opponent would have gotten too out of line if I bet the flop. Im not saying my play was correct, but those were just some thought processes behind it, which when used in the right situations can be valuable.

Another note...I know that its possible my opponent may lurk here along with some other regulars. For this reason I am always analyzing their play very closely to see if I think they may be trying to make plays on me based on information posted on 2+2. I was actually getting such a sense about my opponent in this hand, but it later dissapated after finishing the remainder of my events with them. In any case, after the preflop call, I thought there was a chance they read one of my earlier posts that mention how I will raise some tight players in this spot quite often. When they turned over JJ I realized that it likely wasn't because of this post that they decided not to fold their hand [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ravensfan]

Hey Curtains, thanks for the response.

OK, if they felt that reraising say, 9s or 10s (or h@ll, even Js [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ), would lead to an coin-flip all-in battle, would pushing still be a normal play this early? ie. maybe they didn't want to have to fold a good pair with position this early if you pushed, and wouldnt be comfortable calling? I guess i'm wondering if playing one of these pairs with position early in the tourney for set/overpair value would be better than ending the hand? Who knows, maybe he read you as aggressive either from your general posts here, or from your play that tourney, and figured it would be a good spot to trap you? Fwiw, i'm kind of trappy and my instinct is to trap these spots like the villian did. Do you think this is a leak? (i still play the 800 chip tourneys though)

I can definitely see how there'd be some more information to consider with these extra posts you're adding? Theoretically, i suppose it can help your game?!

[curtains]

The by far normal play for my opponent wolud be to reraise with 99 or TT. Flat calling is very abnormal.