Preflop bluff turns into money by the river

[ZootMurph]

[ QUOTE ]
OK, I'll throw in a minumum of reasoning to my previous post.

Your statement: "My whole idea was that you miss the flop 2 out of 3 times, and knowing he will fold any flop he misses, I will win a nice pot 2 out of 3 times. So, I'm going into the hand as a 2:1 favorite against him" is pretty ridiculous. First, you're only taking into account unpaired hands hitting a pair on the flop; second, you're not accounting for flopping a draw; third, you can't be certain he folds on the flop in a big pot for one bet - your read just isn't that strong; fourth, this hypothetical action actually contradicts your given read "MP2 is a LAG preflop(47%/31%), but very rarely shows down hands, either folding after the turn with nothing or jamming the pot" -- but he'll now fold for one bet on the flop?; fifth, there are four people to act behind you, including one "classic calling station;" sixth, despite flopping NOTHING you are betting into the calling station and the LAG who likes to see the river; seventh, if you think you have adequate responses to all these points, then please explain to me why 7[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] is a better hand to this with than 72o -- the bulk of your +EV argument is essentially stealing a pot by investing at minimum 2BBs.

Lastly, nice apology; however, in the future when someone criticizes a play, responding with, in effect, "am I the only good player here who varies his play or is everyone else a robotic ABCer?" is not the best way to win friends and influence people. Good luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

Catt... I agree with you that I didn't take into account his hitting a draw. I did account for big pairs, and I did believe my read was that strong. Unfortunately, I can't give you any basis for my read, as we all get reads on players based on what we see. The only way I can verify my read is the flop action, where I bet and he folds. Also, as I said to ErrantNight... there are going to be times when I hit a big flop too. These cancel out the times he has a big hand. Further, since I don't know what he was holding, I think I have just as good a chance as he did to flop a big draw as well, so I would have to guess that the times he flops a draw and I flop a draw cancel each other too. My hand in this case is simply a draw oriented hand, which probably gives me a better chance at flopping a draw than MP2's holding. But, I'm fine with calling it even for the sake of this discussion.

As for the way MP2 was playing. I looked at his stats, and he shows down a lot, 53% of the time. It was just a read I had from watching him at this table. Maybe he was having a bad day and getting into the frame of mind where every hand is a loser... I don't know. I just know that, at this table, on this day, he seemed to be folding a LOT on the flop after raising preflop. Again, as for reads... all I can say is we all have reads on players... if we don't trust our reads, then we can't maximize situations that occur on the table as we are playing.

Unfortunately, there isn't much to be able to discuss or argue with when talking about reads. Most of your arguments are on my reads. I have to trust my reads, whatever the numbers may be saying. I can't tell you that you are wrong, just like you telling me my read was wrong cannot be realistic, since you were not there. Basically, the first thing you have to do when going through someone else's hand is look at their reads and base your responses to them. Questioning them doesn't change the way the hand played out, because the player posting the hand played the hand based on their read. So you, too, should be basing your criticism of the hand on the read given. Finally, I think the result (the LAG in MP2 folded the flop with two Broadway cards showing), verifies my read more than anything else could.

I really can't answer anything about your fifth point. I don't really understand it. My definition of a calling station and yours may be different. To me a calling station is someone that, ONCE IN A HAND, will not let go of the hand IF THEY HAVE ANYTHING AT ALL. So, a calling station can fold A2 preflop, but can't fold A2 postflop if the flop contains a 2, or 34, 35, or 45. My definition of someone being a calling station doesn't influence preflop decisions, in general.

As I said to ErrantNight, I agree with your sixth point. It was dumb betting into the tight calling station postflop.

As for your seventh point. 76s is not better than 72o for the situation, except that it is intrinsically a better hand. So, this play would be even better with AA... but then it wouldn't be considered to be making a play, just standard stuff. The truth of the matter is that I wouldn't make that play with 72o. I feel that part of the value of the play is the hand itself. VERY VERY little. But the hand offsets possibilities which affect the numbers. If I did this with 72o, then my chances of flopping something worth fighting with would be miniscule, and therefore would not offset some of the possibilities of MP2s hand, like flopping a draw or having a big pair. Whereas 76s has many possibilities itself that will offset the extremes for MP2. I don't know exactly what you were looking for with your seventh point, but I hope I answered it. If not, I look forward to further discussion about it.

Finally, I didn't say "GOOD" player... I said [ QUOTE ]
... is there anyone out there besides me who isn't an automaton?

[/ QUOTE ] To me, this doesn't infer superiority. I think all posters here are better than average players. The majority are better than me, without question. However, part of any player's game, in my estimation, is varying your game. All those who think no one pays attention really have a long way to go in getting better, simply because they have to overcome preconceived notions that EVERYONE is a fish because they play online, play at Party Poker, play 2/4, etc. And, at the time I posted this, I was wondering if anyone besides me actually varied their game. I know we've all read HEPFAP, and it is clearly talked about in that book, as well as several others. But we don't see many non standard plays here to help us understand when we find a situation to make one of these plays. Further, any time there is a nonstandard play posted, everyone posts the standard response (don't 3 bet the preflop with 76s). Unfortunately, in this specific instance, I really didn't put enough information in my initial post, and that threw some things off. Follow that up with Entity getting pissed over my responses just threw this whole thread out of line. Some of the fault is, without question, mine. That's why I apologized.