One line doesn't fit all...

[SCfuji]

hey scrub.

did crappy guy fold to evans raise on the turn?

the way it went, i call call call and if i put in a raise its on the river if i feel the river card is harmless enough. harmless as in 9-K. if the board pairs i dont think i raise and if some lowly straight card comes i dont raise.

[scrub]

[ QUOTE ]
did crappy guy fold to evans raise on the turn?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes.

scrub

[Joe Tall]

If Evan thinks his overcards are clean, he needs to blow out the button in addition to his preflop raise has represented a big hand. Scrub's bet is draw or small piece screamin. Therefore if Evan get this heads up, he picks up 6 more outs, theoretically, such as an A or K comes is a prefect card to get Scrub to slow with his 64o, or what ever cheese the laggard completed with and can get him to fold it on the river if it blanks. I especially like a flop raise if Evan has the backdoor working, there is a small chance at the free card.

Calling is just crappy here, fold it or take control.

[Entity]

[ QUOTE ]
If Evan thinks his overcards are clean, he needs to blow out the button in addition to his preflop raise has represented a big hand. Scrub's bet is draw or small piece screamin. Therefore if Evan get this heads up, he picks up 6 more outs, theoretically, such as an A or K comes is a prefect card to get Scrub to slow with his 64o, or what ever cheese the laggard completed with and can get him to fold it on the river if it blanks. I especially like a flop raise if Evan has the backdoor working, there is a small chance at the free card.

Calling is just crappy here, fold it or take control.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks Joe.

Rob

[scrub]

[ QUOTE ]
Evan played this hand against me in Vegas, and I think it illustrates a weakness in a lot of online multitablers' games.

Evan is BB, I am SB. It's folded to an erratic and terrible player on the button who openlimps. He would do this with any hand he would play, which is just about any two cards. I complete, Evan raises QJs, and we both call.

The flop is 356r. I bet. Evan calls. Crappy guy calls.

The turn is a rainbow-completing Jack. I bet. Evan raises. I 3-bet. Evan folds.

Thoughts?

scrub

[/ QUOTE ]

I forgot all about this thread until Joe sent me a PM reminding me to reply to it--sorry about the delay.

I had A6o, which I usually wouldn't have played this way. I know many people would want to raise preflop in this spot to try to get Evan out, but I didn't feel like he would fold often enough to justify the raise given how miserable the hand was going to be to play postflop in a larger pot.

My other concern was that the button was horrendous, and I had developed a friendly dynamic with him when we played in heads up pots. He was playing just about every hand, and every time I isolation raised him he was passively calling down as if I always had aces, giving me free showdowns when I wanted them and calling river bets when I had enough to value bet. He was in a good mood and seemed thrilled to lose as long as he lost to me. I was concerned that if I showed down the A6o after raising it preflop in that spot--and I expected to have to go to showdown--I might disrupt an extremely profitable dynamic for the sake of a raise that wasn't particularly profitable to begin with.

Anyway, I didn't think that Evan thought that I habitually bet into him without a pair in these spots. I also figured that he thought I was very capable of leading into him with a big piece of the flop here since I wouldn't be that worried about blowing the button off of his hand for two bets on the flop. In my experience, Evan rarely waits until the turn with an overpair in this spot.

When he just called the flop, I wasn't sure what to make of it, but I didn't think a slowplayed overpair was a large component of his hands. At the time, I thought that he may play overcards with showdown value like this, planning to raise a blank turn for a free showdown or to try to get me to fold a weak pair and to force the button to call two cold on a street that would probably fold without a pair.

I had also noticed that Evan wasn't getting to a lot of showdowns against the other players at the table. He was raising and betting a lot of turns and folding to raises or 3-bets.

These expensive lines that don't get your hand to showdown seem to be in fashion on the boards and in a lot of online games, and I agree that they can be profitable against passive-mechanical players, but I think they break down rapidly as opponents become irrationally aggressive or active hand readers.

When Evan raised, I thought his most likely hands were a turned jack or unimproved overcards looking for a showdown. I wasn't sure if Evan would have overcards often enough to justify a turn call, but then it occurred to me that Evan would probably try to save a few bets and fold a jack too often to me if I 3-bet, putting me on a set or something.

I'm not sure that I played the hand that well--Evan tells me that he would never have raised me without at least a jack on this turn--but I'm positive that habitually assuming that you have a good enough read on another thinking player's hand to fold something as strong as top pair with a decent kicker is a mistake.

There are a bunch of canonical lines that get discussed a lot on these boards that are open to similar exploitation, and I think it's dangerous to habitually employ these lines against thinking players who know who you are.

scrub

[Evan]

EDIT: Apparently I misunderstood what scrub meant, so my post didn't make any sense.

[scrub]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Evan tells me that he would never have raised me without at least a jack on this turn

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I just said I wouldn't have raised there with ace high.

[/ QUOTE ]

But you also said you wouldn't have waited with a pair, which doesn't leave a lot of hands for you to be raising that aren't a jack...

scrub

[nolanfan34]

[ QUOTE ]
There are a bunch of canonical lines that get discussed a lot on these boards that are open to similar exploitation, and I think it's dangerous to habitually employ these lines against thinking players who know who you are.

scrub

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, yes, yes! Awesome post, and I love this part of it.

I also love what you wrote about the table dynamics. Online you can pound away, but live I agree that sometimes you might have to miss a bet here or there to keep a profitable situation going. This includes not "picking on" a guy who's having a good time, thinks he's having a fun sparring session with you, but might pick up on a few things if you hammer him over and over again.

Anyway, good post.

[W. Deranged]

What do people think about Evan calling Scrub's turn bet and raising the river?

I really don't think I can fold this to a three bet (nor, as people have pointed out, should I against a thinking, aggressive player).

So I approach this hand in terms of a "number of bets" standpoint. My thought is that if only two bets each go in on the final two streets, I have not extracted enough value for the times I'm ahead. Similarly, if four bets or more go in, it means that at some point Scrub showed big strength and I might have put in too many bets when I'm way behind (and/or be forced into folding the best hand).

So, the "Magic number of bets" on this hand is 3. So I'm looking at the way to get three bets apiece in with the least risk of getting forced into putting more bets in.

I think the best way to do this is to call the turn and raise the river, which is less likely to induce a reraise from scrub than a turn raise and gets in the same number of bets for those times I'm well ahead with my pair of jacks.

I realize this is bizarre logic... please rip me apart on this "number of bets" idea... It's not all that theoretically specific, but I find it a helpful concept.

[MCS]

I like you "number of bets" idea, but I wonder if it isn't susceptibale to the same sort of thinking that Scrub used on the turn. Specifically, that if he knows Evan will fold to a 3-bet, he can still 3-bet the A6o on the river.

But I doubt Scrub would make that specific move if he hasn't seen Evan go raise-and-fold-to-a-3bet on the river before, whereas he HAS seen Evan do that on the turn.

Also, I suppose Evan is less likely to fold the river anyway because he can end the hand with a call. When Scrub 3-bets the turn, Evan has to worry about paying off on the river as well, so his effective odds are lower.

Calling the turn lets the button hang around. How concerned are we about this?