15 30 Live at NYC club

[drbk2]

Very good 15 30 live game at NYC club I play almost every day.

I'm either in 3rd or 4th position. I forget but I open raise with 88. Cut off who is ok but is overaggressive at times 3 bets. Button who is terrible cold caps. Big blind who I haven't played with very much but who seems to be almost as bad as the button cold calls the cap. I call the two bets, cut off calls.

Flop: A A 3 rainbow. Checked to the button who bets. Big blind thinks for a second and calls. I call and cutoff calls.

Turn is Jack. Checked around.

River is a 2. Big blind now fires a bet, I muck, cut off calls, button mucks 77 face up.

Comments?

[gorgeous]

Looks like the BB was slowplaying an ace and planned on checkraising the turn. Then the river came and he was sad [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[TStoneMBD]

i dont think you accomplish anything by calling the flop. unless they are both capping with 55 or KQ you are behind. with CO behind you, you may get raised. therefore i recommend folding the flop.

[drbk2]

My read on the whole thing:

My read was that I was behind cut off and ahead of the button and the big blind. I was hoping the button would bet so I could check raise both the button and the big blind, getting cutoff to fold the turn. That obviously didn't happen.

[elysium]

hi dr

the call on the flop is not o.k. unless you are very sure that the CO will not check-raise. there is a good chance that he won't, but you need more than just the number of over-callers that he would be check-raising into to give the liklihood of his only calling, proper credence. you also must lower your expectation of seeing the river for 1 sb on the flop. since that expectation is diminished somewhat but is one of the factors that makes calling on the flop correct those times you are calling hoping to spike, it think you have a fold on the flop lacking some indication by the CO that he will not be check-raising, albeit, even with the improbability of seeing the river on a turn check-around, due to the size of the pot, you can still easily make the call if you do have a very strong indication that the CO will not check-raise.

generally, if you have an aggressive on your left in these spots in which middle pair (or over-carded pocket) gets checked to by several, it's a little better to betout. one of the reasons it is better to betout rather than hoping to get a chance to spike, is because.....chit. i lost my train of thought. oh right, one of the reasons it's better to betout is because you can easily fold to a check-raise when your call of the check-raise doesn't close it.

now, at the table, you can't examine every little detail involved in making a decision. you think fast: aggressive left, middle pair, checked to, betout. you don't really have to consider what to do next because that becomes pretty much automatic. and brings us to our final point.

one of the main reasons that we take action in a given round of a hand, is to make our subsequent action in the hand more correct and certain. somewhere i read either that hold em is a game of winning pots or a game of not winning pots, i don't remember. in any case, it is neither of the two. this is a game of making correct decisions that afford you the maximum amount of certainty. we are striving to achieve absolute certainty of our action's correctness. the importance of this achievement is greater than the value of our chips. if it costs us chips to be certain that the course of action we have decided upon is correct, we don't mind that because in return we get back certainty that we were right. if all we needed was just correct strategical or tactical play, it would often be correct to save as many chips as we could store, until the right strategic moment arrived, and then deploy our full strategic and tactical arsenal. most players play like this. most players lose like this as well, and wonder what went wrong. on paper, their game is perfect.

what went wrong is that the player didn't understand that certainty in the correctness of his action often requires that he make decisions that are counter-intuitive to his game plan and stomach, when those actions will give greater greater clarity and lift the fog of spontaneity under which his opposition is covertly scoring. in this hand, on paper, he should check the flop. that's what good strategy dictates. however, since he will be able to make a more certain fold if he is check-raised, as well as a more certain call, betting out is correct. and before the hand is over, he has scored more points.

in this hand, this poster checks the flop. the opposition immediately begins dipensing fog. his opponents know that he doesn't know whether or not he has the lead, which is another tidbit of info that a bet would have provided to him, giving greater certainty to him about his lead status. but he has none of this, and immediately in rolls the fog. and now he doesn't know where he stands. so while the strategy that he deploys may truthfully be strategically sound for the turf on which he thinks he is fighting, it is not applicable for the turf on which he is actually fighting. his opposition hasn't mastered strategics to the high level of this poster. they have short-cut their road to success by fogging with a bet, and in that fog, changing the battle turf unbeknownst to the poster. worse, he really can't clear-up the fog with a bet unless he attends to it right away. once the fog rolls in and becomes stagnated by heavy action, it is very hard to clear-up. this is why stopping the fog of battle is more of a pre-emptive type tactic used to give our strategics the certainty needed for success.

many times, a bet will not give you any more certainty than you already have, and are worthless. but every bet that clarifies where you stand in a hand, while not necessarily a value bet, nevertheless still has value; often, more value than a value bet.

we need to have a heading under which we can assign our bets that clarify our lead and turf status. something like clarity betting or something. this post would give a very clear picture of what a C-bet looks like, if there was one, and if this poster had betout on the flop.

the C-bet; i think its time has arrived.

[krammatrix]

What club were you playing at? I go to NY a lot and am looking for a place in manhattan to play...

[Justin A]

[ QUOTE ]
i dont think you accomplish anything by calling the flop. unless they are both capping with 55 or KQ you are behind. with CO behind you, you may get raised. therefore i recommend folding the flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

He's calling getting 18:1 with only one player left to act behind him. This one's a call even if CO will checkraise 25% of the time.

[sthief09]

[ QUOTE ]
What club were you playing at? I go to NY a lot and am looking for a place in manhattan to play...

[/ QUOTE ]

PS and Orchard are the only ones I know that have regular 15/30, and I don't think PS has 15/30, just 10/20 or 10/20 with a half kill. I'm curious where he was playing too.

[sthief09]

[ QUOTE ]
i dont think you accomplish anything by calling the flop. unless they are both capping with 55 or KQ you are behind. with CO behind you, you may get raised. therefore i recommend folding the flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

preflop there are about 21 SB in the pot. on the flop he's getting 23-1 immediate, with only the CO (who very well might be checkraising) left to act. toss in the chances he's good without improvement and I think you have a clear call.

[sthief09]

[ QUOTE ]
Very good 15 30 live game at NYC club I play almost every day.

I'm either in 3rd or 4th position. I forget but I open raise with 88. Cut off who is ok but is overaggressive at times 3 bets. Button who is terrible cold caps. Big blind who I haven't played with very much but who seems to be almost as bad as the button cold calls the cap. I call the two bets, cut off calls.

Flop: A A 3 rainbow. Checked to the button who bets. Big blind thinks for a second and calls. I call and cutoff calls.

Turn is Jack. Checked around.

River is a 2. Big blind now fires a bet, I muck, cut off calls, button mucks 77 face up.

Comments?

[/ QUOTE ]


I like it on all streets. expecting to be ahead of the BB, the CO, AND the button is a pretty crappy parlay. if you're planning to pay on the river, I think you have to raise. the chances that a bigger pair that's willing to fold is out there on the river is too high to just call. you can safely fold to a 3-bet. I think the pot is big enough to justify if you think the CO or button are capable of tossing a pair >88 and if the BB could be bluffing. otherwise I like it on all streets