Guts

[Louie Landale]

I like the way this one played out. 5-10 live. I'm playing a lot of hands but rightfully have a tight raising image, especially since the live guy rarely lets go of a hand. Never-the-less I make it $60 with Jc9c after 3 callers. Surprise, all 5 call. Maybe I've got a tell...

Flop is Td8d7c. WhaaHoo. They check to me, I bet $175, and the little blind raises to $500, and the other's fold, up to me. He's got about $1300 left and I've got him covered. Now normally I'd just go ahead and put a lot of pressure on, figuring to get most of it in now and the rest on the turn. However, I'm pretty sure that they suspect I didn't have a PF pair and he's been underbettting or slow-playing strong hands, and he won't pay this one off with a pair. And I think he's got a single pair, maybe JT, and I'm confortable with my read.

I call, hehehe. Turn is 7d; I hate it when that happens. He stares at the flop for a full minute and checks. I'm very confident he has only a pair. So I check, hehehe, figuring to get some money on the river. I'm still confident, for whatever that's worth.

River is perfect 4c. He bets $300, a clear blocking bet. I raise $700 which is the amount I think he'll call. He thinks for a while, suggests I have a big pair and its good, and he calls. Straight is good.

Nothing like being confident with a read.

- Louie

[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
I like the way this one played out. 5-10 live. I'm playing a lot of hands but rightfully have a tight raising image, especially since the live guy rarely lets go of a hand. Never-the-less I make it $60 with Jc9c after 3 callers. Surprise, all 5 call. Maybe I've got a tell...

[/ QUOTE ]

Curious, how deep were you and the rest of your opponents? Raises after multiple limpers with this sort of hand (suited, connected, medium size cards) seem to work better when you and your weaker opponents have at least 200 times the big blind. This ties them in for the truly big score when you flop well and you are less likely to get called when they miss and you can represent something.

[ QUOTE ]
Flop is Td8d7c. WhaaHoo. They check to me, I bet $175, and the little blind raises to $500, and the other's fold, up to me. He's got about $1300 left and I've got him covered. Now normally I'd just go ahead and put a lot of pressure on, figuring to get most of it in now and the rest on the turn. However, I'm pretty sure that they suspect I didn't have a PF pair and he's been underbettting or slow-playing strong hands, and he won't pay this one off with a pair. And I think he's got a single pair, maybe JT, and I'm comfortable with my read.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not an advocate of overbetting pots (unless you are potstuck on the next betting round anyway), but $175 into a $300 pot (you said five callers) seems small. Bet about 75% of a drawless flop, and about the pot of a draw filled pot like this.

IOW, why not bet about $300?

[ QUOTE ]
I call, hehehe. Turn is 7d; I hate it when that happens. He stares at the flop for a full minute and checks. I'm very confident he has only a pair. So I check, hehehe, figuring to get some money on the river. I'm still confident, for whatever that's worth.

[/ QUOTE ]

The pot now has about $650 and you say he has $1300 left. With this read, what about a bet of about $400? If he has a pair, he has four outs, and with this slight turn underbet he might sense you are weak anyway and call (which you want of course). If called he has $900 left and the pot is $1450. That is going to make it hard for him to get away from his hand on the river; in other words you take a small risk of losing him to increase your chances of getting all his chips (rather than some).

[ QUOTE ]
River is perfect 4c. He bets $300, a clear blocking bet. I raise $700 which is the amount I think he'll call. He thinks for a while, suggests I have a big pair and its good, and he calls. Straight is good.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well it looks like you got all but $300 anyway so nice hand.

I'm still mostly playing restricted buy in ($200 to $300) games with blinds of $3 and $5. Interesting thing is sometimes I play long hours (especially when I am in a great game and get the advantage of my stack being deepest with the weaker players stacks also deep). Late last night I ended up in a game with over $10,000 total on the table (I had $1500) and everyone started with no more than $200 and could only bring up their stacks to $300 if under $100. These restricted buy in games really change character when the stacks get deep. Anyway the blinds were only $2 and $3 (because the last $100 and $200 game was consolidated and we went with the $100 structure in defference to the players from the smaller game) yet I managed to win a pot with $1200 strange money in it [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img].

Regards,

Rick

[random]

Love the attitude. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Louie Landale]

Yup, attitude is me. I'm mostly bragging here because I do NOT feel that confident that often.

[Louie Landale]

Actually, this game doesn't feature a bunch of bluffing since nobody is real comfortable playing a big pot without near the nuts. My raise, for whatever its worth, was intended to take the pot right then, since most raises like that do NOT get called. Yes, its a pretty good game.

A pot-sized bet would have signalled big pair and I would NOT have been called by a single pair, unless it included a draw. The underbet encouraged someone to give me a play and that's what happened. This all works since I'm not in any danger of facing a real big bet later with a hand that might be worse than mine: nobody is going to bet $1000 with a flush draw on the turn.

The turn card was TERRIBLE to his presumed one pair and he isn't going to call, especially since it sure looks like I've got either a big pair or now a made flush. He knows, correctly, that I'm not going to call his flop raise with just overcards. He's not going to call $400.

Yes, those restricted buy in games are tough. It would be better just to restrict how much money you may bet in a single hand, or cap the betting to something like $200: its spread-limit $3-$200. With the restricted buy-ins you get big disparity in stack sizes, and I don't think that's good for the game.

- Louie