Hellmuth's revolutionary articles

[Vincent Lepore]

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Second, if he had a pocket pair, I did not want him to hit his card because I merely called him on the flop. Calling him here would be giving him, in effect, a free card.


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So Phil were you happy that he called your raise because now you didn't give him a free card?

How many of you agree with this reason Phil gave for raising here? Not wanting to give a free card to a two outer?

Vince

[UATrewqaz]

How about raising because you almost certainly are way ahead and the guy still has a hand he likes (AA/AK/QQ, etc.) thus you can clean him out of chips.

and I suck!

[jeffraider]

Wow if I were Hellmuth and I played the hand this poorly I'd definitely not tell anyone.

[Howard Treesong]

I don't.

The fact that Unbluffable bet out the flop strongly suggests that Phil's trips are going to get paid: unless an A comes, Unbluffable looks committed. If so, Phil can get his money in as an even bigger favorite on the turn, and giving a free card really doesn't matter.

It puts Phil in a tough spot if another K hits the board, but that's the only card that would appear to hurt his hand; on any other turn card, he has an easy decision against a committed opponent who is drawing thin.

Me, I'd give the free card here. I'd be sad if an A came and Unbluffable check-folded. I'd be sad if a K came and Unbluffable bet big into me; I'd consider folding. And I'd be sad if Unbluffable hit his pocket pair and check-called my all-in. The sadness total here is too small to worry about, and I see myself permitting a free card.

I will also note that if someone played 5s4s against Phil's QQ and got there, he'd surely get an earful from Phil. Moreover, if that someone flopped 55K and the turn hit Phil's Q, Philly-boy would almost certainly regard that as a just result and berate his opponent then, too.

I also note that while I don't have as much fame or mobney as Phil, I don't need to resort to either notion to comfort myself after inevitabilities like this one.

[Hauser_III]

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I don't have as much fame or mobney as Phil

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I don't care too much for mobney, 'cause mobney can't buy me love.

I don't buy Phil's reasoning for the raise, but the move is probably the best among tough alternatives. The rainbow and paired flop doesn't help a drawing hand, so Unbluffable is either way ahead of a bluff, or way behind to a pair of Kings or trip 5s. (Given the pre-flop weakness on Phil's part, it would make kings less likely.)

If Phil just check-calls with nothing on the board to draw to, that looks suspicious, and he might not get any more chips from Unbluffable. If Phil reraises all-in, that'll show maximum strength and chase Unbluffable away. Phil's move to reraise the minimum continues the guise that he's just representing a hand, and makes the bluff read more plausible.

It's bad luck for Phil that the two-outer hit, but it's not necessarily bad play by the opponent either.

[Vincent Lepore]

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Unbluffable

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Phil said the guy was unbluffable, he never mentioned patently stupid. This guy gets check raised on the flop by Phil, big laydown, HelmOUth who calls a raise preflop and now checkraises the preflop raiser with a King on board and he calls with an under pair. Oh.. the heck with it. I like your analysis Howard, so there...

The point of this discussion was that trying to prevent giving a free card was not in my opinion a good reason
to raise here. There may be good reasons but that wasn't one of them...and I hate giving free cards.

Vince