Check, bluff or value bet this river?

[Barry]

It’s tourney time at Foxwoods and the poker room is jumping. They have a 50/100 game going and it looks like a terrible game. There are however 4 20 games going and most of them look decent to good. I start off something like 50th on the list, when I get to the room around 6. They go through about 40 names before they fill up a newly called 5th game.

After a little while I get called into a fairly decent game and I start of the way it’s been going for me both live and online recently, I’m stuck over 20 BB’s and have reloaded with 1 rack and I begin a comeback. It’s getting late and we have gotten shorthanded and the table next to us breaks and several of them join our table. So our current lineup is as follows (I’m in the 6 seat):

1. FW’s regular, loose passive. To him, Kxs vs. a raise is a perfectly playable hand. His raises PF, however deserve some respect. He will call to the river with any kind of hand or any kind of winning chance. He had raised PF with 77, called a flop c/r on an AJx board, called the turn and spiked his 7 on the river.

2. Guy that I have played against before. Not quite a maniac, but close. He almost always raises PF and pure bluff raises so frequently that everybody was calling him down and winning. He never did try to bluff raise me though.

3. Another FW’s regular. He is pretty good by FW’s standards, and beats the game decently. He plays more LA than a typical 2+2’er. He's pretty observant and makes some pretty good laydowns. His one big fault is that he likes to show them. We are friendly in the way that poker players that respect each others games are. Unlike some though he doesn’t get tricky and plays pretty straight forward against me, so I know when I am beat and can fold early. If he draws out on me when I have position, he will always bet out and not go for a c/r. In 1 hand he 3-bet the 10 seats open raise w/ QTo.

4. Grumpy weak tight FW’s regular. Probably a breakeven. He rarely raises after the flop, even with big hands and will just call if shown aggression. He’s definitely one where you have to fear his calls. You can move him off a marginal hand and he won’t extract the max from you.

5. Young kid A. He think he played OK, but he was running bad, so it was really hard to tell. One hand shortly after he 1st sat down, he opened raised w/ AJd, I 3-bet w/ AKo. Flop was KJx, turn K and river x. He c/c all the way. After the hand was over, he said to me that I didn’t look like the kind of player that would 3-bet PF with AK. Some of the benefits of being an old fart. He said to me later that he was quite the donkey for calling me down w/ 2nd pair. A little while later, he opens w/ 77 and I 3-bet w/ QQ. He remarks “Why does the tightest player at the table (me) always have to have a hand when I do. The flop comes AA4 and he just turbo mucks his hand.

6. Me

7. Young kid B. He was a nice enough kid and a mediocre player and we were chatting quite a bit and he wanted me to “sweat” him in a couple of hands after I folded. He told me that in the QQ hand above he folded 44 to my 3 bet.

8. Young kid C. He was a beauty; shortly after he arrived there was a 5-way for 2 bets hand in which he was the PF aggressor. The 1 seat calls 1 bet when there was at least 11SB’s in the pot for a gutshot. Of course it came in. After the hand was over he was berating the guy in the 1 seat for calling the flop. Just a couple of hands later, he calls 2 cold w/ 8SB’s in the pot with his gutshot. In general he played just bad, but thought he was good.

9. Young kid D. He sat down after the other kids and he seemed to be OK as he mostly folded.

10. Another FW’s LAG/ semi-maniac. He can get tricky, but it’s a good thing if he’s in the game.

So the 1,2, 8 and 10 seats were the donators and I couldn’t get into too much trouble with the 3 and 4 seats. Now can you ever get reads like that playing only online?

On to the hand…

It’s folded to the maniac in the 2 seat and he limps from LMP. That means that he has real trash. Decent player in the 3 seat raises to isolate him. His range will be pretty wide here. Button and SB fold, I look at my cards and see A6o and decide my hand is pretty good vs. the other two, so I call. The 3 seat gives me one of those “Why can’t you let me play this hand heads up vs. the maniac?” looks.

The flop is K63 suits don’t matter

I check, maniac checks, CO bets, we both call.

Turn is a 2 and it gets checked around.

River is a K and it’s my action. What is the plan? If you bet, is it for value or as a bluff?

[Nick C]

What would be sort of nice would be to bet, get raised by the maniac, have that raise blow CO off of his 77, and win versus maniac's 42o.

But since the maniac doesn't bluff-raise you, I guess that scenario is not going to happen. I also kind of doubt CO will fold a better hand to just one bet.

I want to bet, but I think checking and letting the maniac take a stab at it has its merits too. However, if you take that approach, I think you may need to overcall [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img].

[Barry]

When the river hits, it seems like a good opportunity that I have a parlay for a value bet and a bluff.

The maniac would likely call the river with A high or even a smaller pair. The CO likely has nothing, but with his history, he might even fold a pair that beats me.

So I bet, the maniac called, the CO folded. I table my hand and the maniac looks at his cards, looks at the board and mucks.

[nolanfan34]

[ QUOTE ]
The CO likely has nothing, but with his history, he might even fold a pair that beats me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like your bet specifically for this reason.

And on a general note, everyone should pay close attention to how you wrote this up. Now THAT is how you write up a hand and give some background on the players involved.

The hand itself was sort of a letdown after that Barry... [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Barry]

[ QUOTE ]
The hand itself was sort of a letdown after that Barry...

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL

This probably belonged in NVG under the title "Fun Night at Foxwood's" [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

I thought the river bet was interesting, but I also expected to get a few slams for the PF play.

[Piiop]

Did you consider check-raising the flop?

[bobhalford]

yeah, when I first read this, I thought to check raise the flop because my hand looks to be ahead a lot of the time. I would then lead the turn to see how my opponents react.

[lighterjobs]

I would c/r the flop. this would be the easiest way to find out where you are in the hand. if the maniac folds and the CO three-bets, it's an easy fold. if both call I would lead the flop and river.

[BigEndian]

Check in an attempt to induce a bluff.

Edit: Elaborating...

I think if you check here that you'll get a bluff and be good more often than if you bet you'll be called by a worse hand from either/both seats. You also have great relative position to the maniac and the player in the middle.

- Jim

[flopmonster]

I do think the preflop call was a bit withered, but its a live game and you had good reads on the table. touche
I like a checkraise on the flop, and I think your bet on the river was for value