Slowplayed trips gets ugly on turn - PP $30+3 3-table

[Bill Kolter]

OK, what am I missing here? A passive table calls smallish bets until the river. Then, a full frickin' house folds to a 2/3 pot bet on the river. WTF? You've got a full house! Maybe you don't have the best full house, but it's a $200 bet, and you've got, what, $1400 in your stack?

You've shown no aggression. There's a decent chance that you've convinced this guy that you don't have anything, and he's trying to buy the pot. I'm in there before he is!

I think the villain's bets are suspiciously small. So small, in fact, that there is NO WAY IN HELL I don't call the river.

He could have pocket aces. He could have 5s full. He could have a lot of things you can beat. And you have a full house facing a moderate bet. A push would've been a harder decision. This is insta-call.

[frostbrn]

Oh yeah, and as for my opinion on the hand, you're almost certainly paying off the T here on the river with that size bet into that kind of pot. From my experience (I'm sure others such as ExitOnly have had similar experiences) when you have a good hand, but there's a possibility of a better hand that gets made on the turn/river and you face a medium to big size bet on the river, you probably do not have the best hand about 80-90% of the time. I know this from the painful experience of paying these types of things off over and over again before learning my lesson.

My new rule of thumb for these situations is that I absolutely will fold to a likely better hand UNLESS I have seen a similar move from the same player on a previous hand. The risk/reward just doesn't add up otherwise IMO.

[DarrenX]

[ QUOTE ]
Set=Trips

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe trips are when two of the three are on the board, while a set is when you have a pocket pair and a third appears on the board.

[Bill Kolter]

That's what I thought. This is why I ask:

"I also used to basically treat sets and trips the same"

From the second post in this thread.

[illegit]

Look at it from his perspective. He's a donk and he's bet twice into 3 opponents (min bets granted), and followed it up with a big bet on the river. He's not doing this with air 90% of the time. If it's not air it's a 6 or a T because otherwise he'd just hope for a cheap showdown fearing a 6 or a T (as a T would certainly call a min bet on the flop and lots of players would just call with the T after the turn as well). So 90% of the time I'm beat or splitting. You can run the numbers but even if it's something like 50% split, 40% you're beat, 10% you win it's still a fold. And it's not a "FREAKIN full house!" it's more like "eh a full house.. on a twice paired board, where anyone with top pair certainly stayed for the turn now has a bigger one.. and now one of those 3 players who stayed for the turn is all of a sudden betting big".

[Bill Kolter]

I understand your argument. I've seen guys make that kind of bet with an ace in their hand, thinking nobody connected with the pairs, which would certainly be consistent with the passive betting. And a 2/3 pot bet, which is an (estimated) 1/7 of your stack, in my mind, is not "betting big," although it is relative to prior bets. And I agree that his betting is consistent with having hit his own full house. I will point out that you are discounting entirely the possibility that he's trying to buy the pot in response to the passive play. Perhaps unlikely from EP with 3 to act, but not impossible.

I also think there's a lot of room between "air" and the nuts. What if he had a pocket pair higher than 6s? If he thought that nobody connected with the flop (and you've given him no reason to suspect that you had), then he may think his jacks up (or whatever) are a winner.

Let's run with that assumption for a minute:

6 pairs each of 7s, 8s, 9s, Js, Qs, Ks, As. 48 possible hands.

Hands that beat you: 2 T, one 6. Three possible hands.

If you accept the possibility that his range of hands may include a bigger pair than the board, you are the likely winner. You throw A-x in the mix (he is a donk, after all), and now you're damn near a lock.

There is a dollar figure at which I don't call this bet, either, but t200 isn't it.

Another question I have: what were the other two players hoping to catch by sticking around to the river?

[Bill Kolter]

Sorry--bad math. 42 possible pairs bigger than 7s, excluding tens.

[Bill Kolter]

OK, so my math sucks. Ignore all the numbers. The point I'm trying to make is that I think it's FAR from certain that you're facing a ten, and $200 is a cheap price to find out.