Another hand from the Orleans

[Irieguy]

Same tourney as before, $200 total buy-in, almost $6K for first. 290,000 chips in play, down to 15 players. Pays 10.

Blinds 500/1000, Ante 200. 8 players at my table.

The good player to my left has been eliminated. Nobody remaining can really play the game. Everybody would probably be happy with a 15-way chop for $900 or whatever.

I'm on the button, the SB is relatively new to my table. The BB is the SB from the last hand I posted. The SB has only been here for a few hands, but he instantly folded his BB to a min-raise after looking at his cards even though there was 4100 in the pot... which says something about his play.

I have around 25K chips, which is a little above average. It's folded around to me and I raise to 3500 with pocket deuces.

The SB looks at his cards, begins to fold, but looks at the pot and then looks at his cards again. He then looks at me and calls. He has around 18K in chips. The BB folds.

The flop came Kh-8d-4d and the SB leads for 3000 into a 9600 chip pot. I have a hard time putting him on a hand. My instinct tells me he won't fold to shear aggression here. I call.

The turn was an off-suit 3. He leads for 3K again, leaving him 9K. Geez, I was getting 6 to 1 on a call and I was becoming convinced that he wasn't on a diamond draw and that I may have all the diamonds as bluff outs on the river. But I didn't like it and was ready to fold. Instead of folding, I decided to take a little more time to try and figure out what was going on. I was fairly sure he wasn't walking a monster, and very sure he wasn't on a diamond draw. I also felt like he would want to protect 2 pair and would have pushed with a K-8... probably the weakest hand with which he would have called preflop. Did he have K-T or K-J? Seemed like he would try to protect at least K-J. K-T or K-9? Yeah, that seemed about right. So, how many bluff outs would I have on the river? Could I get all of his chips if I hit my deuce? We he fold if a diamond came? Would he fold if an Ace came?

I decided that I probably had 13 outs to win or bluff the pot. That justified a call of another 3K into this pot in my mind.

The river was the 7 of diamonds and he pretty quickly bet 1k. The minimum. He had 8K behind and I could see him praying for me not to raise.

I took the amount of time I thought I would take if I made my flush and raised 8K more, putting him all in if he called.

Results later.

Irieguy

I just fold the flop. I think spots like these require a very specific level of inability from your opponent to be profitable. Your 2 outs may be no good as villain's preflop goofy tell could easily be 88 or 44, and it sounds like you don't know what villain's capable of folding.

[KramerTM]

Irieguy, you are officially nuts... and I love you.

The only thing that rubs me the wrong way here is that Villain has too little chips to the point where you have to factor in how often he will call on the river out of sheer frustration even though he "knows" he's beat. The smaller the stack, the more likely this is to occur.

More importantly though...

[ QUOTE ]
Nobody remaining can really play the game.

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Then why even bother with such a risky move??

[Exitonly]

[ QUOTE ]
I just fold the flop. I think spots like these require a very specific level of inability from your opponent to be profitable.

[/ QUOTE ]

i agree w/ this.

But once you got to the turn i like it. Though that minbet on the river would bother me a bit (but i'd still go ahead with plan)

[billyjex]

He sounds like the kinda guy who won't fold anything half decent. I can't fold the flop faster (as it seems you are calling just to steal the pot later.)

[ononimo]

i don't like this line at all.

with such a limited read on the villain, how do you deduce that he'll be capable of folding to a bluff after all the cards are out and he's pot committed but NOT willing to fold to a bluff on the flop when your folding equity is much greater?

how were you even able to put him on a hand or a range of hands at all? are his donkishly small bets (especially on the turn) typical or atypical of his betting patterns? personally, i think the 13 outs you gave yourself was seem too generous. would have played the hand that much differently if he was on a draw himself?

[wiggs73]

[ QUOTE ]
he instantly folded his BB to a min-raise after looking at his cards even though there was 4100 in the pot...

[/ QUOTE ]

To all the people who are saying, "how can you expect him to fold when he's pot committed?"... I think this is how.

As for the actual hand, I probably would take Exitonly's line... so fold the flop, but being that you got to the turn in the manner you did, I like your play from there.

Edit to say: I say fold the flop because it seems solid after knowing what he does on the turn. In practice... if someone made that weak of a lead on the flop, I'd have a hard time folding too, especially if I felt I could outplay him on a later street. I'm sure you planned to bet if he checked the turn and probably felt there was a decent enough chance that he'd check it. So I don't hate the flop call or anything.

[Paul Thomson]

Posts like these are what making trolling 2+2 for hours everyday worthwhile.

I’m not sure if your line is going to work, but I do believe there is a good chance. I read something lately about bluffs that I liked, “A bluff should be misleading but not confusing”. And from the Villian’s perspective, he can construct a story where some guy kept calling with a flush draw that miraculously hit on the river. So I like the bluff on the end.

But what I found most rewarding was your train of thought on the turn. You put your opponent on a range of hands (albeit small one). And then looked at how many cards would allow you to bluff him out of the pot and then based your decision on that. What I found original about that approach is that you anticipated a scare card coming. I, on the other hand, will make a bluff when a scare card falls but I’m never taking into consideration in advance that a scare card should be counted as an out.

Thanks for the insight.

[ononimo]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
he instantly folded his BB to a min-raise after looking at his cards even though there was 4100 in the pot...

[/ QUOTE ]

To all the people who are saying, "how can you expect him to fold when he's pot committed?"... I think this is how.

[/ QUOTE ]

although i'm 90% sure this reasoning worked out for Irieguy simply because he posted it, i think there's a danger of reading too much into that preflop fold.

for many players, even those who aren't usually thought of as weak, there's a BIG difference between putting additional $ in the pot when you've got 27o in the hole (pot odds be damned) vs. folding to a raise on the river when you've got even the slightest bit of a hand and you're fully pot committed.

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
down to 15 players. Pays 10.

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i like it because of this. For those that don't play live, you wouldn't know the 'embarassment' factor of bubbling. The line that you took was consistent w/ the hand you were trying to rep. His hand was readily defined, so I like it. I put him squarely on a weak King.