Did I drop the ball here?

Rockfish · #1 03-15-2005, 09:44 AM

Party 1/2. Early morning with a festive atmosphere (read: I own this game).

This just happened and I had never seen it before, that I recall, and I was caught by surprise.

Villain is 10% VP$IP and aggression of 3.5 after 40 hands. My read on him is that he's unimaginative and playing straightforwardly if a little tight.

Villain open raises UTG. Folded around to me in BB with 88. I muck.

As soon as I hit the fold button I thought I should have popped him and lead out on the flop if no broadway cards came unless he repopped me pre-flop. If he was anywhere else but in EP opening with a raise I probably would have hit him again, but he was UTG and I had no cover from other cold callers. Another alternative I considered was to just call and trap if I made a set as I knew he would keep betting at me if I checked.

Should I have taken it to him or would you do the same thing and move on to the next hand?

Comments?

adsman · #2 03-15-2005, 09:48 AM

You've left out the most important stat; what's his PFR%? If that is really low then I fold. Otherwise I reraise and lead a non Ace, King flop.

Rockfish · #3 03-15-2005, 12:59 PM

You're right, I left that out and I'm at work now so I can't look it up.

I think you're right though. Re-raise and then lead out on the flop if nothing scary falls.

How do you proceed if he caps pre-flop? I think that's why I balked in the nanosecond that I allowed myself to consider whether to play.

joeski19 · #4 03-15-2005, 01:03 PM

Really small baby pot. Why mess around?

DoctorDrew · #5 03-15-2005, 01:08 PM

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Really small baby pot. Why mess around?

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adsman · #6 03-15-2005, 01:28 PM

[ QUOTE ]
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Really small baby pot. Why mess around?

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To me, this is the wrong attitude. It's not just the big pots that we're striving for. All the little pots that you pick up let you free-roll on the big pots. I know that we're playing to win money not pots, but passing this up is just criminal. Would you pass up TT in the same situation? Or 99? If he's got overcards that miss the flop then these hands are all just about one and the same. And yes, the pot is small. Now. But later? If he's the type of player who never slows down until the river? Not to mention the fact that developing your heads up game is really important in the long term. Are you playing poker or are you just sitting there waiting for the nuts? Situations like these are what make poker fun.

adsman · #7 03-15-2005, 01:07 PM

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How do you proceed if he caps pre-flop? I think that's why I balked in the nanosecond that I allowed myself to consider whether to play.

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I think that you're seeing monsters. You can't play scared. Saying that, you shouldn't play stupid either. But I didn't even consider for a moment worrying about a cap. (Maybe I should. Who can answer that one?)

Rockfish · #8 03-15-2005, 01:18 PM

I think the other poster's reply said it all. Small pot why bother. I'm anything but weak tight, I just couldn't justify getting involved when I had no investment in the pot and there was no dead money.

Furthermore this situation will be such a rare event that figuring out how to play it at the micro limit probably won't impact my win rate.

The main reasons I posted this is because I hadn't seen it before on the board and wasn't sure I had made a good choice on short notice. The situation really surprised me.