20-40 with "thinking" players

[jgorham]

20-40 game at Ocean's 11

I have never really liked the term thinking very much. Because I could tell my opponents were thinking in this hand, just not very well.

I am in the BB with AJo

UTG posts a live straddle ("thinking I will outwit these donks with my clever postflop play when they can't know what I have!")

Folded to SB who raises, but clearly as an isolation play (thinking "my hand is better than 2 random cards!"). I was 90% sure of this just by the way he looked at UTG as he raised. SB also looked pretty surprised by my call, as he respected me as a tight player.

I called and UTG called, flop came QJT with 2 hearts. SB bets, I call, straddle calls.

Turn brick, SB bets, I raise, both calls.

River brick and its checked through.

Thoughts?

[flawless_victory]

[ QUOTE ]

UTG posts a live straddle ("thinking I will outwit these donks with my clever postflop play when they can't know what I have!")


[/ QUOTE ]COME ON. hes thinking, "GAMBLE!!"
threebet preflop is obvious...

[bicyclekick]

i make it 4 bets to go pre-flop.

[jgorham]

Yeah I know I should have done that - what do you think of the postflop play though?

[jayheaps]

you need to do an iso play here. 4 bet or fold preflop. this is a tough hand to play out of position, especially against a random hand.

[Softrock]

In thirty years of playing live holdem I've never seen someone make a live straddle and not see the flop no matter what it costs. Don't think isolation is possible here - if you make it 4 bets it's for value figuring you likely have the best hand and you're gonna make that random live straddle hand put as much money in as possible when you have the best of it.

Has anyone ever seen a live straddler fold before the flop?

[JAA]

I hate to admit it, but I have straddled and folded when it was capped back to me. You booze you lose [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Other than that, I think I have seen it happen twice by other people. Both times the player was on tilt and straddled out of frustration, but wasn't a complete and total donk.

- Jags

[DiamondDave]

You played it fine, IMO. You could have thrown in another bet preflop if you wanted to. Betting the river wouldn't have been bad, either.

[maxpowers21]

[ QUOTE ]
In thirty years of playing live holdem I've never seen someone make a live straddle and not see the flop no matter what it costs. Don't think isolation is possible here - if you make it 4 bets it's for value figuring you likely have the best hand and you're gonna make that random live straddle hand put as much money in as possible when you have the best of it.

Has anyone ever seen a live straddler fold before the flop?

[/ QUOTE ]

I did this at a 2-4 limit holdem game cause my friends dared me too and kept yelping "GAMBLE", then i folded when some tight player raised and i looked at some offsuit rags. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I'm an uber fish!

[maxpowers21]

Raise the flop as an isolation play/ value raise.