Hand from a live game

[Aaron W.]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, I wasn't trying to 'shed' the image -- I was trying to use it. I'm not sure what you mean by your statement though. Are you saying that, if you think people have noticed that you're playing tightly, you should start raising more marginal hands preflop?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you want to use a tight image, you really want to start preflop. Why? Because that's where most players get their sense that you're tight. If you raise preflop, they are paying attention to *you* and they will think about what *you* might be raising with. ("Uh oh... the tight guy over there raised.")

Once they have a flop, they are more focused on their cards and what *they* have because that's the most useful information to them. ("I've got a gutshot.") For image to work, they need to be thinking about you.

If you think you've got a tight image, start raising hands that you might play anyway, but do it *IN POSITION* and do it with the appropriate type of hand. If you have a multiway pot, raise a multiway hand that you were thinking of limping in with -- maybe a suited ace or K9s. If it's a little short-handed, raise a decent hand shorthanded, like KT or A9. You might be giving up a little bit of EV sometimes, but you get some back by (hopefully) encouraging more action later ("You raised with that?" = they will now assess your raises by a different standard).

You want to shed a tight image. You want to have a LAG image while playing a TAG game. That's the most profitable combination.

[TomBrooks]

Now what?

Damned if I know. Best looks to me to be: Check, hoping CO doesn't Bet, and Call if he does. Bet/Fold has it's merits also.

[/ QUOTE ]

And do we hate the flop/turn bets?

Yep. On the Flop, Middle Pair 7 No Kicker with a King on board isn't even worth a bet against 4 opponents on a rainbow flop. It's unlikely that noone doesn't have at least one club. A King might not fold either unless some action breaks out. Your drawing terribly thin.

The turn club just makes your predicament worse. Your digging yourself into a hole most of the time here.

[DeathDonkey]

Easy check/fold on the flop. Since you didn't, check/fold the river.

-DeathDonkey

[gharp]

Yeah, in hindsight I think the flop was definitely the worst-played street. Since most of the players involved seemed capable of folding and I'd shown nothing but good hands, I thought I could scare 'em out. This might've been reasonable with 2 other players or less, but even then it's questionable since the blind structure would've made the pot really tiny compared to my bet.

I thought the river decision was kind of interesting -- I really wanted to bet to give him a reason to fold (and b/c it's the only way I could win) but I decided that since he called on the turn there was no reason for him to fold on the river with the 2[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] on board. So I checked, he checked behind and showed the 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] and MHING. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]