Bellagio 15/30 hand #2

[bobbyi]

This hand was played before Hand #1. At this point, the game has not yet gotten wild. It had been a little on the weak-tight side, and is just starting to shift (although I'm not sure how aware of it I was at the start of this hand).

Background: I’ve only played one hand in the last 90 minutes or so, not including free/ cheap plays in the blinds where I check-folded the flop. The lone hand that I had played was two hands prior to this one. On that hand, the player to my immediate right (RHO) open-limped. He is a very poor player and could hold a wide range of hands here (he is the same RHO from Hand #1). I raised with ATo to isolate, hoping that after not playing any hands for a while this would look scary enough to actually work. Instead, I got three-bet by the big blind. RHO and I both called. BB is a gambler and could conceivably hold a lot of hands here, including worse aces and medium pocket pairs. The flop is A-rag-rag with two diamonds. He bets, RHO folds, and I flat call. The turn is a blank and I again flat call his bet. The river is the Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], he fires one more time and I call. We chop, as he also holds ATo. Okay, with that background on to the actual hand (again, this is two hands later):

Preflop: We are 8-handed. I open-raise UTG+1 with A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]T[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. The cutoff calls. The button (who was the BB in the Background Hand) again three-bets. I think he can hold an even wider range of hands before, given that last time I didn’t have anything terribly strong to showdown, and given that he now has the button. The blinds call, I call, and CO calls.

Flop: KJ9r, with one heart. Checked to the button, who bets. One blind calls and I call. The cutoff raises. All active players call. Four to the turn.

Turn: 3[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. Check round.

River: 2o. The remaining blind checks and I bet.

[steveyz]

Any read on the CO? Is s/he tricky? It seems possible that the CO was going for the double check raise with a very strong hand, possibly QT for the nut straight, thinking that he might bet again with a hand like AK or KQ if checked to.
I just don't see many hands that a solid CO would check raise with on the flop that just checks the turn unless s/he was planning to check-raise again.

[bobbyi]

Sorry, I didn't have a read on CO. He didn't seem tricky. He also didn't seem "solid", although I was still quite surprised by his turn check.

[rory]

I don't dig it-- any pair is calling you.

-rory

[bobbyi]

So does this mean that you think all streets prior to the river were fine?

[bobbyi]

My river bet was called in two spots. I think the first was the cutoff, although it may have been the button. He had a king with a bad kicker (forget what exactly). The other caller was the blind who somehow held J3 for a turned two pair. Did I mention that it was a good game?

[elysium]

hi bobby

hand 1) you need to show a little stronger action in this one bobby.

hand 2) check-raise the flop. you must drive out the MP's and get heads up to give your A the best chance of holding up, among other things. failing to check-raise the flop here bobby is pretty bad. what is this?.....a 15/30 bellagie?.....hmmm. yeah, bobby you're not ready for this one. don't play in this game until you get more lower limit experience. i wasn't really paying a lot of attention to your previous postings, but as i recall,....bobby you don't know how to play this game, is that correct? what? are you over 100K into this by now? or more? i thought so.

well bobby, you will likely never recover the lost monies. you might improve a little though if you drop down into the lower limits. if you continue playing in these type games, you will continue to lose at your current rate of loss. i would like to get you into losing less than 20 dollars an hour, if possible, and then work it down to losing 10 an hour or so. what i'd really like you to do is stay out completely until you've had an opportunity to do your homework a little more thoroughly, but as i recall in your postings, you would not be very cooperative, is that correct? i thought so.

bobby, you're a problematic student because you are tough and play solidly often enough for you to over-look the weak areas in your game. i want to see you drop down, become more critical of your play, assume that you are doing it exactly wrong instead of exactly right, and assume that you will continue to lose for some time. you might just reevaluate and improve. i think the odds on this one, however, are running 9 to 1 against, and that you will continue playing the 15/ 30 tough games, trying to outguess these lousy pros.

bobby, i think you are going to lose a lot of money. do you follow me so far?

[lancastrian]

Hi bobbyi

Naturally all decisions are player dependent but my line in this hand may have been as follows:

Preflop: Fine, I do the same, your table image at the time would certainly suggest strength when you raise in early(not with standing the ATo played previously).

Flop:Im of the opinion that the flop decision (bet, check-call, check-raise) are pretty close, and depending on the players involved all may be viable options.

Turn: I bet here. You have 12 outs to the nuts and possibly 3 more outs with the aces. So a bet here I think is good.

River: Your turn and river play seem completey incongruous to me. You check the turn with a lot of outs and then bet the river when it would seem likely, given the previous action, that you are behind. Only you can say whether you think your bet is going to fold the other 3 opponents in the hand enough times to make betting +ev. I dont think its a good bet though. Check and fold.

Hope this is useful

regards

graeme

[bobbyi]

Thanks for the reply. The reason that my turn and river play were not in alignment is that the turn checking around behind me was completely unexpected and forced me to drastically change my estimation of how likely it was that I could take down the pot with a bet. However, you're still right that I should have bet the turn in the first place. Thanks.

[bobbyi]

elysium,
Based on your comments, I suspect that you may have me confused with someone else, which is fine. I haven't posted much at all under this account (I used to post pretty frequently back in the day on the old forum software under a different name, but you probably don't remember back that far). But it is interesting that you assume that if someone is willing to public post a hand that they clearly played poorly in order to discuss it and get feedback, then they must be losing badly (presumably because you believe that the hands people post are indicative of their typical play). In reality, I find that the losing players are more often the type of people who have a need to post hands and say "look at how brillantly I played this; aren't you amazed by the incredibly clever line I took", or the ones who are insecure enough to have to seek validation of their skill by bragging about their recent win rate or berating how bad the opponents are in some particular game and claiming that they can crush that game. People who are willing to admit when they played a hand poorly (which I will readily admit about this hand) and post it without any excuses to seek feedback are often the ones who are generally comfortable with their play and are trying to improve their weak spots, which is what leads to results. But this isn't the psychology forum, so we don't really need to debate that. If you want to think that I've lost $100k (which happens to be more money than I've earned in my life in income), then that's fine. I'm not here to impress anybody or build a fan club. I know my real results and view your asking about them the same way I would view it if I bet the river and you folded, and then you asked if I was bluffing. I will just shrug and let you believe whatever you want rather than showing my hand. But still, I think it would be more constructive to spend our time actually discussing poker.

So, on the actual hand: I agree that some aggression is needed on the flop to clean up my ace outs (among other things). You say that I should seek to "drive out the MP's", when there were in fact no middle position players. The only players to act behind me are the cutoff and the button. Given that, I'm not sure that attempting a check-raise is the best tactic here. It may be, but I'm not sure. The only player I can possibly face with a double bet by check-raising is the cutoff (if the button bets), so the chance of eliminating anyone aren't that great. Further, I risk it checking around. On the other hand, if I bet the flop myself, a raise from one of the late position players seems reasonably likely, which will probably force out the blinds. I hate to be results-oriented, but in this particular case, the CO would have raised his king and probably forced out the blind with J3, which would made aces clean outs on the river for me (since the J3 wouldn't have made two pair on the turn). That's an example of what I could hope to accomplish by betting. What do you think are the merits of check-raising here rather than betting? I'm still grappling with the best way to play this hand (I've been thinking about it a lot this week), and I had someone else (a guy at work) also tell me that a check-raise on the flop would be best. I'm still unsure about what I should have done. I'm curious to hear if there is anything I am missing that would make a check-raise the best play on the flop. Thanks, elysium.