Two Parties
Feb. 17th, 2006 07:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksI went to a leaving drink-up last night, which makes for a long day if I can't manage to get home for a few hours in the afternoon. I managed all of an hour there before coming home. Annex 3 in Little Portland Street looks as if an interior dectorator went insane when he went to work that day. I can honestly say that I have never seen anywhere like it (and hope never to again). This was topped off by the place selling only two obscure beers (one French, one Estonian) and charging £3.75 a bottle for both. On top of that, they threw in a 17.5% service charge, even though they served you at the bar, and then had the cheek to leave the change in a tip tray. Two beers and a coke, £10.68. Leave the 32p sir? I don't think so.
The diet cokes (small bottle, natch) came in at a very modest two quid. More frighteningly, as I left, it was beginning to get busy (which was one of the reasons I left -- the "beautiful people" were arriving. It's bad enough being a short old bloke at the best of times, but being a short old bloke in an expensive bar full of beautiful people is enough to send you suicidal.)
Clearly there is another world out there about which I know nothing.
And then, when I got home, I fired up Party, only to see the new super whizzo interface. I think that it had only just started, because they were restricting the nuber of tables. I had no interest in hanging around as number 31 on a waiting list to play $2-$4, so I popped over to Virgin, perhaps to work off just a bit of the deposit bonus. I sat down at a $3-$6 table and remembered that you can't click "wait for big blind". Either you click sit out each time, or you click sit out, full stop, hopefully timing your reappearance just in time to post the BB. Anyway, I clicked my sit out once, and about five minutes seemed to pass before I had to click it again. The same happened the next hand. By my reckoning it would be midnight before it was my turn to post a BB.
You get through about 80 to 90 hands an hour on Ultimate bet at $2-$4 these days. On Virgin, the rate is about 43 an hour, almost as slow as a live table. Anyway, I gave up through boredom and went to Paradise.
Miraculously, the Paradise Poker waiting list system was actually working last night. A pleasant change. Played a couple of $3-$6 tables for half an hour (bad personal fault of mine ... when something slightly depresses me, I tend to play at higher stakes. There's all sorts of psychological reasons I could rattle off here. I'm aware why I do it, but it's still bad poker practice. However, it's perhaps not as bad as what would happen if I played at my normal stakes, which would be to go hyper LAG. best practice would be not to play at all.) and won fourteen bucks or thereabouts.
One vaguely interesting hand saw me get AKs UTG. I raised. All folded to the Big Blind, who called.
Flop came JJ4 rainbow (one of my suit). Ugh. No pair is going to fold againt me on that flop.
BB checks. I bet, BB raises, I reraise in preparation for a bet on the turn and check on the river if I fail to hit an out. BB calls.
Turn is no use. He checks. I bet, He calls.
River is no use. He checks, I check. He shows a pair of twos to win the pot. Nothing unusual there, you might think (although a typical weak $2-$4 player might just fold the turn when I bet again, I don't expect a $3-$6 player so to do)
He then posted "I didn't think that board helped you".
Well, duh. If that's the guy's idea of perceptive play, I should be up there three levels higher. Now, if he had check-raised me on the turn, after my three-bet on the flop, well, that would have been a quality play.
BTW, what kind of a dog do you think I am with AKs and one of my suit against 22 on a JJ4 flop? I haven't run it through the calculator. But I reckon that I'm probably 45% or thereabouts.
The diet cokes (small bottle, natch) came in at a very modest two quid. More frighteningly, as I left, it was beginning to get busy (which was one of the reasons I left -- the "beautiful people" were arriving. It's bad enough being a short old bloke at the best of times, but being a short old bloke in an expensive bar full of beautiful people is enough to send you suicidal.)
Clearly there is another world out there about which I know nothing.
And then, when I got home, I fired up Party, only to see the new super whizzo interface. I think that it had only just started, because they were restricting the nuber of tables. I had no interest in hanging around as number 31 on a waiting list to play $2-$4, so I popped over to Virgin, perhaps to work off just a bit of the deposit bonus. I sat down at a $3-$6 table and remembered that you can't click "wait for big blind". Either you click sit out each time, or you click sit out, full stop, hopefully timing your reappearance just in time to post the BB. Anyway, I clicked my sit out once, and about five minutes seemed to pass before I had to click it again. The same happened the next hand. By my reckoning it would be midnight before it was my turn to post a BB.
You get through about 80 to 90 hands an hour on Ultimate bet at $2-$4 these days. On Virgin, the rate is about 43 an hour, almost as slow as a live table. Anyway, I gave up through boredom and went to Paradise.
Miraculously, the Paradise Poker waiting list system was actually working last night. A pleasant change. Played a couple of $3-$6 tables for half an hour (bad personal fault of mine ... when something slightly depresses me, I tend to play at higher stakes. There's all sorts of psychological reasons I could rattle off here. I'm aware why I do it, but it's still bad poker practice. However, it's perhaps not as bad as what would happen if I played at my normal stakes, which would be to go hyper LAG. best practice would be not to play at all.) and won fourteen bucks or thereabouts.
One vaguely interesting hand saw me get AKs UTG. I raised. All folded to the Big Blind, who called.
Flop came JJ4 rainbow (one of my suit). Ugh. No pair is going to fold againt me on that flop.
BB checks. I bet, BB raises, I reraise in preparation for a bet on the turn and check on the river if I fail to hit an out. BB calls.
Turn is no use. He checks. I bet, He calls.
River is no use. He checks, I check. He shows a pair of twos to win the pot. Nothing unusual there, you might think (although a typical weak $2-$4 player might just fold the turn when I bet again, I don't expect a $3-$6 player so to do)
He then posted "I didn't think that board helped you".
Well, duh. If that's the guy's idea of perceptive play, I should be up there three levels higher. Now, if he had check-raised me on the turn, after my three-bet on the flop, well, that would have been a quality play.
BTW, what kind of a dog do you think I am with AKs and one of my suit against 22 on a JJ4 flop? I haven't run it through the calculator. But I reckon that I'm probably 45% or thereabouts.
AKs Hand
Date: 2006-02-19 01:26 pm (UTC)I ran it through 2dimes and you were 44% giving him only 1 suit of the board, so good estimate. However, having read his hand and tried to make him lay down on the flop which he didn't, you should have saved yourself a big bet on the turn by checking behind. This saves money when he has already indicated he's not folding a small pair, and doesn't give excess action to some crummy suited J he might have. Then if you hit on the river you can value bet him or call if he bets, and sometimes get a free showdown when he was being fancy with something like AT that didn't hit.
Plus you should do the same with an overpair here, as you save money against a J, and are more likely to get paid off by him on the river when he has a small pair, and may even garner 3 bets by raising him if he bets when 2 bricks come.
BluffTHIS!
Re: AKs Hand
Date: 2006-02-19 01:55 pm (UTC)Now, I accept that the cr here would seem to indicate that opponent will not fold the turn, but there are 5BBs in the pot on the turn. I only have to elicit a fold 20% of the time (actually, less than that, because some of the time he will call and I will hit my ace or king on the river, gaining an extra bet) for a bet to be profitable.
All I can really say here is that I've been playing the relentless aggression strategy (deliberately) for a few months now, and, at this level, it pays off. Where your opponent is more likely to bite back, a check behind is probably better.
BTW, I am 99% certain opponent does not have a Jack here, because with trips they all go for either an immediate lead out or a check-raise on the turn. I can't recall a cr on the flop with a trips in this situation at 2-4. If I think it is possible that opponent has a Jack, then I check behind, as you recommend.
I don't absolutely disagree with the check behind on the turn. Until October last year or thereabouts it would have been my preferred play. In metagaming terms, however, this awareness (on the part of those opponents who are vaguely aware) that any time they tangle with me, it is unlikely to quieten down before the river, wins me some pots to which I have no right.
PJ
Re: AKs Hand
Date: 2006-02-19 03:56 pm (UTC)PJ