These Days

[peterbirks]

It's been a struggly-wuggly month at the tables. As per usual for we players with absolutely no self-confidence, I become (erroneously) convinced that other players are "on to me". But, on the plus side, the penalty for being wrong at No Limit prevents me from assuming that all playbacks and reraises are people who are "at it", rather than WTDs who have hit their hand ... again. And I'm still in profit.

What I used to do at Limit (particularly on weekend mornings when I would be playing the loosey-gooseys playing late at night in the US) was call people down with my Top Pair, only to see it lose, because I became convinced that players were trying it on. At No Limit I've learnt a few things. One is, don't turn your AQ into a seven-deuce. This sound piece of advice has worked well for me.

Uniquely, I actually folded KK pre-flop in one hand last week -- something I don't recall ever doing before and which I don't plan to do again. Equally uniquely, opponent showed his AA after a ridiculous overbet all-in to my reraise. I think it went something like ... he raised the BB of $1 to $4 in MP3, and I raised to $14 in the cut-off. He then reraised all in to $96 or thereabouts (I had this covered). And I was still likely to call, until I looked at his stats and saw rockety-rockety not-very-aggressive staring out at me. Unless the guy had an aneurysm, I oculdn't see the guy having anything but AA.

Nice of him to show it to me after I folded, though.


I think that I was a mite unlucky in the hand that follows, but I'm not sure how I can get away for losing less unless I fold the river, for which there is an argument. The size of his bet was nicely done. Anything of $20 or above would probably elicit a fold, while at $15 or above, given the guy's rather weak-tight stats, I'm also likely to fold.

I'm getting rather hesitant to post hand histories any more, to be honest. I'm not sure that I'm getting much help out of it; rather, I just get battered confidence that it takes me some time to overcome (also one of the reasons that I don't let people hear the results of my piano practice!). I suspect that (to be boringly Freudian) this rather goes back to my youth and the lack of intellectual encouragement I received ... certainly nothing from teachers and even less from my contemporaries. All this made the perpetual criticisms I received of the efforts that I made (imperfect that they were) cause me to keep the work that I did to myself. I thought that I had got over this, but ovbviously part of it still remains, deep down.

But I know that some of you find them interesting and helpful and I guess that it keeps the readership up, so, there's one reason to keep including them!

And, well, it is an unusual hand.


NL Hold ‘em 50c/$1, $100 buy-in
Seat 1 manurafael ($17.75)
Seat 2: ratseht ($97.00 in chips) DEALER
Seat 5: Villain ($36.00 in chips)
Seat 6: amjhoo ($33.55 in chips)
Seat 8: haegie001 ($18.00 in chips)
Seat 9: pelmenis111 ($124.40 in chips)
Seat 10: orangetea1 ($37.30 in chips)

Hero: Post SB $0.50
Villain: Post BB $1.00

* HOLE CARDS *

Dealt to Hero [A♡ J♠]

amjhoo: Fold
haegie001: Fold
pelmenis111: Call $1.00
manurafael: Call $1.00
ratseht: Fold
Hero: Call $0.50
Villain: Check

FLOP [Q◊ K◊ T◊]

Hero: Bet $4.00
Villain: Call $4.00
pelmenis111: Fold
manurafael: Fold

* TURN * [2♣]

Hero: Bet $7.00
Villain: Call $7.00

The weak-tight-players at this level (this guy was 10%/3%) don't tend to go for draws in this situation. They might call the flop, but not often the turn. He can't really have a set (he wouldn't be likely to flat-call on such a wet board). Two-pair is a possibility, and he might have something like a pair with a draw to the nut flush/nut straight. But I seriously think that I am likely to be in trouble here. I'll await the size of opponent's bet on the river before making my final decision.

* RIVER * [Q♠]

Hero: Check
Villain: Bet $13.00

Ugh, that's a horrible half-pot size bet. And he'd make that kind of bet with a Queen, I should think. I still don't like it. But folding here feels wrong as well. I'm genuinely ambivalent.

Hero: Call $13.00


Hero shows A♡ J♠ for straight AKQJT
Villain shows A◊ J◊ for Royal Flush

* SUMMARY *
Total pot $49.40 Rake $2.60
Villain: wins $49.40



Oh. Well, a nice river bet there. But it's not often you flop a straight in the small blind only to come up against a flopped Royal Flush in the Big Blind.

Comments

Hand comment

[lowlimitpoker.livejournal.com]

You did all the betting for him.You were beaten by a flush after the flop,the turn didn't help and on the river there was a possible FH.I think your opponent played the hand excellently.I really can't see your thinking here.

Re: Hand comment

[(Anonymous)]

Well, the fact that foe played well (which I do not necessarily agree) does not mean Pete did anything wrong. Actually I would have played it the same.

Aksu

Re: Hand comment

[ribmeister.livejournal.com]

Yes, you should always check down a flopped nut straight when it comes paint, someone will always have a flush in a 4 handed game. There is no value in ever betting here.

Re: Hand comment

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Have you ever met Paul Oakes, Ribbo? Perhaps you are somehow related...

Your reply was roughly along the lines of my drafted reply, which I did not post on the grounds that sarcasm in print is always misunderstood....

PJ

Re: Hand comment

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

OK, pure ignorance here.

I don't see how you're beaten by a flush "after the flop," unless Villain has A◊ J◊. Given the flop, it's difficult for me to imagine a sensible bet from Villain, as described, coming in with a couple of diamonds other than this. (Not knowing the percentages. Perhaps people in no-limit check on A-8 of a suit.)

The turn doesn't help either one of you, pretty much by definition on the flop, and the river only helps Villain if he's checking twice on Q/paint and crossing his fingers behind his back ... which seems unlikely, given the way you've defined him.

Poker: definitely not a game for me. I don't see a problem with your strategy here. At the worst, you're calling on a half-pot bet, which seems decent value to me -- unless the cards turn up they way they do. Which, as ribmeister says, is pretty much guaranteed in a 4 handed game.

Re: Hand comment

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Well, you are roughly right, Pete.

I flop the top straight. The only hand which is beating me is two diamonds. Since it's four-handed, and taking some fairly liberal assumptions when it comes to ranges, I'll assign a 15% chance to one of the three active opponents having two diamonds.

That means there an 85% chance that opponents have either no diamond or one diamond. Since I don't want to give opponents infinite odds to hit a flush, it's imperative that I bet. For low-limit to say "I bet opponent's hand for him" is basically nonsense, since I am betting against a range of hands, and it's better that I bet against that range than check.

Big blind calls and the two others fold.

Question to myself. What hands would BB call with? Well, somethinglike a nut flush draw and a pair with a straight-draw gutshot. or a nut flush (although a raise would probably be better here with that hand -- see Aksu's earlier comment). If he calls with a set on this board (having not raised pre-flop), the guy is either a genius or a dork. Both are possible, but not likely, given his statistics.

Similarly, a flat call with a non-nut flush, although not absolutely terrible, entails certain risks with players sitting behind who might have the bare ace of diamonds. In other words, a non-nut flush almost certainly raises here.

That tends to give a fairly narrow range of hands. One is another AJ (nine combinations, of which four a diamondless, two have the Jack of diamonds and a non-diamond ace, two have the ace of diamonds with a non-diamond jack, and one is the AJ of diamonds. Other possibilities are thinks like KQ (no diamonds, since both are on board), KJ (Jack of diamonds), AK (Ace of diamonds) and a few other hands thrown in for fun. Whatever way you look at it, a flat-call here is far more likely to be a drawing hand or a tieing hand than it is to be a hand that is in front of me. So, for the original poster to say that he "cannot understand my thinking" is, well, incomprehensible. The thinking is fairly simple. It's not as if the hand is double-dummy.

So, given the above, it becomes imperative that I bet the turn.

Once again, opponent flat calls. Now, since he no longer has players sitting behind him, the "raise for isolation" play no longer becomes necessary. If I had to put him on a hand at this point, it would probably be KQ, with AJ (Ace of diamonds) second-favourite. I still think that he should be raising on the flop or the turn here with the cards that he has. A raise on the flop looks like an isolation play. A mini-raise on the turn looks like a scare attempt with a draw. He's going to win more money in the long run raising at one of these points.

For the call on the river I'm being offered 3-to-1. At this point things do indeed become very marginal. There are three possibillities:

1) He's got me stone-cold slaughtered. At this level, players tend to bet big if that is the case. But it remains a distinct possibility

2) He's betting a smallish amount because he was drawing and he's completely missed. The problem is that this only really makes sense if he has Ax of diamonds. Not impossible but, given his stats, not that likely.

3) He's a good enough player to bet for value in these situations (i.e., AQ with the Ace of diamonds). Once again, given his stats, this doesn't look likely.

So, I'm sitting on three "unlikely" scenarios! Following the principle that big bets tend to indicate big hands and smaller bets tend to indicate vulnerable ones, I decided to call. In retrospect, I was probably only about 10% to 20% to win this, but I've made that estimate before and called, and been right to call. Indeed, I've been lokking at my stats on that, and the calls are showing a profit.

So, Peter D, I'm right to bet the flop, right to bet the turn, and possibly wrong to call the river. However, low limit's statement that "there is a possible full house" is seeing shadows. If you folded a straight to a half-pot bet on the river just because the board paired, you are burning money. Even against weak-tights like this, a half-pot bet often indicates trips rather than a full house. He'd likely expect a call from TPTK here, or Q worse-kicker. And then there is the total bluff possibility.

PJ

Re: Hand comment

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

BTW, you might want to check low limit's blog and figures. He appears to be archetypal "weak-tight", which might indicate his bafflement that anyone would bet at all when they don't have the nuts.

PJ

Re: Hand comment

[andy-ward-uk.livejournal.com]

And Lee Cook is going to be entertaining this guy next season instead of the Loftus Road faithful. There's no justice :-)

Andy.

Re: Hand comment

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

Oops, sorry Pete.

I think I started from the wrong end. "A possible full house" isn't just seeing shadows: it's insane. (cf my comment on "Q/paint." I've never used that phrase before, and I hope never to use it again. You have to be in serious trouble if you're worried about a full house at this point. Dunno the odds, but it's utterly absurd.)

Flop: [Q◊ K◊ T◊]: Reasonable for a call.
Turn: [2♣]: Makes absolutely no difference, as far as I can see. Either to you or to Villain.
River: Yes, you're right to be ambivalent. This is the decision point. It looks to me like you made the right decision.

Well, as (the original) Hannibal said, "You can corral the bastards, but you can't always brand them".

de ma faulte

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

... Oh, and by the way, the reason I joined in this thread (being clearly disqualified through total ignorance) was that I read what you refer to as "the original posting" -- which, btw, should actually be yours, in the wonderful world of the internet -- and thought: hmm. This seems to make sense.

And then I thought about it a bit. And it didn't.

I still don't know what I'm talking about, but then I don't need to. I'm a generalist. All I need to do is to find people who do know what they're talking about.

Re: Hand comment

[ribmeister.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I know nobody called Paul Oakes, but I may have met him and not asked his name.

Re: Hand comment

[lowlimitpoker.livejournal.com]

Not really I didn't say that.All I said was that Peter did the betting for villan and got paid off at the end.I personally would not of called the bet at the end.