Live Poker Hand Question -- Conclusion

Yesterday I posted about a hand that occurred early in a $400 buyin tournament in AC this past weekend, and asked what you would do on the river if you were me. As a reminder, here is the setup from yesterday's post:

The tournament started with 10k in chips, and late in the first hour I called a preflop raise from mp with T8s, and the big blind called as well which brought us a flop of T84 rainbow, three-handed. With 1250 in the pot, the big blind led out for 400 chips, and the original preflop raiser thought for a few seconds before just calling, and I smooth called as well with the flopped top two.

The turn card was an offsuit Queen, making a board now of T84Q. The big blind surprised me by leading out again, this time for 1000 chips into a pot of 2450. The guy to my right thought it over, for a little longer this time, and eventually slid out a purple chip as well for the call, and again I made the pot-odds call as well, a bit reluctantly.

The river card then brought an Ace. The big blind hesitated a bit and then slid out another purple and some yellows, a 1400-chip bet for his third lead of the hand. The guy to my right had a kind of disgusted look on his face, but after a few seconds he too slid out 1400 chips to make his third postflop call of the hand. The action was to me on the river to call 1400 to win 8250 in the pot.

Now of course, the answers I got in the comments were mostly well thought-out, but like any good "What would you do?" hand, almost nobody could keep themselves from critiquing my earlier play of the hand -- even though that's not what I asked -- in particular my not raising on the flop. As I mentioned yesterday, top two pairs is the only two-pair hand that I will generally slow-play, and I should re-mention that nobody gave me any credit for the fact that I wasn't checking here, I was calling a decent bet, building the pot by about 60% on that street while keeping two potentially weak players in the pot. Someone, I think it was Astin, mentioned that when your top two pairs are Tens and 8s, it is almost not like top two pairs at all. That is a semi-valid point, although the math I imagine would not bear out that statement in its extreme. The turn card will be a Ten or below still more often than it will not be, and even if a Jack or Queen falls it is hard to be too concerned with just the one non-Ace and non-King overcard on the board (I certainly would not be, given the action in this hand so far). Another commenter mentioned the many straight draws available on this board as a reason for the raise on the flop, which I simply do not understand at all. For my money, if I see a flop of T84 in a 3-way raised pot, that is one of the least drawy boards I could ever hope for. If T84 rainbow is scaring you away from slow-playing because of draws, then you just have a different view of math and odds than I do I guess. Sure, 732 rainbow would be even less drawy, but T84? Come on. That is almost ideal from a drawing perspective as far as maybe letting another card slide off.

This is all a long way of saying that I think I agree that with medium two pairs like this, and only because of the fact that this is a 3-way pot and not heads-up, some kind of a raise on the flop is probably the more +EV play over time (I'll have to check with Blinders on the EV calculation of course). Certainly in this spot it did not work, as the turn was an overcard that also completed an open-ended straight draw from the flop, and then of course the river brought the dreaded Ace, but taking the results-oriented viewpoint out, I think I buy that raising my hand on the flop was probably the better move against two opponents. I just don't think it is nearly as obvious as the commenters seem to think it is, as I think a couple of key considerations I mentioned above were overlooked in general by the commenters.

That said, this was really a question about what I should do at the river. The comments were split about 50-50 as to folding and calling, though even those recommending a call seemed not very confident, calling more for the pot odds than anything else. Well, I already had the alarm bells going off in my head from the flop when the guy to my right just smooth called, and when he did the same thing again on the turn, I was thinking either overpair or flopped set in a big way. When the Ace hit the river, I figured I was going to have to fold to any action since at least one opponent had at least one pair heading into this street, and the odds of one of them holding an Ace as a kicker are fairly good given that they called a preflop raise in this hand to begin with. So when the first guy led out again -- for the third time after getting two callers on both the flop and the turn -- this to me smelled like a very solid hand, at least an overpair himself if not two pairs or better. I mean, how many times do you ever lead out on the flop, get called (twice), lead out again on the turn and get called (twice), and then actually lead out still another time on the river? That to me just screamed of strength. Similarly, the player to my right calling all three of those bets also screamed out that it was at least strong ish -- more than one pair, say -- in which case it seemed to me that I had no option but to fold on this river. I was not sure that both of my opponents had my two pairs beat, but 3rd and 4th pair really could not reasonably be ahead of both of these guys the way I saw it.

And so I laid it down, even for the measly 1400 into an 8250-chip pot. I would only have to be ahead of both guys roughly one time in six to make always calling here profitable, and yet I relied on my reads sufficiently to figure that I'm not going to be ahead of both of these guys even that often to make the call worthwhile.

The big blind flipped up?












Pocket Kings. How he bets out a third time on that river after getting called twice on each of the flop and turn is utterly beyond me, but that's definitely the way a big-time donkey would play this hand.

And the guy to my right flipped up?











We'll never know. He took one look at the big blind's pocket Kings and he fucking mucked.

One pair FTW!!!

As an epilogue, although it took me a good hour to truly get calmed down from the tilt induction that was that hand, eventually I bounced back in the tournament with several big hands, mostly without having to show down anything, and in the end I took 3rd place when my short stack push with J9s got called by A8o and I could not catch up. Still, I won almost $1600 for my efforts, and overall I played great in my last live tournament tune-up prior to leaving for Las Vegas three weeks from yesterday. Make that two weeks and six days from now. Just two+ weeks baby, just two+ weeks.

But tell me, how do those two clowns both bet and call three times with just one pair?

Dilemma at the River

Well, so much for my plan to evoke historical memories of Las Vegas every week here leading up to my trip back to the desert in early June. Today instead I have a hand post that I wrote most of last week after playing in a home game I have frequented several times before downtown in Manhattan midway through last week. For a change we opted to play straight 1-2 no-limit cash, and there were maybe 7 or 8 of us around the table for most of the night. These were mostly people I have played with before, although in some cases it has been a good long while for some of the individuals. Others I have a very strong read on and have played with enough, and enough recently, that I felt like I would know where I was at with them from the way they played their hands.

Around 90 minutes or so into our game, I was down to about three-quarters of my starting stack of 100 chips, having raised preflop a couple of times but then laid down to preflop reraises or to a raise on the flop. I looked down to find AQs in early position and put in my standard low-limit live poker raise of 4x the big blind to $8. Everyone folded except for the tight player across the table from me on the button, who called my raise. Although I am generally a tight player and had not shown a single poor hand down through this entire session, I know that to this crowd I am known as a hyper aggressive player, so I can't necessarily ever put anybody really on a monster when they call a preflop raise from me, especially in position, but at the same time as I mentioned this guy has been a tight player who likes to hold on to his money in the couple of times I have played with him in the past.

The flop came down AA9 with two hearts, and I figure I have got to be hopelessly ahead here. I figure if I bet this flop and confirm my preflop raise with an Ace, tighty across the way will just fold, so I check. I had not been c-betting hardly at all (hard to c-bet when you see very few flops and don't hit any of them), and the one time I had in the entire session I had folded to a raise, so I figured not c-betting here would not be giving away too much about the nature of my hand at all. My opponent checked behind, and we saw a turn of an offsuit 8. On this street, I figured I had begun the story of me not having an Ace in my hand with my failure to c-bet the flop, so I had already determined that I would check again on the turn, despite the drawish board, to try to stimulate some action from my opponent that I could either just call and risk a scary river, or that I could raise and take down the pot right then and there. Even as the dealer burned and turned the 8 on the turn, I was already loudly announcing my check, deliberately checking basically in the dark as I tried to send the message loud and clear that I was not holding an Ace and did not want to put any more money into this pot. This time my opponent seemed to get the message a little bit, as he bet out $12 into the $19 pot. I considered my options, decided that this guy has played fairly tight, and maybe he has a hand like a medium pocket pair that he assumes his ahead given the two Aces on the flop and my unwillingness to bet on either street so far since the community cards hit the board. I liked the thought of that, and I know I can fold when I think I am beat, so I decided to again tempt fate by just calling. I made sure to delay a bit, such that I am sure basically no one around the table believed I actually held an Ace in my hand.

There was $43 in the pot as the dealer burned and turned the river card, peeling over a black 5, making the final board AA985 with no flush possibility. As I looked up to get a read on my opponent, he was looking at the board and sneering -- literally, sneering, so hard core in fact, that it felt painfully obvious that the guy wanted to be seen doing it. He was acting like he hated that river card more than anything he'd ever seen in his life. Which made me, of course, think he somehow liked it. Still, though, with the way I played my flopped trips this hand so slow heading into this street on the river, I figured the odds were very good that my trips-and-second-kicker was ahead, and that my opponent would call a reasonable bet from me with a worse hand since I had tried so hard to act like I was not holding an Ace. Even though I wanted some value here, I hated the face he had made at the river card -- it was just too, too glaring and overt as I mentioned -- so I literally said out loud to the table as I motioned for some chips, "Well, despite the face you just made at that river, I will lead out for $20." I didn't like the face, but when you play your hand slow you need to "own" that decision for the rest of the hand, and in this case I felt like if I checked and my opponent just checked behind, then I was really not getting value out of the hand the way I had played it. So I led out for $20, right around half the pot.

My opponent took his time, and I became increasingly sure I was ahead since he obviously had to take his time deciding whether or not to call my roughly half-pot bet. After maybe a full minute, replete with more agonized-looking face-twisting, I was shocked to see the guy slide the rest of his chips into the middle and announce he was all in.

Whaaaaa? That face he'd made really did mean strength, didn't it?

My opponent had me covered, so the bet was basically another $40 to me to win $83.

Are you sure enough to call here?

More Lost, and More Sklansky

Today I've got another item from Sklanksy's No Limit Holdem: Theory & Practice book that I'd love to get your thoughts on. I like it how some of you guys clearly hate David Sklansky as a poker author. I mean, it's easy to hate him as a writer. I hate him as a writer. He's arrogant ("The most skilled players in the world know that I am correct"), he's talk-downy ("Do you see why?") and he's over-analytical. All that said, his poker analysis, and the thought processes he goes through with respect to various aspects of the game, are IMO pretty awesome and a useful tool to anyone who plays a lot and/or wants to learn a lot about the analysis behind the game. That said, some of you guys really can't seem to stand Sklansky and generally seem to balk at most of his advice. So today I think I've got something good for you guys to chew on.

But first, a couple of quick points about Lost. I've got to hand it to Le Donkeypuncher. Not only is his blog one of the funniest around, but I think he made two solid comments on Lost here on the blog yesterday. First, I like his prediction that it's going to be Ben in the coffin where Jack flashed-forward to. Personally, I think it's either Juliette or Ben myself, I don't know which but I think they are the only two people I know who seem to fit well each of (1) the reaction that Jack had to learning of the death, (2) the fact that there was no one at the funeral and (3) Kate's indignant question of why she would ever go to the funeral. If it's Ben, Jack could be upset because clearly he wants to get back to the island and he might have viewed Ben as one of the only people who knows how to get him back there, and if it's Juliette, Jack might semi-like her or have some kind of weird feelings for her (despite telling Kate he loved her, inexplicably out of the blue in the finale). Similarly, Ben really fits the "no one at the funeral thing" since he hasn't lived back in the regular Earth for almost his entire life, and Juliette doesn't fit this exactly but it could easily be that everyone assumes she is dead already from a few years earlier when she disappeared and never made contact again. If her obit was in the newspaper then that isn't necessarily a great theory, but it's possible. With Ben it's more than possible, it's highly improbable that there could be anyone at his funeral outside of the island environment. And lastly, the way that Kate reacted viscerally when Jack asked her about the funeral, that's got to be someone who Kate has quasi-negative feelings for at least. In other words, she isn't reacting like that about going to Michael's funeral or Sun's funeral. She might not go to those funerals, I don't know, but she would not have that highly reactive, negatory reaction about the question of her going.

Anyways, the other point that Donkeypuncher made about Lost that I 100% believe is correct is that, starting next year, I believe as well that we will quickly realize that what we thought was a "flash forward" in the finale this week is really the present time, once they've already been rescued from the island. We will realize probably even in the first episode of Season 4 that all of the stuff we've seen for three years about the island has been flashbacks. All of it. We will be watching the story of Jack and Kate (and who knows who else from the island is out there in the world with them at this point) out in the real world, with Jack all depressed and desperately trying to get back to the island, and some portion of next season will be flashbacks to us of the rescue, picking up from when Jack called and those guys answered on Naomi's satellite phone. So we will get to see the rest of what happened with the rescue next season, but not as we have been as if that is in fact happening in the present time on the show. We will now appreciate that for what it is, and for what everything we've seen through the first three seasons of the show is, one giant flashback from the present time, post-rescue, first of how the plane crashed, how they found the hatch, met the others, and all the way up until the rescue. So I am looking forward to that, and to another 8 flucking months of waiting around, until we get to see what Season 4 brings. All in all, though, a good finale from a show with very high expectations. The second half of this season was top notch on Lost, you have got to admit.

OK back to Sklansky. Today's point comes in the "Concepts and Weapons" part in the back of the book, and in fact it is Concept #36 if you're reading at home. Here Sklansky says "Be more apt to slowplay very good hands that aren't quite the nuts than the nuts itself." In favor of this position, Sklansky argues that slowplaying a hand like K6 on a flop of J66 (but not slowplaying JJ on this same flop) is right because (1) it may induce a bluff from an opponent, (2) it may allow someone to make a hand on the turn and then lose some more money rather than having folded if you had bet hard on the flop, and (3) it may limit your losses somewhat if you happen to be up against A6 or JJ.

More specifically, and the example that I found really interesting, Sklansky goes on to say, "Likewise, you should be more inclined to slowplay A2 on a 543 flop than 76 on the same flop. With A2, you're happy to give a free card to someone who might make a big pair on the turn or river. But with 765 you don't want to lose your action if someone made a smaller straight against you or is drawing to something like a pair and a straight draw." This is the advice that I just can't quite jibe with my own view on things. I mean, I get Sklansky's overall point here, that all things being equal you would rather be betting early in the hands because that's how you eventually get by the turn or river to be stacking the guy who made the second-nuts against your mortal nuts. But, I think Sklansky overlooks a major piece of the puzzle in his analysis of this particular point.

With A2 on a 345 board, you have flopped a straight and are almost surely ahead here on the flop. This is where Sklansky advises it is better to slowplay than it would be if you flopped the stone nuts with 76 on that same 345 board. But if you check or fail to bet out solidly with the A2, then you already know that any 6 will basically kill your action, and in fact you are probably behind if you get any serious action from a hand like A7 that might have folded to a real bet from you on the flop. In fact, if even a 7 falls on the turn or river, you will basically have to give up this entire pot to any significant action on a later street. With the 76 you do not have this problem, in that not only do you have the top end of the straight, but you have to two-overcards version, so that even if a 6 does happen to fall on the turn or river then you've still got an overcard on the top end of the straight you've made. So the way I see it, that is at least as strong of an argument for slowplaying with the 76, where you're basically not worried about any card hitting the board except for something that makes a pair and could create a boat (or quads) for an opponent. But with the A2, you not only are in a bad position, but you most likely have to fold and lose the entire pot if any 6 or even any 7 falls on the turn or the river.

For this reason, I actually think slowplaying with the 76 is a perfectly acceptable response on a board of 345. I have done that before I am sure, and I would do it again I can tell you right now. The slowplay with 76 still accomplishes the first two objectives of the slowplay that Sklansky outlined above -- namely, that a check may induce a bluff into your mortal nuts hand, and that it may give someone a chance to pick up a big pair or two pairs or a hidden set and get you some extra action. And although the slowplay with 76 on the 345 board does not get you Sklansky's third objective above -- that you can save some money if you run into the mortal nuts (because you already hold the mortal nuts in this spot) -- it does carry the extra benefit not mentioned by Sklansky that you will give no chance to the guy who does hold A2 or 62 on that same flop to get away from the hand. So, I like the slowplay with 76, and for similar reasons I do not like the slowplay there with A2. You have a hand that is very strong and is almost surely ahead right now, but slowplaying the flop gives your opponent a free shot at winning the entire pot from you on any 6 or 7 falling, and makes for a very tough decision for you to boot in that situation where you could find yourself tempted to call off the rest of your chips with a flopped straight using both of your holecards where you are flat out drawing dead if you're up against the higher straight.

That, right there, is some baaaaad advice by Sklansky if you ask me. I'm all about slowplaying any hand where it seems that the best combination of a high chance to stack my opponent coupled with a low chance to allow free cards that cause me to lose the pot lies with a slowplay. But slowplaying ass-end flopped straights is, to me, a recipe for no-limit disaster and it is not a move I recommend. Anybody agree / disagree?

I read on Al's blog that the next WPBT tournament is this Sunday night at 9pm ET on full tilt. I also do not recall receiving the usual email on the WPBT list announcing this tournament, but Al found it under the "private" tournament tab on full tilt so here is the information for the 7-Stud contest for the WPBT this weekend:

What: WPBT POY Event #5 - Stud 7
When: Sunday, May 27th
Time: 9pm ET
Where: Full Tilt Poker
How Much: $24 + $2
Password: I guess we don't want to give this out on the blogs, but it is the initials of the organization that hosts the event followed by the numbers of the Hammer -- if you don't get that then hit me up on the girly chat this weekend sometime and I will surely tell you.
Restrictions: Bloggers only, please.

I should be around in the evenings this weekend as per my usual, probably hitting up a few tournaments as well as trying to pad those stats at the $400 nl 6-max cash tables. If you know how to play aggro poker and don't mind getting stacked, then come sit at one of my tables this weekend and we'll see what happens.