ITH Poker Forum

[mchilger]

I played a live tournament on Saturday. $20 buy-in, 94 entrants.

10,000 stacks, 20 minutes levels, 50-100 blinds.

This is the very first hand of the tournament.

One or two players limp in. I limp on the button with 8-6s. 4 or 5 players see the flop of 543 rainbow. The big blind bets 300 or so. I call. She knows I'm a poker author and she ended up finishing 2nd in the tournament.

The turn is a 7, all rainbow. The big blind bets 500, I raise to 2,000, she calls. The river is a 3 and the big blind bets 2,000.

Let's say you are the big blind with 6-x. You think your opponent is a very good player who is also capable of bluffing. Betting the river is a great play in this spot. And the lesson here, is that in general, if you are in a spot where you might likely be splitting the pot - betting out the river in certain situations can be way better than trying to check and call.

I folded, but wouldn't it have been brilliant if she had 6-x (she didn't, but I still learned something new with the hand).

Matthew

[the_hawk]

I folded

Getting 5:2 or so on the river - you could put her that squarely on a boat ?

[chrisjp]

Pot odds go out the window if you believe strongly in your reads. Can't do this online, but live is a different creature.

Ape talks about betting the river when you are likely splitting the pot. It can be a great move against a thinking player when a scare card comes on the river.

Chris

[poker_Elmo]

Pot odds go out the window if you believe strongly in your reads. Can't do this online, but live is a different creature.

Ape talks about betting the river when you are likely splitting the pot. It can be a great move against a thinking player when a scare card comes on the river.

Chris

I think this is also a good play in PLO - many boards come up where you might have 2nd nut straight and suspect a split. Very few villains are capable of bluff-raising the river, so you can also usually safely fold to a raise.

[the_hawk]

Pot odds go out the window if you believe strongly in your reads. Can't do this online, but live is a different creature.

If, say, villain is weak enough to be holding up a "I have a boat" placard by way of a tell, couldn't she also be betting 6x or air? Hero's "fill the gutter plus over straight" is a pretty solid holding here, and must be near the very top of the range villain puts him on.

I dunno, maybe I'm an online math donk but it seems to me that there's a line somewhere between soul-reading and pure guesswork. I don't know if this is anywhere near that line, but surely the line is there.

I agree that betting a probable split is normally the play OOP, against good players and bad players alike.

[mchilger]

Hawk, this was the first hand of a tournament with 10,000 starting stack against an unknown woman. She called a big raise on the turn and then bets out on a paired river card. To me a pretty standard line for the typical amatuer player with a set on the flop. If she bluffed me off my hand with a 6 in it then I tip my hat off to her, but I would have no way of knowing that she is that advanced of a player to make that line of play. If she had bet a little smaller, I might have considered it a blocking bet, but I thought 2 million was a lot for her to risk against a possible boat, unless she had one herself.

Expanding this hand a little further, consider you are in BB with 6x. You call the turn because your opponent is capable of bluffing. The board then pairs the river and you check. If villain now bets, a check-raise would be absolutely beautiful here as there is pretty much no way I can have a full if I raised the turn - of course I was already considering checking the river here but against some opponents I might bet the overstraight.

Matthew

[redman7027]

I was not there but I think I call.

[blah730235]

I folded

Getting 5:2 or so on the river - you could put her that squarely on a boat ?

Yea i'm kinda with this...

Against your wide array of opponents enough of them will have some weird overpair/trips hands in their overall range to make this a call.

but to each his own we're talking about unknowns which is such a gray area to begin with. A lot is how we preceve 'average' which starts from an opinion base.

The hand itself though if we assume BB has 6x is interesting to me though. Especially because i think 6x is the top of my range if i'm in heros spot. Making a huge overbet would be an interesting option.

[mchilger]

Man, I thought this was an easy laydown...took me about 15 seconds to muck. To beat her hand, she needed to be either really bad (calling a big raise on the turn with no straight or calling a straight and then thinking her hand was good on river and bet out), or very, very good (calls with a straight and takes a stab at the pot on a river scare card).

Matthew

[redman7027]

You maybe right you maybe playing better poker than us. I call just because her range can include A2, any A6, A3 and 66 the odds are so compelling vs. an average villain. If you know villain is very good and will check with a hand that can be beat maybe fold but players are sometimes bad in these games. Given the fact that she won the tournament, she probably had a boat but at this point you do not know that.

[timchuk]

I like the fold but the player could be that bad. Ive seen them show up with AA or KK in this spot. They dont know about stack sizes and only play their hand. I can see why Daniel Negranu used so many small ball tactics against these type of unknowns. His general strategy works well against these ticking time bomb players.

[mchilger]

Yea, but even those players with AA get scared on a 3457 board. Matthew