Early in daily 30K. Blinds are 25/50. I have 3800 chips and playing my standard TAG game. The big blind is an agro LAG maniac. He has limped about 50% of the hands, often calls large bets preflop, on the flop and on the turn. And several times has followed up by shoving on the river. The few times he has been called he has shown down air, middle pair, small pocket pairs and KK. His stack has bounced around from 900 chips to 10K! He is definately superagro, but he seems pretty good at reading people post flop.
I Picked up QQ and made a solid preflop bet expecting him to flat call from the bb as he usually does. He cooperates and calls as well as the utg limper. The flop is 1088. The hand checks to me and I assume I'm good. I make a pot sized raise hoping to isolate the lag bb. The bb flats again and the utg folds - perfect! The turn is a blank and the bb checks to me. I'm feeling pretty good about my hand now, but don't want him to suck out an A or what ever on the river. I make a 75% pot bet and he flat calls again...hmm. I expected him to fold.
The river is a K and he checks again... hmm where was the expected shove? What should I do now? AK would be consistant with his line of play. A10 also seems possible or pocket pairs lower than mine. He seemed to shove when he had a weak hand knowing he would lose a showdown. Since he checked the river I had to rethink what his check -calling could mean. He might be slowplaying (hyperagro style) with pocket 10s, 89s or A8. I decided to play it safe and simply check the river.
My gut feeling was correct. I avoided busting out early, but never managed to get back in the game. Bad luck or did I miss something here?
Roland
Perfect, good read by you. I remember a game with Phil Helmuth and Tom Dwan on youtube. This was the time when Phil thought Durrr was a disaster to happen and gave him no respect for having a hand. You can find the video here;
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFvu4tMCNFY
Yeah, I was happy I got away from the hand. Funny enough, had he shoved on the river I would have probably insta-called lol!
ReplyDeleteNice video :)
Nice read on the river, Roland. My basic rule of thumb with TPTK or an overpair is I'm happy if two decent sized bets go in post-flop (counting a decent sized reraise as a separate bet) but if three bets go in, then there's a good chance my one pair is no good. So once your flop and turn bets get called, I'm definitely checking behind on the river. You've shown strength throughout the hand and there's basically no hand he can call a river bet with that doesn't have you beat, except maybe AT and even that's pretty loose.
ReplyDeleteAs you point out, your opponent made a big mistake by not betting the river. At that point, you've put in more than 2/3 of your stack and you're pot committed so you pretty much have to call. In other words, you've committed your whole stack with a one pair hand when you started the hand with an M=50. That suggests to me that too much went in on the flop and turn. So, some alternatives to consider: (1) bet less on the flop, something like 400 or 500. QQ on a T88 rainbow flop is one of those "way ahead or way behind" situations so while you want to bet rather than see a king or ace come on the turn, as the PFA you don't have to bet the whole pot to fold out the hands that completely missed and to make it a mistake for weaker hands than yours to call (including top pair hands and straight draws with J9 and 97). (And I'm not that concerned about an ace or king anyway, since AK is such an obvious hand for me to be holding.) If my flop bet gets called here (especially a pot-sized bet), my spider senses are tingling -- does he have an 8? (2) Check behind on the turn.
As mentioned above, I'm happy if two post-flop bets go into the pot and by checking the turn, I can now instacall a good sized bet by my opponent on the river even if I'm beat. If he leads out with an overbet or check-raises me, then I have a tough decision to make but that's poker, eh? By checking the turn, you are giving a free card but if he's behind, he probably only has 6-8 or fewer outs or no more than 16% equity and I'd prioritize pot control over not giving a free card here.
Excellent suggested line Benko! I wanted to punish the guy for being such a loose donk and struggled getting my general read on him to jibe with the actual play. I won't soon be forgetting your point about me spewing a 50M stack on a single pair. Pot control and post flop play are areas I need to work on if I want to get deep in these MTTs. Everything is push/fold in the turbos. Thanks for the free lesson :)
ReplyDeleteThe best material I've come across on bet sizing, stack-to-pot ratios (SPRs) and planning a hand around pot commitment is the book "Professional No-Limit Hold'em: Volume I" by Flynn, Mehta and Miller. Highly recommended even though it's designed for cash games. I sure hope they plan to follow through with Volume II.
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