1-5-10 hand

[MRBAA]

Train game, 1-5 spread hi, 1-10 on the river. This structure leads to much chasing. In this hand, it got head up after third street, with a LAG long-time losing regular pushing the action against a LAG erratic regular who probably wins a little. On the river the boards looked like this:

Mr. Loser: (xx) 2c2hKh7s (x)

Mr. Erratic: (xx) Ad2sTh3(?) (x)

There's about $35 in the pot as Mr. Loser has put in max bets on 4th, 5th and 6th and Mr. Erratic has called.

Now Mr. Loser fires out a $5 bet on the river and Mr. Erratic makes it $15. After a brief hesitation, Mr. Loser calls.

Mr. Erratic turns over Aces and Deuces, two pair.

How do we like his river play?

[greenage]

I like it. Since Mr. Erratic has two deuces, he knows that Mr. Loser can’t have trip deuces making it much less likely that he’s manage to make a full house.

In addition, Mr. Loser’s board does not look like a flush/straight so he probably has a smaller two pair.

[MRBAA]

Mr. Loser turned over a flush, and Mr. Erratic was questioning his own play. But based on the deuces and how the hand was bet, I also liked his raise, even though it didn't work out.

[greenage]

Two additional thoughts/questions:

1) Given Mr. Erratic’s Ace door card, is Mr. Loser capable of betting the River without being able to beat Aces up?

2) Was Mr. Loser’s $5 River bet out of the ordinary compared to what he usually bets?

[MRBAA]

Yes and no. The spread limit and large river bet lead to all kinds of strange sums. In this case, I think Mr. Loser was trying to get a call, then got scared when Mr. Erratic raised. I think he played badly by not reraising, given his table image and his board. But of course if he thought this way he wouldn't be Mr. Loser....

[Andy B]

I like the river raise a lot. I think that the flush should have re-raised.

[frappeboy]

The raise is definitely correct, I make this raise all the time even when my opponent has a board scarier than his in this situation. You've just gotta do it to make your opponents value bet with small 2 pair less profitable

[MRBAA]

I'm still trying to figure out the optimal way to take advantage of this somewhat strange structure, where sometimes a third or even half the money in the pot goes in on the river.

[jon_1van]

The raise is correct for even more reasons.

1. The 5 dollar bet is strange. It is most likely a "blocking" bet. ie the guy wants a cheap showdown. He's hoping to freeze you because you don't know if he's keeping it cheap because he wants to get paid off or is making some wierd desperate stab at the pot.

2. Because this isn't NL you don't have to worry about being blown out of the pot because you try to extract a small amount of value.

[frappeboy]

All drawing hands go up in value in this structure. This is because you don't have to pay off when you miss, but when you hit your opponent must pay you off to keep you honest.

Also, a hand like (2A)2 vs (K4)K would go up in value because you never have to pay off the river with unimproved deuces, but your opponent will when you make aces up.