Caesars (130.) KTs street by street.

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
Cornell,

What does your command of the table look like on this river?

fold pf x 17

[/ QUOTE ]

ouch.

(but true)

[npknhldr]

this tough spot was created by 2 mistakes. Calling PF, and checking the flop.

I didn't read the results of turn/river before my writing of this analysis. You have a marginal hand, hit TP, should bet 1500-2500 on flop. This just takes the pressure off the rest of the hand, and makes it easier on you.

Unless you like making these decisions, it ends up being that you put in 2000 chips, and are now in a tough spot, rather than putting in 2000 chips, and being in an easy spot (with a lot more info, easier dec obv.).

If you want to "underrep" KT on a K high board (like some posters suggested), and induce an all-in "bluff," then congrats!!

[jlocdog]

If UTG is your 'standard old guy nit who plays abc poker' which is what I gathered of your read, then I don't see how you are checking the flop. This isn't the guy to take the 'induce a bluff' line. And if he is gonna c/r you, you can easily fold as you know he isn't capable of making this play with a worse hand then yours. If he calls then you can check behind turn and fold to a river bet/shove.

Fold preflop btw. Bad hand to decide to mix with as the 'caller'.

[LuckyLloyd]

Oh, and btw: because the thread is here (and also because of a related thread) I fully expect hero to have called the river and have been good on this particular occasion, but it won't change the fact that calling pre in this spot and paying off on the river will be losing plays over time IMO.

[Fiksdal]

Tough spot on the river. I have no idea what hand he could have, because the river shove doesn't make sense with any of the hands I thought his range consisted of given his line so far (TT/JJ/QQ)., because they all have showdown value but aren't getting called much by weaker hands

I guess it could have been 99 anyway? That is the only hand I can see fitting his line on all streets.

Another possibility is that the read that he plays strong hands fast turned out to be inaccurate, or he is mixing up his play with AK/KK/AA. Villain doesn't seem like the type to do that though.

I am pretty clueless here. The best advice I can think of is this: "a nit just went all-in and we have one pair, get the [censored] out". That isn't very advanced reasoning though.

[LuckyLloyd]

[ QUOTE ]

I will give my thoughts on all streets later

[/ QUOTE ]

I would really appreciate if you could find the time to do that. Thanks.

[Cornell Fiji]

Sorry for taking so long to come back to this thread, I have been busy lately.

Preflop - Yes, the preflop call is marginal and maybe it was just plain bad but I felt that I had a good reads on the old guy and also on the people left to act behind me so I decided to take a chance on this hand. I knew that UTG's range was TT+/AK (and I discounted AK as he might have limped that hand UTG) and, more importantly, I knew that he would tell me if he hit the flop by whether or not he bet. I thought that if I called the BB would be calling the top 40% of hands (in the OP i wrote any two but that was an exaggeration) which included a lot of kings and tens that I dominate.

Also important to note about my preflop call is that with the average stack at 6750 it did not make much of a difference if I lost 1200 chips but it would be significant if I could get up to 15k-20k.

It is true that, by calling preflop, I may have to face tough decissions postflop but playing in a manner designed to make your decissions easy is not MAXev. In order to make my pf call profitable I would have to sometimes make tough decissions later in the hand, I would not let the fear of tough decissions dissuade me from what might be a profitable preflop call. This concept is why I usually find betting for information to be a huge error; yes, that information will let you play your hand more easily but it will also not be worth the price you pay for it.

OK, so I called preflop.

Flop (3800): K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 2[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]
BB checks, 'The Old Guy' checks, Hero checks

I really think that betting this flop would be beyond bad. I am surprised that some of you even suggested it but once again, those who suggested it are from the 'bet for information' camp who are willing to give up equity in order to make their decissions easier.

One of the reasons why I made this loose preflop call is because I thought that the old guy would instafold his pocketpair if I bet on a board with an overcard on it. Now I have such a board, why would I want to blow him off the hand?

From what I have seen from UTG and from previous impressions of 'the old guy' stereotype I had a high degree of confidence that he would have bet the flop with AK or AA. The old guy does not slowplay because the old guy is afraid of getting rivered. After his flop check I had the old guy on TT-KK and very rarely AK.

The BB could have anything.

My check on the flop was completely elementary, I wanted the BB or UTG to put money in the pot with a hand that was drawing to 2 or 3 outs, I did not want them to fold hands that had little chance of improving against mine. With a pot the size of 1/3 of my stack there was no way that I would bet for information in this spot.

Turn (3800): 9[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]
BB checks, Old guy bets 2,000, Hero calls, BB folds.

My rationale here was pretty similar to my flop rationale. I did not think that 99 was in the old guy's UTG raising range but it was on the cusp of his range so it was possible that he turned a set.

Keep in mind that the old guy does not think about representing a hand. He bets his hand. This means that he has a bluff/KK/99(rarely)/AK(rarely)on this turn. If he is bluffing (with TT-QQ) and I raise then I will take down the pot every time. If I raise and get 3 bet then he almost always has a set of kings but he only has 6500 chips left after his bet. Given the stack sizes I can not make any raise other than a shove or a minraise on the turn and the minraise is the only bet that might frustrate the old guy enough to shove TT-QQ 20% of the time, which incidentally would be often enough for me to call with the pot odds that I would be getting.

If I call the turn I will give him the opportunity to bluff again on the river with TT-QQ

I did not know what the BB had but I knew that it was not much. That said, he was the type of player who would call with any piece of the board if I smooth called the turn bet.

*I took a minute or so to call on the turn*

River (7800): 2[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
Old guy instashoves for 6,500 more; Hero instacalls

While the old guy is not a high level thinking player he saw me check the flop and deliberate before calling the turn. If he is paying attention he knows that I have been active and if he is not paying attention then he sees that I am a 23 year old kid and he assumes I have been active.

At this point he is in 'screw it or go home' mode. If he bluffs me (and I do look weak) then he is at 13,000 and if he loses then he can go take his afternoon nap. At this point he is feeling a small tingle of adreneline as he considers pushing in his chips. He is not thinking that I will call with any hand that beats him and fold any hand that loses to him. He is certaintly not thinking that he might be better off just check-calling the river to let me bluff a worse hand. He is thinking, that kid is weak and I can make him fold with my bluff (his bluff which actually has a lot of showdown value).... Or, he floped a set of kings, turned a set of nines, or slowplayed AK/AA and I am screwed.

There was one combo of KK left and I did not think he was slowplaying the flop so I was able to call and send him muttering from the table "I can't believe he called me with KT, what a bad player..."

[vladzhuk]

so the old man had?

[Cornell Fiji]

[ QUOTE ]
so the old man had?

[/ QUOTE ]

He did not show, but it was most likely QQ/JJ



[/ QUOTE ]

Also... I am hoping that some people challenge the rationale for my actions in this hand. There was a lot of dissention about the best play on each street so I am hoping that some people will continue to defend the action that I did not take.