WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

I thought about this hand from last December when reading the Bill Ivey hand, which has a few similarities to it, absent the preflop raises and the need to go to the bathroom. $15K Bellagio WPT event, 300/600/75 (I think, it's not really relevant). Shane's been up and down quite a bit, as have I, both playing a lot of pots. I was caught bluffing a couple times early. I have about 42K to start, he has me covered.

Bunch of limpers, including Shane in LP, I'm in the BB with A9o. Flop: 9 4 3, all hearts (I think, it was monochrome, the color of the suit is not relevant). My A is not the A of hearts. Shane is directly in my view of the flop, I see him check his cards before the action gets to him.

Checked around to Shane, he bets 1800, I call, everyone else folds.

Turn: 9c. I check, Shane bets 5000, I c/r to 15000, he thinks for a long time and calls.

River is a brick, doesn't pair the board, doesn't pair my kicker, doesn't put a 4th heart out. I check, Shane thinks for a while and shoves. Hero?

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

If I play this way, it's to call this shove because I think that his card check means he does not have a flush (obv). that said, did you see him do this earlier?

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

[ QUOTE ]
If I play this way, it's to call this shove because I think that his card check means he does not have a flush (obv). that said, did you see him do this earlier?

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Ugh seriously, what's with ppl not having a plan? If you check/raise the turn how can you not check/insta-call a river shove?

If I'm check/raising turn here I'm doing it with the intent to check and induce a bluff when he misses his heart draw presumably.

If you plan on folding this you should've never check/raised the turn, just check/call and then do one of those fancy bet/folds everyone talks about on non-[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] rivers.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

[ QUOTE ]
If I play this way, it's to call this shove because I think that his card check means he does not have a flush (obv). that said, did you see him do this earlier?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it was not something I had seen him do earlier.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If I play this way, it's to call this shove because I think that his card check means he does not have a flush (obv). that said, did you see him do this earlier?

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Ugh seriously, what's with ppl not having a plan? If you check/raise the turn how can you not check/insta-call a river shove?

If I'm check/raising turn here I'm doing it with the intent to check and induce a bluff when he misses his heart draw presumably.

If you plan on folding this you should've never check/raised the turn, just check/call and then do one of those fancy bet/folds everyone talks about on non-[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] rivers.

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Obviously, when I c/r'ed the turn, I was planning on getting my chips in. I didn't expect him to call the c/r given the effective stacks, I expected him to shove (which I was calling) or fold. The call was a strange play, which caused me to at least potentially re-evaluate my plan. IMO snapcalling a shove on the river live without the nuts or virtual nuts, when you can take all the time in the world to think if you want (which you cannot do in formulating plans based on contingencies), is just dumb.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

I didn't like literally mean snap-call, but as I said if I'm check/raising it's with full intention of getting chips in so there better be a damn good reason I'm not now.

If you had all these thoughts during the hand, you should've specified so in the OP because you didn't. We should know your thought process here if you want good opinions.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

[ QUOTE ]
I didn't like literally mean snap-call, but as I said if I'm check/raising it's with full intention of getting chips in so there better be a damn good reason I'm not now.

If you had all these thoughts during the hand, you should've specified so in the OP because you didn't. We should know your thought process here if you want good opinions.

[/ QUOTE ]

I tried to avoid putting too many of my thoughts in the hand description, because I wanted to get people's opinions uninfluenced by my own thoughts, which I think is a fairly common way hands are posted here.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

On the flop, turn, your hand didn't rep a made flush to him. To us, his hands look like Ah2x (very likely) or 94s/44/22 (remote but possible).

As played, I would bet 10K at the river to block bluff.

At the river, the problem is your stacksize, you had about 25K behind, pot is 35K. It's very risky to bet 10K and fold to a shove. But, if you bet, his shoving range is only a boat. This awkward situation is because you c/r the turn instead of leading out pot at the turn.

If he had you beat at the turn (meaning he flopped set/tp and turned boat or flopped nut flush), he'd re-raise you because that might be the last chance to stack you if you miss the river with a flush draw, also you can't fold a 9 on the turn.

Now, you check the river and he shoves, I call because we expect a shove from many hands we beat when we check to him when there is a sizable pot.

--------------------
Have you thought of betting the turn?

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

Fold river.

If you really think about it from Shane's perspective, what could you play like this that doesn't beat A9? I suppose he could limp some hand with a 9 in it and play this way, but I think it's way more likely he has, in order, a full house, the nut flush, some small flush.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

I know we have TPTK on the flop and thats great and all, but Shane is firing into a bunch of players on a coordinated board, we're fairly deep, OOP, and with no redraw.

I basically just want to fold flop. Anyone else think so to?

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

[ QUOTE ]
I know we have TPTK on the flop and thats great and all, but Shane is firing into a bunch of players on a coordinated board, we're fairly deep, OOP, and with no redraw.

I basically just want to fold flop. Anyone else think so to?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

i just can't for the life of me imagine what would inspire you to check/raise this turn.

it changes nothing except giving you more outs against the hands he's usually value betting here.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

i fold the flop. If i had called flop, i would also only call turn. Raising doesn't accomplish useful stuff imo. As played, Crycall river i guess.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

Oh also,

Shaniac calls absolutely zero worse hands in his range on the turn, so calling the river shove is a spew. It also makes me think the turn CR is quite bad since it's turned your hand with a ton of SD value into a bluff.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

this is exactly the same as the psyduck v. zeejustin hand and a common leak i am seeing.

namely, the misunderstanding of the value of a hand versus the relative value of a hand with handreading.

i dont understand how, with simple handreading, one can see that turn OOP versus shaniac and think "GIN!" and aim to checkraise, when in reality there are very few hands we are valuestacking shane with (9x) and a lot of random hands like one pair one heart which either check behind on the turn or fire with the intentions of a free showdown (ie not calling turn cr).

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

On the Internet, I fold the flop and never, ever c/r the turn.

My reason for doing both was that I picked up what I thought was a very valuable read -- Shane looked at his cards after the flop hit and before the action was getting to him, which means it was a legitimate check of his cards, not a staged check of the cards when he knew everyone was looking at him. A legitimate card check means he did not have a flush, set, or two pair, which means I have the best hand on the flop and the turn.

Now, given that read (which I thought was rock solid at the time, but I'm always within a hand willing to reconsider a live tell in light of the subsequent action), what do you think he has in light of the way the hand played out? How do you play the turn and the river? Or, if you disagree with the read, how come? Thanks.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

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I basically just want to fold flop. Anyone else think so to?

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I would snap fold online but this card checking thing would often have me thinking 'big heart' enough to peel here. Leak? (edit: this was written before reading the last post, heh)

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

i recheck my cards usually twice per hand. no matter what the hand is and even though i usually remember them with the suits and everything. just so i don't do anything stupid.

it doesn't change the fact that if he's betting pretty big (and he is) in what was a multiway limped pot, he's betting hands that beat you for the most part, and if he isn't, he isn't calling this big a check/raise, because your hand now looks like a flush or a boat. you're actually overrepresenting your hand when you check/raise like this... i guess you could be semibluffing him off of the 6 high flush with a 10 outer, but other than that, this is really nothing more than spew.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

[ QUOTE ]

My reason for doing both was that I picked up what I thought was a very valuable read -- Shane looked at his cards after the flop hit and before the action was getting to him, which means it was a legitimate check of his cards, not a staged check of the cards when he knew everyone was looking at him. A legitimate card check means he did not have a flush, set, or two pair, which means I have the best hand on the flop and the turn.



Now, given that read (which I thought was rock solid at the time, but I'm always within a hand willing to reconsider a live tell in light of the subsequent action), what do you think he has in light of the way the hand played out? How do you play the turn and the river? Or, if you disagree with the read, how come? Thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think, when flopped a set, nut straight, nut flush, most players don't need to check hole cards on the flop to confirm.

When people read their hole cards the first time, they remember big hands, sc and pairs, like AA/AKs/AQo, 67s, 22 or 44... They seldom confirm these hole cards on the flop because they know what kinds of flops they are looking for when come into the pot preflop.

Again, when people have Ax suited, they normally remember the exact suite. If they flop the nut flush, they rarely need to confirm that on the flop, instead, they pay a lot of attention to everyone else's action and then decide how to play the hand.

However, when players have hands like Ax offsuite (x < T), T9o, J8o, etc...they don't remember the exact suite of each card (because they never expect flop flush with these hands), they normally play such hands with postion, from the blinds or for other reasons. But they do need to check hole cards on the flop if they think the flop is connected to the hole cards. For example, when someone has Ace 5 offsuite,normally, they don't remember as Ace daimond 5 of spade, instead, they just remember they have a red Ace and black 5. When the flop comes all red, they normally have to look their hole cards and confirm if they have the same suited Ace for nut flush draw or not.

This is general reading. There are exceptions like when somone plays big pot against multiple players, or when the player looked tired (say 2am at night) or he was checking his iPod or moving his drink bottle when he was dealt or was turning around talking to someone at another table..., back from bathroom just caught the hole cards before muck...etc...


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BTW, being the big blinds of the last hand before the break, I call it "pre-bathroom hand", is the worst one to play when there are large antes and blinds.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

I could be checking my cards as a reverse-tell, too, right?

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

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I could be checking my cards as a reverse-tell, too, right?

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I have become convinced that more often than not this is what Farha is doing.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

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I could be checking my cards as a reverse-tell, too, right?

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I'm high, what do you exactly mean "reverse-tell"? I mean I check for a lot of reasons, if you want to call some of those reasons a "reverse-tell" then go ahead...

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

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[ QUOTE ]
I could be checking my cards as a reverse-tell, too, right?

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I'm high, what do you exactly mean "reverse-tell"? I mean I check for a lot of reasons, if you want to call some of those reasons a "reverse-tell" then go ahead...

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If checking my hole cards made Todd think I was looking for a diamond, then I might check in an effort to psych him out when I have two diamonds or a set.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

[ QUOTE ]
I could be checking my cards as a reverse-tell, too, right?

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Of course. Against a Pro like shane, you got be very careful.

However, you can't do everything smoothly in planned "reverse-tell". Also, there is a difference when the player looks at other players' action first then looks at his card vs he looks at his card first before looks at others...

In this hand, did you look at your cards right after the flop was dealt? Or you realized Todd was looking at you then you look at your cards to show Todd...

We can't go too deep in discussion here because a lot is impossible to write down.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

I fold on the river always and never ever c/r the turn.

EXPLOIT ME, BITCHES!

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I could be checking my cards as a reverse-tell, too, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm high, what do you exactly mean "reverse-tell"? I mean I check for a lot of reasons, if you want to call some of those reasons a "reverse-tell" then go ahead...

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If checking my hole cards made Todd think I was looking for a diamond, then I might check in an effort to psych him out when I have two diamonds or a set.

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Like I said, I was really high, I forgot you looked at your cards HAH but yeah I do that sometimes live just to [censored] with ppl if they're paying attention.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

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I fold on the river always and never ever c/r the turn.

EXPLOIT ME, BITCHES!

[/ QUOTE ]
HU?

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

Well, I ruled out a reverse tell because it was before the action got to Shane, and therefore I couldn't imagine him throwing off a reverse tell at a time when no one was likely to be looking. And he hadn't done it before. So while I would attribute no significance to it for habitual or frequent card checkers, I was fairly sure it was significant.

Setting that aside, I thought he'd shove the turn with a boat or a flush. The only hand that seemed to fit was a 9 with a big heart. So I called the river bet, and it turned out his card check was a spontaneous "OMG, did I really flop the nuts?" rather than a check to see what he had or a reverse tell -- A5hh.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

it wasn't a reverse tell. he checked his cards to make sure he really had what he thought so he didn't do something moronic. i do this every single hand. seriously that's what i'm talking about. making a dumb turn c/r that doesn't make any sense for any reason involving a live tell is moronic. that is it. c/c turn and prob c/f riv unimproved, depending on the size of the bet.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

[ QUOTE ]
I know we have TPTK on the flop and thats great and all, but Shane is firing into a bunch of players on a coordinated board, we're fairly deep, OOP, and with no redraw.

I basically just want to fold flop. Anyone else think so to?

[/ QUOTE ]

i totally agree with this assesment

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

[ QUOTE ]
it wasn't a reverse tell. he checked his cards to make sure he really had what he thought so he didn't do something moronic. i do this every single hand. seriously that's what i'm talking about. making a dumb turn c/r that doesn't make any sense for any reason involving a live tell is moronic. that is it. c/c turn and prob c/f riv unimproved, depending on the size of the bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

So we've gone from "pure spew", because this would not be a live tell against you and therefore should not be used against anybody, to "moronic", because I did something relying on a live tell. I'm guessing "live tells are not important" is a corollary to the Third Fundamental Theorem of Poker, "internet players are the best tournament players in the world".

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

no, you made a play that doesn't make any sense, and that's what was bad. even if you were to assume that your awesome live read were 100% accurate, this STILL isn't the way to play the hand because he still folds everything on the turn.

you seem like one of those awesome guys who's been playing live for hundreds of years and hates all these young internet pros coming in and mucking things up. how's my read, eh?

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

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you seem like one of those awesome guys who's been playing live for hundreds of years and hates all these young internet pros coming in and mucking things up. how's my read, eh?

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don't think that read is correct, but I don't mean to get in the middle of this, either.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

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[ QUOTE ]
it wasn't a reverse tell. he checked his cards to make sure he really had what he thought so he didn't do something moronic. i do this every single hand. seriously that's what i'm talking about. making a dumb turn c/r that doesn't make any sense for any reason involving a live tell is moronic. that is it. c/c turn and prob c/f riv unimproved, depending on the size of the bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

So we've gone from "pure spew", because this would not be a live tell against you and therefore should not be used against anybody, to "moronic", because I did something relying on a live tell. I'm guessing "live tells are not important" is a corollary to the Third Fundamental Theorem of Poker, "internet players are the best tournament players in the world".

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, lets not go down this road please. I am a live player and I have learned through bitter experience that live "tells" are highly unreliable. Knowing that someone has done something out of the ordinary is easy. Knowing what it means is a complex guessing game and the times your assessment of what it indicates is right are vastly outnumbered by the times you get it wrong. And you tend to remember the times you were correct much more than the times you end up looking like a tit.

Why post a hand if it comes down to a specific live read? If you follow that read to the end and are happy that it was the correct thing to do - fine. But people are going to go to the fundamentals of hand reading, ranges, betting etc in order to analyse a hand posted on a message board.

That analysis says that checkraising a thinking player on this type of board is a spew. And live, online, whatever - that type of analysis will ALWAYS be more useful and beneficial than inconclusive, "had to be there" stuff like reads.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

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because he still folds everything on the turn.


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Turn c/r is questionable but not completely spew.(especially if "villain folds everything on the turn"). I'm not sure it's reverse-telling or something else to justify the turn call and river shove? (rather than turn shove from the nut flush)

Just out of curiosity, if the river was an Ace, what's our discusion about this hand?




[ QUOTE ]

you seem like one of those awesome guys who's been playing live for hundreds of years and hates all these young internet pros coming in and mucking things up. how's my read, eh?

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Please feel free to criticize the hand not the person. I don't see Todd put in a single word implies "he hates anyone" in his post. Yes, he expressed some anger when replying to your post, but that's so polite comparing to some "great posters"'s "you suck" posts...

As how this hand is played out, IMO, OP's live tell combined with villain's river shove (instead of turn) plays important role in making the decision. I don't 100% rely on live physical tells as there are many other factors. However, live tell is very useful and plays important role for me.

Edit: I respect Shane as a good poker player and respectable person in live. But I have question about how he played this hand at the turn/river.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

LuckyLloyd:


I posted the hand because it involved questions of interpretation of a live read, combined with the hand going down in a weird play which led to an issue of whether to abandon the initial live read. It also was a rather tough hand to read, since Shane played the hand in a non-conventional way. It also was similar to a hand which had just been posted, but involved a few key differences.

You think live tells are useless, I don't agree in general, although obviously this is a hand where a live read led me down the path to dumping my stack in a $15K buy-in tournament. And believe me, I remember hands where relying on live tells cost me hands much more than the reverse.


My New Friend from Yale:


I learned to play MTTs by playing on the net, I've been playing live for a little more than 2 years, including the last 7 months full-time. There's really no need to use insults or nasty adjectives to get your point across. Assuming you had a superuser account which showed you that Shane had a 9 with a big heart when he bet the turn, what would you recommend doing?

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

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It also was a rather tough hand to read, since Shane played the hand in a non-conventional way.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's how I'd play it. He's not folding to a raise on the turn and you're not checking a boat on the the river.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It also was a rather tough hand to read, since Shane played the hand in a non-conventional way.

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It's how I'd play it. He's not folding to a raise on the turn and you're not checking a boat on the the river.

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Agreed, and agreed, but that doesn't answer the question of call vs. raise the turn. Having thought about it, IMO how he played it was probably the best way to play it, but I think 90% of players jam the turn.

Edit: Meaning it doesn't answer the question of whether Shane should call or raise the turn after I C/R, in case that was unclear.

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

the turn c/r is really bad

Re: WPT Five Diamond - Trips w/ A Kicker, Monochrome Flop vs. Shaniac
 

[ QUOTE ]

My New Friend from Yale:


I learned to play MTTs by playing on the net, I've been playing live for a little more than 2 years, including the last 7 months full-time. There's really no need to use insults or nasty adjectives to get your point across. Assuming you had a superuser account which showed you that Shane had a 9 with a big heart when he bet the turn, what would you recommend doing?

[/ QUOTE ]

don't believe i used any insults or nasty adjectives, in fact. i just thought you misinterpreted my point which was that no live read in this case could justify the turn action because it still isn't any good. that's all there is to it. you seemed to think i was saying that live tells in general are useless, and i disagree with that statement completely.

and if you had a superuser account that showed that shane bet this turn with a 9 with a big heart, then you should check raise and probably a bit smaller since you want him to call with 11 outs as you'll be able to play the river perfectly. but if your live reads are even close to as powerful as a superuser account, i'd have to assume your IQ is significantly lower than 30 if you're not at every live event big buy-in final table there is. and assuming this isn't the case, all i'm saying is no live read here could be strong enough to make this turn action any good.