Re: Standard?
I thought this one might be more interesting than I guess it is. A few thoughts:
I disagree 100% with anyone who says that in a shorthanded game, checking here allows him to play perfectly. His quick calls on the flop and turn are indicative of one of two things, IMO:
A hand that is fully prepared to showdown (this is mostly limited to hands that are worse than mine, however 2pr hands may be "scared" to raise here).
A drawing hand (most likely QT, QJ, or JT) that played passively pre and post-flop.
The only question that I really had at that point was whether he would bluff the river. In general he had shown signs of passivity, but at the time I felt that the ace was a card that people would try to represent, despite the fact that it really doesn't make much sense. This is coupled with the fact that there are less hands that should be calling with. Hands like 54s, 44-22, etc., may still call down, but I don't think it's nearly as likely as if the board were to pair, or river low.
On the river I'm getting 23:4 on a call. The pot isn't exactly gigantic, but there's certainly a chance that my opponent is bluffing. Personally I think the decision on the river is between c/c and c/f, as I don't think there is a wide enough range of hands for him to be holding that can pay me off (hoping that he pays off with KQ, KJ, after playing them like this preflop, etc. is overly optimistic).
At the time I guesstimated that he would bluff with JT or QJ often enough to make this call, so I check-called. IMO -- though I think it's close -- the river lines go something like:
c/c > c/f > b/f > b/c
If I had much more of a read on my opponent, I think I could shift this; however, all I know at this point is that he instacalled two streets and limped preflop. At the time I felt comfortable that I was good ~>20% of the time, and getting 5.75:1, I only had to be good 14.8% of the time on a check-call to show a profit.
If the river were a T, J, or Q I would have check-folded. I don't want to get wrapped up in the metagame aspects of my flop bets and how he's interpreting them as he very well may not be thinking about it much at all. That said, it all does come together to paint a bit of a picture.
Dunno if this was really a helpful hand or not. I guess it's just a reminder that limited reads mean that you're going to need to make sure that you never ascribe perfect rationality to your opponents before deciding on a particular action.
FWIW, I check-called and he showed Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]J[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. MHWG.
Rob
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