simple hand

[veeRtje]

ok i know i'm a newbie and all that, BUT isnt it possible he is slowplaying 88 or something like that?

[registrar]

[ QUOTE ]
ok i know i'm a newbie and all that, BUT isnt it possible he is slowplaying 88 or something like that?

[/ QUOTE ]

Naturally (except that he doesn't reraise the river - but assuming we don't know that).

However, it's very difficult to win money at poker if we're only willing to put money in the pot with the stone cold nuts. We bet because we think there is a better than average chance we are ahead and we continue betting if villain's betting and/or calling actions persuade us that we are ahead more often than not.

The issue here is whether we are ahead often enough to make a value bet on the river worthwhile.

Thus we need to consider whether villain will call and, if so, how much. Whether he will bet and how often this is a bluff and whether he will bluff a worse hand hand often enough that checking to him is more profitable than betting and whether, if we do bet, we can stand a reraise.

Poker is a complicated game.

[Stoneii]

[ QUOTE ]
I like.

I expect to see KQ, QT/Q9, A8/98 for his hand alot of the time, but maybe thats just my faith in the Party donks coming thru.

-g

[/ QUOTE ]

KQ - u lose! faith challenged, much consternation

[Jason Strasser (strassa2)]

why does everyone assume that this play is only for use against donks. I would use this line against anyone, including the best players. Do only donks call light?

[ahnuld]

I dont think id bet that river in a cash game, but I would in a tourney.

[mornelth]

[ QUOTE ]
ok i know i'm a newbie and all that, BUT isnt it possible he is slowplaying 88 or something like that?

[/ QUOTE ]

n00b... [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

88 will let itself be known. It will raise us somewhere along the way. It MAY wait until the river to raise us - but if we are raised on the river - we muck. If we are CALLED on the river - we will be winning that extra bet often enough to offset the times we lose it AND the times we are raised on the river and have to fold.

Figuring all of this out and making thin value bets like this is what makes winning players... well... winning players.

[registrar]

[ QUOTE ]
why does everyone assume that this play is only for use against donks. I would use this line against anyone, including the best players. Do only donks call light?

[/ QUOTE ]

This was my thought. I was going to post the hand at some point with the roles reversed, hero is villain, to see the line that the forum suggested if 'hero' has a hand that is losing on the river and if 'hero' has KQ.

Certainly, this donk, me, is not calling down with anything less than top pair. I suppose it depends on our definition of a 'donk' but I think there are three.

1. Donks who call with any piece of the board always. You know who they are, pretty quickly, and they are rarely playing this buy-in.
2. ABC donks, like me, who are sometimes in these buy-ins. They will call down with top pair and probably make a crying call on the river when they don't make their straight. With them, you're very rarely ahead on the river, but they are not going to reraise KQ and they've already raised AQ.
3. Donks who are simply worse players than Jason Strasser. These are not really donks at all, they play this buy-in and they are calling Strassa down light.

In summary, at this buy-in, we are generally only getting value with this river bet out of good players.

[ActionJeff]

[ QUOTE ]
why does everyone assume that this play is only for use against donks. I would use this line against anyone, including the best players. Do only donks call light?

[/ QUOTE ]

Jason,

You are right of course, good players call down light all the time. But, in my experience, they generally don't limp in and call a 5x raise OOP against a skilled opponent, then check/call large bets on every street when they can't beat top pair. I'm not saying that I wouldn't use this line against a good player. Its just that most of the time that I am in this type of situation on the river, the player I am betting into is pretty awful. I apologize for generalizing though [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

-Jeff

[Deuce2High]

I like the river bet here because in the eyes of a calling station your big preflop raise most likely meant big cards and it is looking like he wants to make a hero call.