Goodbye money

[Garland]

From a few of your recent posts, I see some problems:

(1) You're losing a lot lately. And one of the fastest perceived ways to make up money fast is to play short-handed to continually be in the action. This can be true, but you'd better pick your opponents well. Roc doesn't seem like ideal competition to me. Somewhere in the back of your mind, I'm willing to bet that you're trying too hard to make back the money from the downswing causing you to make irrational decisions.

(2) Roc is a loose aggressive who doesn't like to fold. Now you're playing into his hands likely to "try to get him back" for all the bluffs and bad beats he's pulled off on you. Don't fall into that trap. He's got you doing his thing, which is to his advantage. Your value against him is to pound out value bets and thin ones especially. Let him take the aggressive position, if that means letting go of no chance hands, so be it. Let him bleed off bluffing money into you before he makes an adjustment. You're playing "ying" to his "ying", which is totally opposite to balanced poker which is "yang".

(3) I've seen Roc play from Live at the Bike, and heard descriptions from mikel about his play. It sounds like Roc knows what he's doing a lot of the time. He's a smart loose aggressive. If you're playing 3-handed, that third player better be wicked awful to make-up for your handicap against Roc.

The semi-bluff plays you're doing should be performed against weak-tight players who can make a "good" fold, not against hyper-aggressive ones.

Oh, and the 5-handed 33 hand was gross. Fold it from UTG and fold it on the flop. I'd much, much rather raise a hand like T9s from UTG 5-handed than play 33 from that position.

A big part of playing short-handed, especially 3-handed, is properly adjusting to your opponents which it doesn't sound like here.

Oh, the proper play in this particular hand is to call the 3-bet pre-flop, peel the flop and fold the turn without improvement.

Good luck in short-handed as well as digging out of the downswing.

Garland

[johnnylovescandy]

[ QUOTE ]
This one is 3 handed 60 I think. Villain is Roc again.

I open button with T9 double sooted. Roc defends BB.

Flop: K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]3[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

Roc c/r, I 3bet, he 4bets.

Turn: 2[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]
He bets, I raise

River a black card between 2 and 8 he checks I bet

[/ QUOTE ]

this play is acceptable vs. third world amputees w/AIDS.

such charitable contribution is the least you can do...

[The DaveR]

You get the same result by calling the flop cr and playing the rest identically.

[HOWMANY]

[ QUOTE ]
You get the same result by calling the flop cr and playing the rest identically.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well the part that I didn't include in the OP is that I think Roc's 4bet on this flop is more consistent with a draw than a made hand because the vast majority of hands I 3bet flop with I am betting turn (literally everything but what I have I think I would bet) so he's better off c/r me on the turn with a big hand after I 3bet because he never ever expects me to fold a pair against him. If I just call flop c/r and raise turn I feel I am extremely open to being 3bet by him with a super wide range. If he happened to just call pf with AJ or AT then I am quite certain he calls down UI against a turn raise. Basically by 3betting flop for a free card and getting "unfortunately" 4bet I think I actually stumbled into a great turn semibluff because his range is much more narrow than against his simple c/r range which can be basically any 2 he called pf with. I mean I guess that means just raising turn is still okay because he'll have random hand a lot, but I still think I'm going to be 3bet an insane amount by draws and have to fold UI if I call the c/r and raise turn. For whatever reason I'm fairly sure he will not 3bet a draw after 4 bets go in on the flop so this line is the most likely to let me be the last to bluff. I could have included this idea originally but I like to post hands that are obviously not standard at all because I like people to think I'm retarded.

The thing is that the "best" way to play this hand is to just call the flop c/r and fold turn. The problem here is that when you sit around waiting to make hands against Roc you go broke because he has robbed you blind out of twice as many bets as the pot you finally win from him. I know a lot of people think he is bad but I've played quite a bit with him and I think he's really good. Then again I never win so I might not be the best judge. He's one of the only people I play with that manages to regularly get 4 or 5 bets in on the turn, get called on the river and proudly announce "no pair" or "you got it" but people fold obvious winning hands against him so it's probably profitable.

[seminole0884]

I think the subject of the thread sums this hand up best.

[bdaddy]

I know a lot of people think he is bad but I've played quite a bit with him and I think he's really good.

I think this sentence sums up all of Garland's post. Why are you sitting in a 3 handed game with this person? We make monies in poker by the mistakes of others, not by outplaying tough LAGGY competition. I think you might try better game selection.

[HOWMANY]

The game was still a good spot for me, it could (and did) become even better. Roc is capable of getting frustrated and incinerating a ton of money, I am not. I'm sure that this last sentence is just setting me up for someone to quote this and then link to this thread but oh well.

[The DaveR]

Yeah, I thought that was probably your thought process (4 bets on flop equals draw) but I think you can usually figure that out anyway from the speed with which most people call a turn raise.