Check up on a live NL hand.

[2handed]

5/10 nl game at the Borgata
Effective stacks around 1500

I am supposed to move to the main game but get dealt a hand anyway.
I am two off the button and open with Ace Eight of diamonds to 40 dollars.

Villain calls on the button, he is young guy who seems like a regular and is a bit wild based on an earlier hand where he checkraised a fish on a J236 board that had three spades with 68 and pushed the 6 river only to find that fish had called him with a red Q6. He seems to have gotten over it though and is not perceptibly tilting.

The blinds fold so we go heads up to the flop which is:
K [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]10 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]4 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

I lead out for 70 dollars and he calls.
The turn is the Ace [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. I check he bets 110 I call.
The river is the Eight [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] He bets 350 and I call.

[fabadam]

Seems OK overall.

On the river, I don't think you'll get him to fold a better hand with a raise, or call with a worse hand. Though you might get a call out of KT or so, but considering this guy's image, I'm thinking he would have bet the flop with that.

The turn is actually tougher. I tend to put out a 2nd barrel in online NL25 and NL50, since the ace is a scare card (and I even have one!) for him.
However, against a guy who seems pretty aggressive, it's probably better to let him do the betting.

[RacersEdge]

[ QUOTE ]
The turn is actually tougher. I tend to put out a 2nd barrel in online NL25 and NL50, since the ace is a scare card (and I even have one!) for him.
However, against a guy who seems pretty aggressive, it's probably better to let him do the betting.

[/ QUOTE ]

But on the turn, do you want to scare away the guy if you actually have an ace? Aren't you just getting worse hands to fold? I'm thinking I want a K or a T to bet after a river blank.

[2handed]

The river was a big question mark for me. Coming from limit this is a place you always call at least. Can I consider folding here since there are not many hands I beat?

[Absolution]

I don't think it's worth calling the river. His bet sizing seem consistent with a better hand. It looks like a value bet.

[Mandor_TFL]

Wow tough hand. Given reads I think this is a call but it seems like QJ and sets are in his range too. Just remember your hand basically beats only a bluff ( and K 10). But with his image and the fact diamonds did not come I say he is bluffing a lot. I would expect to be shown QJ and sets about half the time though.


So it's up to you, is he bluffing?

[feelixthegreek]

Can we put AQ in villains range as well? The flop call is loose but I can see a player like this looking to spike a J. Granted it's a big river bet for a hand like that, but he is "a bit wild."

Just another scenario to argue for a call.

[2handed]

Interesting stuff, FWIW villain bet the river pretty quickly and threw out three black chips and two greens. He seemed pretty comfortable, read that as you will. Spots like this river are why NL can be so tricky to excel at, and are particularly tough for players with a limit background. Being a great player in this game seems to require being able to routinely make some tough laydowns and big bluffs later in the hand.

[sweetjazz]

I'd tend to call here because I don't know any better, but reading this thread has convinced that it's a genuinely tough decision.

BTW, care to post results? I think results after the thread discussion is over would be good for this forum in general. Even though you can't extrapolate from a single result, it's helpful for new players to see results to get an idea of what is actually being shown down.

[RacersEdge]

I guess this might be a leak for me because given the reads, this would have been an auto-call.