too weird or too good?

[mike l.]

when it got to me on the flop i felt like gee havent i done this before, been in this spot and seen it turn out bad too often. i know im "supposed" to call once i see the flop, but when it was my turn to do so i got this feeling and didnt. and it felt so right.

but preflop i didnt have that feeling. it felt like okay these guys are tarded and im playing good and i can play this profitably here. and i think part of that was making this unorthodox flop fold.

i know sometimes these guys will show up with AK and T9 and i mucked the winner and so on, but on the flop i just knew that wasnt happening often enough for my call to be profitable even getting 9 to 1. it seemed like bad player would call all day with a J just looking like he did and raise all fake strong all day with all his draws. it also seemed like utg might be weak enough to just check there with AK and 99 and other hands at least sometimes, maybe more often. but mostly it seemed like that initial feeling, ive been here before and ive called or raise and it just doesnt work out well. so i folded.

[Ryno]

Sometimes the opposite of folding isn't really calling, it's more like "living". It's a neat NL concept that has a place in limit, where you make a call to give yourself a chance to win later, whether that comes from having/making the best hand or a well-timed bluff. In limit of course the bluffing aspect is not there so much, but you should give yourself a chance to watch them react to a turn card.

Sometimes you have such a mental firepower advantage that you feel compelled to use it. But I've played hands like this against inexperienced opponents in home game settings, and afterwards I say "I folded a Q" and they are like LOL why you had top pair???, as they show down some random hand and a missed draw.

{note, I explained this in a level of detail that is overkill for you, but perhaps others get something from it too}

PS I am the nitmeister and I call preflop live in that spot all day. I'm surprised there is debate on this in a live setting.

[shockdaworld]

This post reminds me of older posts by Tommy Angelos where he is getting 35:1 but folds and everyone is saying omg and he writes a poem and everyone says ah yes all is well. What happened to that guy?

[Michael Davis]

Straight up overthinking here. That the flop is draw heavy is a reason to call just as it's a reason to fold. You can often fold the turn here but never the flop- you frequently pick up enough outs on the turn to continue. Plus, oh yeah, you actually do have the best hand sometimes and it's not as if the pot is miniscule.

I don't know what kind of trouble you're worried about getting into, your hand probably shows a profit if you just fold every time one of your opponents bets the turn.

-Michael

[cgrohman]

I agree. Especially if you are going to call 2 cold pre-flop.

[surfdoc]

[ QUOTE ]
Straight up overthinking here. That the flop is draw heavy is a reason to call just as it's a reason to fold. You can often fold the turn here but never the flop- you frequently pick up enough outs on the turn to continue. Plus, oh yeah, you actually do have the best hand sometimes and it's not as if the pot is miniscule.

I don't know what kind of trouble you're worried about getting into, your hand probably shows a profit if you just fold every time one of your opponents bets the turn.

-Michael

[/ QUOTE ]

This is spot on and I want to add just a little addition. Because many players believe that mike will play his hand the way they would play theirs, if he just calls this flop in position all kinds of warning bells start going off in their heads. (even though in reality it would be pretty rare for mike not to raise this flop with a jack) This will make the turn pretty easy to play actually and getting a free/cheap card won't be uncommon at all since even an overpair my have trouble betting into 2 players on the turn.

[mike l.]

i guess i wasnt being clear. i was pretty sure i was beat in one or probably two spots. so i decided to fold a street early. it wasnt overthinking, it was underthinking.

[Justin A]

[ QUOTE ]

I am going to be the first on into this thread and predict that it will have a whole bunch of responses followed by you not being able to explain why what you did was right and everyone else was wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

Looks like you nailed it.

[mike l.]

i never said everyone else was wrong. i just wanted to see if anyone could say anything i didnt already know or convince me i was mistaken or not seeing things clearly.

sometimes, in live poker, a great read overrides everything else.

[private joker]

So basically you're saying "I played live and had a great read that I can't and didn't express in this post and made a terrific play based on that read which none of you had nor were there to make. So how did I do?"