1/2 live hand - curious about a read/tell

[radii]

Before last week, I'd never played live poker past a few home games. I spent last week up in Atlantic City and spent a ton of time in the Borgata poker room, mainly playing 1/2 NL.

First, the hand:

Preflop: MP player opens to $15. Two loose/terrible players call behind, they could have any two. I call $13 more from the BB with KJ hearts. I don't have a good read on MP, he hasn't played a ton of hands though. I have a $350 stack and think I have a loose image, limping a lot in position. Pot is $61.

Flop: Flop is Jx 4d 3d. MP(the raiser) shows some visible distress when the flop comes. He shrugs and looks a bit unhappy. I came up to AC terrified of whether I could read players or not, but throughout the entire week saw people just completely give away their hands, the frustration in a check, resignation to losing in a bet, etc. And I have yet to see someone really do the "weak means strong" thing with any success at 1/2 NL. I am fairly quick to put the guy on AK or AQ or some other whiff of the flop. I check, hoping he or someone will bet and i can checkraise. He does follow through with a bet of $40, the other two players fold. I decide to follow through, and I check-raise to $140. Raiser thinks for a time and pushes all in.

At this point I'm fairly crushed. I'm trying to put him on a range, but I'm still gaining experience here and am not beyond getting a little flustered. I assume I'm beat but never really narrow a specific range. His all in is only for $102 more. The pot is $440. I'm getting 4.4:1 to call. I tell him I think he just totally played me and congrats, and that I hope he doesn't have KK, and call. Of course, he has AA, and of course, I catch a king for a massive suckout.


My overall question to the 1/2 players here is about the read. He told me later on after he cooled off and took a break that he did intentionally play up his weakness before he bet. I told him that I had used that read 10 or 15 times to steal pots during the week and had not once been wrong... until now. How reliable is this read, are there specific players that you will use it with more often(hooray for poker stereotypes, women on vacation and some older guys it seemed to be most common with)?

I think my biggest shock at 1/2 was the fact that people just had exactly what it looked/sounded like they had almost every time, and would say or do things that 100% gave away their hands before the action was done. Like I said, this is the only time I used that info and was wrong, curious to hear from the more experienced players.

[bigscore]

I wonder about this same stuff. I have only played maybe 4 times and before I play more I'd like to get better at these kinds of things. I'd have to say it has to be mostly feel

[radii]

By the way, I do think I made two major mistakes here(at least).

First, if I wanted to use that read to play my TPGK strong into a raiser, I could have done so much more cheaply by just betting out. I assume that I really should have just led out.

Second, another huge mistake most 1/2 players seem to make is in bet sizing. Most of the players who are bad enough to totally give away their hands have no concept of bet sizing. They aren't going to bet $40 into a $60 pot. They're going to bet $15 or $25 or something ridiculously small. I feel like his bet of $40 should have changed things in my mind and made me question things a lot more than it did.

But maybe I'm just being results oriented there, I dunno.

[Taso]

I think the big mistake is to assume all tells are the same for everyone. Each tell can be applied differently to each person. Personally, I wouldn't suggest playing a 400 pot based on a tell of a player who's tendancies you don't know. It's really key to be paying attention to them the whole time, and hope they show down a few hands.

Also consider that better players will give off false tells, which is what he was doing, so it really is important to know your player. In this case I might have let this pot go, and hope you get to see his hand. I don't know - the truth is, next time you face off, you'll have a better idea of what he is doing; recall is key.

[SDone]

I'm used to people trying to hollywood live, and a lot of times I just revert to online "tells", namely bet sizing and assigning them a range. Some people do really wear their heart on their sleeve though.

[Dynasty]

I wouldn't have put him on AA. I might have put him on JJ.

The acting weak followed by the all-in is usually a much bigger hand than this guy had.


[ QUOTE ]
I told him that I had used that read 10 or 15 times to steal pots during the week and had not once been wrong... until now. How reliable is this read...

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, it's not >90% reliable.

[Rottersod]

I'm also curious about your thinking that the 4.4:1 to call was even the right price. You said you knew he had you beat already so he either had a AJd, a set, QQ, KK, or AA. The only hands you were getting the right price on was QQ and AA. People seem to forget that pot odds need to be looked at from both sides - what price you are getting and how far behind you think you are.

Experience will be the biggest factor in determining when you can use tells like weak = strong. It just takes many, many live sessions to get into the feel of things. One thing you could learn quickly though is that in a typical live 1/2 game TPTK is hand that will hurt you a lot.

[jjshabado]

[ QUOTE ]
Second, another huge mistake most 1/2 players seem to make is in bet sizing. Most of the players who are bad enough to totally give away their hands have no concept of bet sizing. They aren't going to bet $40 into a $60 pot. They're going to bet $15 or $25 or something ridiculously small. I feel like his bet of $40 should have changed things in my mind and made me question things a lot more than it did.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is true, lots of players have [censored]-horrible bet sizing. But you can also take advantage of it by betting small amounts as bluffs against some of these guys. There are lots of people that see $20 bets as $20 and don't consider the size of the pot. So if you're going to bluff you might as well do it cheaply.

Often these bad players will either fold to both a $20 or $60 bet or call both a $20 and $60 bet depending solely on their cards. Nice and exploitable.

[Brad1970]

[ QUOTE ]
Preflop: MP player opens to $15. Two loose/terrible players call behind, they could have any two. I call $13 more from the BB with KJ hearts. I don't have a good read on MP, he hasn't played a ton of hands though. I have a $350 stack and think I have a loose image, limping a lot in position. Pot is $61.

[/ QUOTE ]

This paragraph is key. MP raises an unopened pot to $15, no reads on him, he doesn't play many hands, & you are in horrible position with KJ. I'd give him some respect & consider folding in this spot.

[Landlord79]

"I don't have a good read on MP, he hasn't played a ton of hands though."

This is key to your read, he hasn't played many hands, he feigns weakness, then stuffs it into you. Since he didn't play many hands, you can assume that he knows what he's doing. Watch how people watch the action, how they handle their chips, how much the dealer has to prompt them, etc. You should be able to use this info to get a good read on someone way before you see them showdown a hand. Pick the fish out and focus on playing pots w/ them.

If you're going to play live, I'd definitely recommend reading Joe Navarro's book and Mike Caro's is good too. Right after reading Navarro's book, I was able to stuff my short stack into a guy w/ a draw and double up w/ AQ high. People do things that they don't realize, and the worse the player the more info that they give off.