A Hand I Played

[ILOVEPOKER929]

Ok, first I'll say why I did what I did.

PREFLOP: Pretty standard, nothing to say here.

FLOP: I just wanted to point out that once I'm checkraised I think calling the raise is the only play in this spot. Folding would be absurd and 3betting is not a good play in this spot given that so many players play their draws so aggressively, and it is unclear how much of an equity edge we have here. And knowing that the villain will continue bet the turn close to 100% of the time if we call the flop raise, I believe its better to see what that turn card is and then make a decision for the rest of the hand.

TURN: I really cant defend my turn line. Most of the time I just call here. Some of the reasons I would raise here is to get a better hand to fold, or to get more money in with the best hand, or becuz I dont believe my opponent will 3barrel that often so the only chance I have to charge him for his draw is on the turn.

Well for one thing, I dont think this guy is ever folding a better hand on the turn. If he has a draw I'm not sure if he'll 3barrel or not but I suspect he wont but I really dont know. I also didnt believe he would 3bet the turn with a lesser hand but I have no evidence to support that feeling. I think the chances of my having the best hand on the turn are pretty decent, but that doesnt mean that raising the turn is better than just calling down.

Overall I felt that both lines: raising the turn for a free showdown and calling down ran very close in expectation vs this opponent. Again I cannot justify this feeling.

RIVER: If the river blanked off, I was going to check UI. If the river was a King or a Queen I was gonna atleast think about betting. When the river was an ace, I knew I was gonna bet 100% of the time. The reason I like my river bet is this: I dont know whether I'm bluffing or value betting. He may fold 9x or he may call. He may call with 4x or 2x or he may fold. I dont know how this guy plays so I'm not sure what hes going to do. What I do know about my river bet, is one way or another my opponent is going to be forced to make a tough decision and as we all know when human beings have to make tough decisions they end up making lots of mistakes and thats exactly what I want to do, induce my opponent to make mistakes. That's why I loved my river bet.

It is also important to note that the Ace on the river cannot help my opponent's hand unless he has precisely 5d3d or 5s3s, but he cannot be so sure that the ace didnt help me.

FINAL RESULTS: Nothing interesting here. I bet and he thought for 10 seconds and folded.

[ILOVEPOKER929]

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How does a guy you have no read on w/ average looking stats not fall under the "vast majority" category?

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What may be interesting to note, is if I had no stat read here I would check the river 100% of the time. Given this guys stat's I still felt that he was a "thinking" player, and against a thinking player trying to play well, I like this river bet. I also posted why I did what I did in my results post.

[Leader]

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How many hands is that read over? I'm not partially inclined to trust the WtSD number unless there's quite a few hands. If we assume that's his real WtSD, then this is essentially a pure bluff as he would almost always fold worse hands on the turn along with some better ones. So does he have a better hand and fold it one in nine times? I'm going to guess and say no on the basis that he's probably not good enough to take a call-fold line here.

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Im not convinced the villain will always fold 4x and 2x on the turn, I'm also not convinced that the villain will call the river with 9x. I realize these two statements contradict each other but I'm ok with that.

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My problem is not the concept of the value-bluff. My problem is that I'd rather have either a better/different read to value you bet or bluff and less of a read to value-bluff.

[jba]

dont tell anybody but i pretty much always just complete ace rag in the sb these days against tag BB just because in the stars game at least they spew like crazy.

[ILOVEPOKER929]

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dont tell anybody but i pretty much always just complete ace rag in the sb these days against tag BB just because in the stars game at least they spew like crazy.

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Depends what kind of tag. If there's a decent chance he'll fold preflop, I'm sure its best to raise right away, but against a tag/lagtag who isnt likely fold his BB to a SB open, limping in with Ax can be an excellent strategy.

[Absolution]

Pre-flop, flop and turn are pretty standard.

I like the river because now it's difficult for him to call if he did have the 9 and he's probably folding any of the draws he was check-raising with anyway. So basically you're saying I don't believe you have the 9 here and now I'm going to bet this scare card just in case.