Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Ride Right through the Beat

I got a rough beat tonight. One that I still don't understand. I was into the Hollywood Park $400 buyin $5-10 NLHE game for $800 and had accumulated around $1600 total for a nice $800 profit. I was only 4 hours into the session and the table was absolutely fabulous. I was either 2nd or 3rd in chips, was comfortable with everyone on the table and taking lots of small pots and once in a while dragging a nice big pot. I dragged a $1400 pot with a turned straight when someone could not let go of their two pair. Everything was going good until this ridiculous hand comes up. I am in Middle Position, maybe 2-3 from the button and get AQoff. I raise to $45 after UTG limps. The button, SB, and UTG limper all call. So we go to the flop with about $220 in the middle. It comes out Ah Qd Kh. The small blind leads out for $200. Now, before I continue with the action I'll describe the small blind. He has only been at the table no more than an hour but I had already seen him play enough hands to know he was not good at all. Twice I had seen him slowplay what he thought were big hands (trips and a set) and only meekly bet his good but not great hands such as top pair good kicker in big pots. So for him to come out swinging like this smacked of oddness. I knew he didnt have a set or AK and like I said if he had something like J 10 I think he would have slowplayed it so I immediately put him on a draw. I looked at his stack and he had about $440 left after the $200. After the UTG limper folded I raised to $600 and the button folded and SB called almost instantanously. I was a bit surprised at the speed of it. The turn comes 10c and the river is some offsuit brick like 5c. He turns over Jh 7h. Afterwards, as I am trying to regain a little composure after such an odd call he trys to defend himself to the table by saying he was committed after he put in the $200. He was asking people if they would have done the same, and of course, the people who answered were savvy enough to say "yes" so that he would keep doing it but, of course, they would never make the same play. That knocked me down a bit to a little over $800. From there I composed myself because this was a great table and I would say at least 6 out of the 8 other players were easy targets. So I didn't want to do anything stupid and not take advantage of this. I sat back and limped with Qs once only to reraise one of the guys on tilt to have the other guy on tilt push into me. I called and the Qs held against his 77 or 99 or something. After that I just made a few hands and a few good CBs until 2 more people left. Then we got down to short handeded (sometimes 6,5, or even 4 handed). I was left with such passive players that I just steamrolled them shorthanded for about an hour. Nothing excessive, just picking up unwanted $50 pots and making raises preflop, getting heads up and then CBing and taking it down. Those things add up. I think in the hour of short handed play I made about $400. I didn't lose one single show down hand and I only made a big hand once and the guy folded on the turn. Normally, shorthanded play becomes difficult for me because people become super aggressive (as you should) and really put pressure on you to make hands/calls. Here it was a walk in the park and I was the only one applying pressure.

There weren't too many hands of actual discussion interest as I said, most of the table was easy money and it was just a matter of making a hand at the right time. I did notice quite a bit a of overbetting at a certain time space on this table that I was displeased with. For instance, after one limper 2nd to act would open raise for $75 or after a few limpers someone would make it $100. I am not a big fan of this play because its an action killer. Its one thing if you are in the BB and 7 people limp to you and you make it $100, thats totally reasonable but to open the pot for 7-8XBB in early position doesn't make sense. Lots of people do this and while I like the fact that they are probably not getting any profit off their big hands if indeed these are big hands, I don't like the fact that it makes it that much harder to get big pots with big hands because the preflop action is so stifling. It still baffles me that someone is much more happy with winning $20 with AA or whatever instead of trying to win a big pot by either raising a little more than the pot and playing a flop or limping. This type of strategy is not very exploitable at the $400 game unless there is alot of money on the table but if someone did things like that with big hands in deeper games like the $500 they would get slammed so quickly. I guess that's why some of these people are at the $400 and not higher.


5 comments:

rick said...

Not sure what you mean at the end there because of a typo -- do you mean the first guy raises to $25 and the next guy makes it $100? (I think you said $75 and $100.)

As for the J7 guy, I'm not sure why you're so surprised that he'd call your all-in with a flush draw and gutshot straight draw. Seems like he's getting the right odds, especially since it's so unlikely that you have the higher flush draw. I'd have called too I think. But I don't like his lead bet on the flop. It's so unlikely that everyone's gonna fold to that bet on an AKQ board. And, if he gets called, then what's he gonna do on the turn if he misses? He's first to act, so just check and fold? Go all in? Either way seems bad. And if he does hit on the turn, that means a ten or heart came and either would likely kill any action. If I were him, I'd probably have checked to you. Then if you bet, he can raise all-in, but if the other guy bets and you raise all-in, he can fold and lose nothing. If everyone checks the flop that's not so bad either.
What would you have done, in his shoes?

Danyul said...

I guess my problem with this play by him is the fact that he is trying to semi-bluff on a board which almost certainly he cannot semibluff. It just seems as though he wants to get all of his $600+ in with a 12 out draw to win only a $200+ pot. It doesn't seem like that would be a way to win in the longrun. For instance, later on in the session I called a raise in late position with 10d 8d. The board came Qd Jd 5c. The original raiser bet $200 into the $140 pot. I could have raised him allin (he only had about $250-275) more. Based on his action, its pretty obvious he likes his hand so I don't have fold equity and while i do have a gutshot straight flush draw I can assume I only have again 12 outs. Calling wasn't right unless I was willing to call his remainder on a blank on the turn so i encountered the same situation just with positions different. I opted to fold the 10 8 instead of risking almost $500 to win a $140 pot.

Danyul said...

As far as the $75 and $100 situations go, there was no typo. I was describing two different situations. Someone opening for 7.5XBB after only one limper and someone making it $100 after only 2 limpers. This type of play is intended to end the pot preflop, which is good for tournament but action killer in cash games.

rick said...

Big difference though between your scenario and his. In the one where you have Td 8d, someone else could maybe have a higher flush draw, in which case you're in trouble. But in his case, he was drawing to the 2nd nut flush and it had to seem extremely unlikely that anyone would have the nut (queen-high) flush draw. And he was getting good odds at that point. There's no doubt that his call is more tempting than yours. But even yours is a tough one I think. Are you sure that your folding there was right? I probably would've gone all in.

Danyul said...

Well based on my read of him and his $200 bet I felt as though he liked his hand so I would have little to none in the fold equity department. Straight math dictates that to be a -EV play if I have no fold equity as I would be putting in ~$500 to win no more than $700 so I would only be getting around 1.4:1 on a 12 outer, roughly a 3:2 shot. Now if he had a set then he has redraws which would drop me down from about 40% to around 30-35%. And if, per chance had something like the AdKd which would make perfect sense then I would drop dramatically to about 15-20%. Once the fold equity goes out the window, I don't think i can play it. Turns out the SB raised him all in and the bettor called. The flop board was Qd Jd 5c and the SB had J 5 and the original bettor had a QJ. The Q on the turn sealed the deal.