blonde poker forum

STAGE #458373644: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $2 - 2006-09-29 09:22:08 (ET)
Table: EDWARD DR. (Real Money) Seat #5 is the dealer
Seat 5 - BLUEDOG21 ($80.10 in chips)
Seat 9 - CHEFRM ($413.60 in chips)
Seat 1 - GOTCHA_ ($395.82 in chips)
Seat 2 - RASHAN ($269.28 in chips)
CHEFRM - Posts small blind $1
GOTCHA_ - Posts big blind $2
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to GOTCHA_ [Ac 5h]
RASHAN - Calls $2
BLUEDOG21 - Calls $2
CHEFRM - Folds
GOTCHA_ - Checks
*** FLOP *** [Ah 2d 9c]
GOTCHA_ - Bets $6
RASHAN - Calls $6
BLUEDOG21 - Folds
*** TURN *** [Ah 2d 9c] [As]
GOTCHA_ - Bets $12
RASHAN - Calls $12
*** RIVER *** [Ah 2d 9c As] [Qd]
GOTCHA_ - Bets $20
RASHAN - Raises $62 to $62

I don't beat much here. Rashan is a solid player. The pot is $105 it is $42 to call. Easy fold or gotta call?

hmmm...I would call this. true you might be behind to Ace better kicker or Ace has a kicker that's on the board but what do you want from your ace?

If he has an Ace + 2,9,10,j,q,k he has you beat anyother ace splits the pot. I am thinking he won't have small pp under the gun and play it like this BTW.

Nothing to see here - move along!!!

Must of had a brain lapse. Thanks Bongo

Playing AAAQ9 so can't beat any ace, only split, loses to A with K,Q,J,T,9,2 though as well as QQ, 99 and 22 who have made a full house.
Can only beat a complete bluff.

$42 into a $105 pot hoping to win half of it?

I don't think I like the call myself.

Yuk Yuk Yuk.. If he is as solid as you say then i fold here

I'd have been tempted to check the river too...

Thats a fair point Bongo.. i think i would have check called - which would be a much easier decision (i would think).. rather than having to call off a whole lot more because of his raise.

It also encourages a bluff if they have called with some odd hand too.

I'd be worried as he soon as he called the rainbow flop. He's flatcalled pre-flop and called a bet on an Ace high flop that has no draws, sounds like he either has a middling Ace or a set. Considering he is a good solid player, I doubt he'd call with a 9, and you can be pretty sure he didn't call preflop with a 2.

I'd fold.

Yeah check/calling seems like the best thing to do. I called and he had 99 for the full house. This hand is similar.

STAGE #458417180: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $4 - 2006-09-29 11:37:50 (ET)
Table: GALLEON DR. (Real Money) Seat #8 is the dealer
Seat 8 - FLASHFEVER ($309.38 in chips)
Seat 9 - GOTCHA_ ($227.40 in chips)
Seat 1 - SPDRACR307 ($154.76 in chips)
Seat 2 - BOXOFSOX22 ($726.10 in chips)
Seat 4 - BOOMBLASTER ($522.80 in chips)
Seat 6 - TARALDSEN ($197.50 in chips)
GOTCHA_ - Posts small blind $2
SPDRACR307 - Posts big blind $4
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to GOTCHA_ [As 6s]
BOXOFSOX22 - Folds
BOOMBLASTER - Calls $4
TARALDSEN - Folds
FLASHFEVER - Folds
GOTCHA_ - Calls $2
SPDRACR307 - Checks
*** FLOP *** [4s 8s 5s]
GOTCHA_ - Checks
SPDRACR307 - Checks
BOOMBLASTER - Checks
*** TURN *** [4s 8s 5s] [5d]
GOTCHA_ - Bets $8
SPDRACR307 - Folds
BOOMBLASTER - Calls $8
*** RIVER *** [4s 8s 5s 5d] [4d]
GOTCHA_ - Bets $20
BOOMBLASTER - Raises $56 to $56

I don't like your betting... if advice/analysis is to be offered, it might be much more useful and/or enlightening for you if you could post WHY you did what you did on each street (particularly on the river). Then we have some insight to your thought process (or lack thereof).

Dispense with the personal comments, they're not helpful.

The second one you have to check the river.

Am I right in thinking that you're Jen's mother?

Ok, calm down, it's not a personal attack. Let me rephrase -- I should have said:

I really don't think you have thought any of your bets through. Especially the bet on the river, which demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the point of betting.  Please explain/justify why you made the bets, as I am sure the process of doing so will show you why your actions were incorrect.

(And no, I am not Jen's mother.)

I think you could probably be a great help to many people on this forum including myself, yet most of your posts just seem to be trying to wind people up. Why tell me to calm down? What have I written that could possibly indicate that I am not calm?

It's your avatar mate...

Sorry, I was not clear in my last post -- I was asking NoFlopsHomer to calm down (lest he moderates me!). I was not asking you (byronkincaid) to calm down.

I assure you that I am not trying to wind anyone up. I love to discuss poker!

I just thought that instead of people telling you why your river bet was bad, you could arrive at the same conclusion quite swiftly yourself, with just a few minutes of thought. I personally learn better when I 'discover' things for myself, rather than being told.

Anyway -- basically, when you bet out on this river, all the hands you can beat will fold; all the hands that beat you will raise. Under what scenario is your river bet profitable?

I have no powers to mod. :( My strengths lie in finding good sources of sherbet and old-fashioned boiled sweets (and playing Half-Life 2).

You're absolutely right about the river bet. :)

Because I'm playing at a site where people often call you down with Ace high I was thinking I was making a value bet. I think I may get called with a lower flush or an overpair as well as a bare Ace. Once he raised I folded. I can see why check/calling is better for the reasons that other people have mentioned already.

What is wrong with my other bets? On the flop I'm thinking woohoo I've got the nuts, do I bet or check and try to let someone catch up a bit. I probably bet 50% of the time here. Nobody bets so i bet the turn to get some money into the pot. I'm playing on a smaller site against the same players a lot, although I hadn't played against Boom before today.

I am very interested in your opinions and I'm sure you could become a valued and respected Blonde PHAer if you weren't quite so headmistressy. I'm sure I have many fundamental flaws in my game but you telling people how crap they are is just going to cause arguements not meaningful poker discussion. There are so many arguements and disagreements on the other blonde forums these days it would be nice to have the PHA forum as a place where people just try to help each other in a friendly way.

You are certainly right in that I'm sure I don't completely understand why/when to bet. I'm here cos I'm trying to learn.

agreed...I would check the river here.

The action on throughout the hand should be player dependend IMO.  You have nuts, but if you will bet 1/2 the pot on the flop, would you be still called?

Is Mr boomblater sophisticated enough to have here FH?
What is his flat call on the turn means?

Has he made his hand?
does he think you have a flush?
He simplay might think that you don't have a flush and trying to steal the pot, or have nuts:)

How often does he come over the top to the raises?

What is he likely to limp with?

So many question not many answers.


As to betting on the river
I think this is a generalisation.
The size of the bet on the river should be adjusted to the player you are playing against.  Against some I would push with nuts and they will still call, so the more I bet, the more I win,
Check call might work on others.

IMO the board is not as important as the opponent and his/hers style to make a decision what to do in this scenario.

Hmm, I don't know why I thought NoFlopsHomer was a moderator... anyway I retract what I said and I will be ruder to him next time.

[That last sentence was a JOKE.]


Um, yes, that is what 'basically' means.

Hmm, I wouldn't describe myself as 'headmistressy'; but I know I come across as terse and impatient (I'm like that in 'real life' too).

Anyway, in every hand of poker, the pot varies in size -- from the smallest pot (which contains just the blinds) to the largest pot (when everyone is all-in).  And of course, I'm talking about size relevant to the blinds; so you cannot say whether a $50 pot is 'large' or 'small' unless you know the blind sizes.

When you play many hands of poker in a row, and especially in big bet poker (ie No Limit and Pot Limit), each session is made up of many small pots and fewer large ones.  Of course, correct decisions must be made regardless of the size of the pot, as the winning of one large pot can easily be cancelled out by the misplaying of several smaller pots; however, since larger pots contribute more greatly to overall variance/swings, there is an obligation on the sensible player to exercise some means of pot control.  The easiest hands to play are the ones in which we hold absolutely nothing, or the ones in which we hold the nuts.  The way we play the hands in-between is much harder, and makes up the difference between having a winning session and a losing one; and the larger the pot, the greater the importance of being correct.

For example, if in every small pot you play you always have the nuts, but every large pot you play you don't really have a feel of whether or not you are winning, your overall poker experience is going to be a frustrating one, full of guesswork and large bankroll swings.

As such, I want to play a large pot when either I am confident that I am winning, or I am confident that I can move (bluff) the opponent off his hand.  The less sure I am, then the smaller I want the pot to be.  I think that in your example, inflating the pot on a double-paired board is a bad idea; as you have discovered, it leads to very tricky decisions.

If you are playing against nutters who call you down with Ace-high, there are so many better scenarios to value bet than the example you have given.  I agree that a player holding, say, two black JJ may love the all-spade flop of 485, and think he is certainly winning against, say, A8o.  But having the attribute of being a nutter doesn't make you any luckier or less lucky than anyone else, and especially since the flop was checked, it is very hard to accurately predict if the opponent holds a Five.

The check on the flop is ok, I would do the same as you suggest and sometimes bet and sometimes check, depending mainly on how aggresively the game has been playing so far.  I am not advocating 'nut peddling' and I don't think the opponent has flopped a set, but in this example I would err on the side of caution and check-call the turn and river.  I think by betting out here you have more to lose than you have to gain.

MrsLime if your explanation above was posted in the first time round this thread could have been very positive indeed.

this is not a valid excuse for some of your remarks.  Perhaps changing your behaviour a bit and toning down your language would enable others to benefit from your otherwise useful comments.  Sometimes one should be responsible for their actions and take into consideration,  how others might feel when posting their hands histories on this forum and instead of constructive criticism, receive belittling comments.  Treat others with respect and they will respect you. 

Thanks MrsLime. tantrum lets not  ;izimbra; eh :D

Jesus Christ.

Yes Darling?



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