blonde poker forum

Live MTT

early-ish blinds 100-200. Average 7,000

Hero 9,000

UTG 12,000

SB 7,000

BB 6,000

All are solid players, if they bet they should be assumed to have it types

UTG limps

Hero limps with  8h 8d, prepared to set mine if there's a LP raise.

Folded round, Both blinds complete check

Flop  2h Kc 8c

It's checked to hero

Is your default line to bet here? With what sort of frequency do you give a free card to your tight opponents?

I bet my set about 90% of times, but with 2 flushing cards on board I aint fot giving any free cards here at all.  I think sometimes betting set disguises the strength of your hand, what you have to consider here i think is your own rep your renowned for being a tight player so checking the flop or calling a bet maybe not too bad.

pot sized bet here,

 would never give free cards when 2 to the flush

I prob lead out here too for just over half the pot.   Need to get something in the pot and if they all fold so be it.

surely by betting just over half the pot your giving them odds to call surely you dont want a call?

 I'd be happy to take this 1 down on the flop

With position you might as well bet out now. Someone might think you're having a go at it because nobody's shown any strength.

You can then check or flat the turn to show weakness hoping to induce a bluff or value bet on the end

Oop you could check call, check call. Hope for no club then represent the missed flush bluff but in this situation you're buggered really.

Ideally for set mining you want someone to have raised. This suggests they have a strong hand and you're more likely to get paid.

In this instance you're more likely to be up against limping type hands, suited connectors etc. so you can't afford to be giving free cards.

Not much chance of being paid well here unfortunately. You're unlikely to be up against 2 pairs. Best chance is KQ, KJ, K10 (unlikely as they probably lead out) or if you're really lucky 22. Other than that you're not getting much here without risking a lot.

You seriously want people to fold worse hands here?

I know my thinking behind this, rightly or wrongly, but can't quite explain it lol!   (I'm not the best at PHA posts)  

Basically, a flush draw isn't the only hand that's going to be calling a just over half pot bet and I don't want to get rid of everyone.  Also, there's more of a chance of a thrid club not coming than the flush arriving so I want to be building a nice sized pot.

Bet 3/4 pot (600).

Checking here is awful - you're against three opponents, if none of them will call a bet here, then none of them will on the turn either unless they improve to be ahead. You've got to try and get some money into the pot - if none of them have owt, so be it.

That's madness.

With that attitude you're only looking for action with a set if it's a rainbow board.

You can't be scared of the flush all the time and want to scare everyone away with an overbet.

Admittedly you don't want to be giving free cards but they're 4 to 1 against hitting a flush if they're on the draw so there's no harm in a half pot sized bet.

If you happen to take it down on the flop you just shrug your shoulders and get a bit upset that you didn't maximise your value from this huge hand you've made. You're definitely not looking to take it down now to avoid losing.

Evilpie and Andrews posts are what I mean.

I check it back, ur viewed as too tight to get action from bluffs (checkraises), kings will bet flop as will fd's. Check it back, let someone takeoff, board is ridic dry and you have the nuts, give someone opportunity to do something silly.

I did bet 600, they all folded.  Oh well. I almost always bet here, btw.

My point in posting is really what Alex refers to here..if you yourself have a rock image, is there any mileage in checking, accepting the risk that someone may have two clubs, however unlikely, and hoping someone im proves on the turn?

In other words, build the pot down the streets not on the flop


Just experimenting with different thoughts.

Looking at the other responses I can see that obv i am playing to tight or i just dont want an awkward decision later

as I say, my standard play is to bet here say 2/3 of pot or more to pot build. Not because I am scared of the flush card coming..something Flushy rammed home to me on PHA!

alternative I pondered was check flop, call a bet on the turn (hopefully someone takes a stab/improves) and raise, board texture permitting, on river

different risk/reward from the hand.

I don't exactly know your reputation but if it's "if he bets he's got it" then there's no harm in giving another card.

Problem is obviously if another club comes you will get scared if you're genuinely that tight.

Also if someone takes a stab at it on a blank turn as soon as you call or check they're going to completely shut down. You're only ever going to get an extra 600 - 800 out of this pot unless someone hits then you're going to lose unless you bink a house.

This is the problem with a tight image. You're only getting paid off on your monsters when someone else has a slightly smaller monster.

my image sticks, whatever I do

I only check here, theoretically, in full knowledge that I won't be scared off by a flush card hitting IMO

You theoretically won't be scared off.

Unfortunately no matter how much Flushy rams it down your throat you're still scared of that flush or you wouldn't mention the texture of the board.

Because of the way you play you have to bet out unless you can totally disregard that flush because people will know that they can bluff you off a winning hand if that club hits.

would my thinking have something to do with the limits that i play at?

Shouldn't be a factor tbh.

What are your limits?

He's talking about a river raise, at which point the texture of the board could be clubclubclubclub or KK228 or something like that

normally $12 180 stt

Limits you play at would be a factor.
If at low limits most random players are going to happily stack off with top pair no kicker, then you should simply bet out 3/4 pot on all three streets for maximum return. (imo)

so what is the benifit of raising 3/4 pot instead of pot as i do?

Fair enough.

Check flop to call a bet on the turn seems reasonable but how do you cope when the board gets scary?

What if they lead out for 800 when a club comes on the turn? Are you calling that knowing that they're likely to go at you again for 2k on the river which could well be another club?

You can get creative here but you have to have your stall set out now and know how you're going to deal with the scare cards. Then you get to out play the fool who tries to play on your reputation as a total nit by sticking one in his eye on the river because you knew from the start that he couldn't have had 2 clubs in his hand or he would've lead out. If he happens to have one club well that's life but statistically on a 4 club board he shouldn't have one so even then he gets snapped off because he must be bluffing or else why wouldn't he check to call your bet?

You won't always have a set when you bet.

3/4 pot does the same job as pot.

Sometimes we bet flop and want out opponents to fold. If we standardize our bet at around 2/3, 3/4 pot then we don't waste too many chips with out continuation bets. It also keeps the pots a little smaller in general which is not a bad thing in tourney play.

If we only ever bet pot when we have it, and less when we don't, players will clock onto this, even at low limits.

To maximise return like Tank says.

You're not doing it to scare people off though. You're doing it to build the pot against players who will overplay much weaker hands than yours.

You will also often induce a semi bluff shove from players with 2 clubs which you will obviously snap off.

I think it's just because as AlexMartin said, the board is dry.
The possibility of clubclub landing is a more acceptable risk than if there were other possibilites for scary boards, such as four cards to a str8 coming out.

We have a set just jam it in.  We have da nuts.

There's a lot of emphasis on Richard's tight image and whether this means he gets no action. But that muddys the water because the fact is nobody has a hand anyway. You might say that is an easy conclusion to reach after everyone folds but the clues are there before you even bet. a) Nobody has raised pre - usually means nobody has a hand. b) Board K-2-8.

Forget the clubs for a second...who gives you buisness on this board? The texture is all skewy like. And we know UTG's got no king when he checks. So your main customer doesn't like the board and the blinds prob have little of nothing as always. If a King doesn't bet, which would surprise me, they're trapping (or at least not going away on the turn), which is all good for us.

It's all very well saying you bet your set 80% or 90% of the time. But isn't a K-2-8 board one of those times you don't want to bet? People say stuff like "I'm not giving a free card", but who's on a club draw? Giving a free card is not a negative thing if nobody's got anything. The problem is you see clubs and bet to protect your hand against clubs, but in reality your hand didn't need protecting against clubs. On a K-2-8 rainbow board peeps NEVER bet 3 eights in an unraised pot I would say.

fold on the flop

Raise pre.

then fold on the flop

can we at least wait for the 8 turn and K river to come so we can fold to obv Quad Kings.

Yes, but wait til it's checked to you, then look at the dealer, shake your head in disgust and fold face up.

and say.... fucking learn to deal something decent you useless prick?

""and say.... fucking learn to deal something decent you useless prick?""


Assuming you have checked the card room for brothers and or cousins?

If you say this you have to throw your drink at him pretty much 100% of the time.

side bet on vinny doing this sometime in 2009 someone pleeeeeease make a book.

I think you are approaching the problem the wrong way round imo. If your image is so well defined that you need to cooler people to get paid, I would contend that the fix is not to check it back in spots like this. Rather, get into the habit of betting on the come more often on these types of boards. It sounds like you have created a license to significantly open your range in a variety of situations. So start betting all your draws just as strongly and watch people take forever to adjust to your increased aggression.

Playing against what people are expecting in the broad sense = profit. Checking it back here equates to contracting your range even further and being more passive - neither of which are good as it just pigeon holes you further and makes you easier to play against. At some point in the hand your aim has to be to extract a large bet (in reality your aim should be to extract the most chips possible obv) and even if a flop check earns you a bet from one pair on the turn - everything they know about your game won't melt away when they are considering whether to call off to a value bet on the river just because you checked the flop.

The old mantra of "changing gears" doesn't just apply to an individual session or series of hands. If you are regularly playing tournaments amongst a relatively small playing base (i.e. usually four or more faces you know at a table) then you should be constantly shifting strategy in the medium to long term picture (wide to contracted range and then back again).

If you open up your betting frequency eventually (by the sounds of it in your case it would be a while!  :P) you'll reach a point where you are getting owned by light call downs a few times - at which point you go the opposite direction and start tightening up again. Play against the tide, or something.

thanks Lloyd, welcome back to PHA

your thoughts are apposite here, been reaching the same conclusions myself for games against regular opponents.

Top post from Lloyd!

FWIW I would raise pre, and hit your set that way

Can we get more Lloyd posts on here please, awesome contributer.

As a little aside, I think Tighty has such a Tight image, I reckon we all stake him for a GUKPT main event on the rule that he has to reraise every other hand from start to finish. It would be the first ever GUKPT won without any showdowns ever (until heads up obv)

strangely enough, I do do plenty of things but the image is unshakeable!

advantages and disadvantages of this obviously

Surely if we do this 100% of the time he villain gets wise and starts to duck when we throw the drink?
If we do it about 72% i think this would maximinse the chances of getting them full in the face?

Agreed.  Stick around Lloyd :)up.

Good post. I deffo agree that tighty should be opening his betting range on all flops. I think you are blending two concepts, which (when the player pool is ridic soft and small) are pretty much the key issues here. Metagame is one and exploitation v exploitabiliy is the other. Given one is rendered obsolete by the fact bad live players dont adjust at all, i think we can safely assume we can go for exploitation 100% of the time given we wont ever be exploited. As Lloyd says in his last sentance, this will revert at some stage (in 2021), but with your image so well ingrained you really need to increase your bluffing frequency a lot and make a point of showing everybody how wide your ranges are.

Or surely he can continue bluff with almost complete impunity?  Are you saying that live players tend not to adjust their play according to the player; or that they pigeon-hole a player and then that image is cast in stone?

Lloyds Back! Excellent. And what a good post to return with. Everything he's said is quite correct, especially for remoulding a new image and trading off it. However, in this specific spot with today's image checking it back is still the best line for the here and now for all the reasons that have already been mentioned. That said the long term ambition for us all must be to arrive at an image and style of play which is the most profitable it can be.

im saying that maximising your hand value is more important than belencing your betting range in this spot, that tightys range needs to be wider to get more action and that he needs to bluff a heap more to get paid off with the goods.

hmmm a bit results orientated imo. Must do it 100% If it's the correct move then its the correct move 100%.

Yeah, pretty much agree with this. Dashing the drink 100% of the time is correct, however I would say varying the size of the drink makes you much less predictable. Order a double scotch, 1/2 a bitter, and a pint of lager dash, and put them on the little table by your seat. You can then mix your drink dashing up a bit and this would render you fairly unplayable imo.

never seen celtic drink in his life. celtic do you drink or is it beneath you?