blonde poker forum

15 left 9 pay blinds 1500/3000 antes 300

jim mcbride makes it 8000 utg (stack size approx 120k)

folds round to me on the button with  9c 9d (stack size approx 220k) i raise to 23k

blinds pass and jim calls the 15k more.

flop  Kc  7d 2s and jim checks and i check behind

turn  6h jim leads for 25k and i just flat him.

river  2h jim now shoves for 72k

what do i do ? am i ahead? how bad have i played this upto now?

i think i know the answers to all 3 esp the last question but would like some feedback

thanks

I'm not exactly sure of the best approach here so I tend to think how others would play it. eg one of Luton's winningest players  - the Sicilian - would check behind on the flop for pot control (so yr spot on here) and then at the end bluff call and declare a full house.

Personally, against Jim here, I think the check behind is perfect to under rep what you have and its a snap call on the end.

Good one turny.  My only query relates to the size of your raise pre-flop. I'm thinking a little bit bigger may be better. say 27k. To me your raise to 23k makes it too inviting for him to call with hands like KQ, KJ, KT suited etc.
 I may well be totally off the mark with the raise size stuff. Hopefully i'll learn something when others put me right. I suppose seeing a flop in position is not too bad either? A lot would depend on your assessment of your opponent, ie-does he normally play aggressively close to the FT bubble, or is he very tight / straight forward and only raising UTG with premium hands?
  The more i think about it, the more i'm liking the idea of a flat call, pre-flop. As played, with no other info, i would fold to the all-in.

Couldn't disagree more with this post.

It's a bit late for pot control when we've 3-bet pre and put 20% of our stack in.

I think the best line would be to bet/fold the flop. Never getting exploited by any live reg.

cos it 3 bet 10% by stack pre.

looking back i think i should have bet the flop.

am i wrong to call his turn bet? should i just fold or put him in? i called as i thought he would check the river

Definitely cbetting this flop,once you check no way should you just fold the turn.Doubt he calls a shove with worse on turn so think calling is best.Hate life when he shoves the river and wish we'd cbet flop and not played it so passively.

How well do we know villain ?

I think I bet the flop given the 3-bet pre. Still got a v playable stack if you have to bet/fold if c/raised.

Makes the rest of the hand easier if you bet the flop I think

As played, and knowing Jim fairly well, he can turn up with pairs <99 and random stuff (he did this to me with J10 in a similar spot once) here quite a bit. He tends to fire a big bullet when he's unsure of what to do (ie he doesn't like checking and giving up). I call

So you're saying this Jim McBride is like beyond ultra terrible then?

There's now 50k ish the middle and we have 100k back just off the money. 85%+ of the time we have the best hand. Let's take it down now if we can.

This isn't a deepstack cash game where we can check back (don't think it's right to ever check back this board here without some sort of very specific read/dynamic). We either want to get value for our hand before scare cards come off OR most importantly not give off a free one when we likely have the best hand and allow our opponent to outdraw us.

If Jim hasn't led, and therefore doesn't have a king by your reasoning, then we can also sometimes make him fold 1010-QQ.

If you check and a J or a Q comes off and Jim bets, what do you do?

Basically our hand is very strong at this point but too vulnerable to give off a free one and don't want to end up second guessing ourselves on later streets

although i know the villian i have not played that much with him as usually i seem to get drawn on a different table.
your spot on with the analogy that i hate life and regret i didnt bet the flop.

do u pass or cry call the river?

interesting this tighty as i to didnt put him on a king here but at the time i was worried he had 10 10 or j j but the more i look back at it the more i am discounting these hands

spot on cos on how i feel looking back at the hand.

ok so how its played out what do you do on the river?

I don't have your game Paul, but I do know these players well, obviously

He leads a King on the flop, irrespective of position. I am pretty sure of this

Yes he can turn up with 10-10 and J-J on the river (obv Q-Q+ you are hearing about it pre) but the raange does include <99 pairs and bollox random stuff too

Fold pre.

i actually passed the river after asking him if his pair was bigger than mine lol he showed  8c 8h doh!

thanks for the comments guys

Giving Tighty's info I definitely call,obv in your spot you didn't no this but I struggle to ever fold a pair tbh so I'd have prob sigh called coz I like being a hero.I would expect he wouldn't be vbetting river with 1010 or JJ and would 4bet ship it in pre with QQ+.I'd expect he'd bet flop with a king so I'd only really be worried about 77 or 66.

I bet villain doesn't even know why he shoved the river

I've just googled Jim McBride and actually sat next to him at the last DTD £300.

I raised cutoff with A7dd, flop A39, check check and then I checked turn and he couldnt help by barrelling turn and river and when I snapped he said 'Ace fuckin rag, you MUST be a fuckin superstar'.

If we know he leads any king on the flop then we must really put him on a house or a bluff which would make me lean towards call but only vs this opponent as I know he doesn't mind bluffing. Ordinarily this would be a fold.

Seems weird that he always leads a King, seems very exploitable. With info given I cbet smallish and expect to take it down the vast majority of time.

Standard Jim comment to anyone without premium hands in a pot with him

I`d fold that spot to Jim tbh Turny regardless of the math

That said Jims changed his game quite a bit in the last 6 months or so,and most people haven't picked up on it yet  and he`s getting away with a fair amount at present

Nice result in the tourny though m8,he won the battle not the war and that's all that matters in the end

thanks mate, we both won the war he was involved in the chop to ;-)

vs standard live nit I'd happily fold but this guy seems capable of spazzing a fair bit so probably snap it off, I think all of his bluffs use this betsize

vs this villain I prefer your line to a flop bet/fold unless its true that he always leads a K, in which case a flop c/r is almost always a bluff that we can induce with a bet.