blonde poker forum

£1/1 at DTD, lineup compromising of all good holdem players (plus me) of which only linton and giblin can play DC. The rest of us are inexperienced but not stupid (I'm being kind here). Most people are at least tipsy, and the game is vv splashy / gambley. Villain is Neil Giblin, comfortably the most drunk, and also getting the lot. Neil knows my holdem game well but will correctly know that I'm pretty new with DC.

I just want to say my thought process about the hand and see whether I'm on the right lines.

So it's straddled to £4 and linton pots it on the button to about £15. Neil repots the sb to about £50.

I am in the bb and look down at Qc 6s 2d Ahrt, I'm playing £250, covered in both spots.

I decided to repot, thinking that either

(i) my Q is good and I can just hold on vs Neil if he changes
(ii) Neil stands pat and I can stand pat behind which might force Neil to break a Jack or Ten (is this massively optimistic?)
(iii) Neil stands pat twice, I can see clearly I'm no good and that he's not going to break his hand, I have two draws to beat him (probably got two shots at 3-7 outs, which I imagine will be between 10 and 25% to come in).

Should I fold pre?

How's my plan/thought process?

Think I should add that Neil being oop to Linton vdeep in a game like Padooki where position is abs paramount, makes it pretty unlikely that Neil is light here pre.

Very long time siince I've played Padooki and although I know villain by reputation I have noty played with him (not a lot point me posting this really!)

But in the games I played in, this is an easy insta fold pre.

 What would Gosney do?

He rings his bank manager to say re mortgage his house and close all the kids accounts and announces he is playing his net worth behind.

He proceeds to take 1 card and its  4c

He stands pat and after Giblin gives it the "i ain't even looked" he knows a 6 is no good so nonchalantly swops the  6s for the  3s lifts his leg farts and declares padooki is all skill.

haha Jason, you must have played a lot of Padooki with Lawrence :D


i) Yes, it's actually extremely possible that NG doesn't have a made padooki yet, however deep, OOP to Linton he is going to have a very strong draw or a pretty smooth padooki most of the time. If he has a strong 3 ccard hand he's actually a favorite over you with 3 draws. This is the most likely outcome tbh.

ii) It's actually quite unlikely he'd have a Q or a J padooki here unless it was really smooth (Like yours is) I guess he'd defo 3bet pretty much any made TEN, problem is he might not be ABLE to break it, if he has T873 or something then he's going to have to call you off and he's not going to be able to stand. Although I do think your assumption is correct if he had J63A and you stood behind him then he'd draw on the next one very frequently.

iii) Yh, you'd have to break then, and you have a v good draw, however if he calls off and doesn't break you prolly against at best an 87/95.

Good benefits to your play are that he's v likely fold a rough T maybe even a rough 9 to you're 4bet, but given how strong his 5bet/calling range is your Q6 isn't going to stand up (as in your defo crushed) so playing this hand is for the benefit of you A26 and facing a 3bet cold I think i'd rather make a tight-ish fold here, Neil alsmot certainly has either a better made hand or a similar/stronger draw and there is still the risk of linton waking up with it behind you (although of course he rang from the btn is incredibly wide)

It's a good spot imo, just not QUITE good enough.

once saw him call a massive family pot pre. Swop 4 cards and get a nut 5 padooki. Played a bit of DC but it was a fast learning curve with Mr G. If he is playing just sit out and watch him perform his magic. :)

abso love padooooki

personally I would just fold here

This is a very marginal spot, right on the borderline - and is thus heavily read dependent. As such, with no reads there is probably not a great deal in it between piling the money in and making a tight fold (obv the only thing not to do is to call here).

In this particular situation I would tend towards piling the money in though. This is based on having played with Neil quite a bit at padooki over the last few months and noticing that he is not as cognisant of positional considerations at padooki as he should be. Added to this is the fact that he is drunk so I would guess that he is a little more likely than usual to be wide for value here.

These sort of spots (i.e. having a made padooki with the ability to break and draw smooth) are unique to padooki-type games, and analogous situations do not occur in games like Hold'em or Omaha. Essentially your 4bet is a hybrid bet, a sort of merge that does not fit into a precise category of either (semi-)bluffing or value-betting. Sometimes you fold out a better made padooki like a rough J or T (you have bluffed out the best hand), other times you get action from a smooth draw that wants to gamble with you (you have 4bet for value), and other times you get called by a better padooki but still have a decent chance to suck out (and now you must rely on the 'semi' part of your semi-bluff).

Three important points to make though:

1. If both Pete and Neil get all-in with you here then you must break the Q, even if Neil draws one in front of you. You are a dog vs two one-card draws and have around 33% equity. Of course, if you knew that Pete was also drawing then you could pat and take your chances since you do have about 33%. But the chance that Pete might be pat behind you makes this a clear break.

2. If you end up HU with Neil and he pats in front of you then you should usually break the Q immediately rather than trying to beat him in a game of chicken. I won't go into the maths on this, all I will say is that it is a serious mathematical mistake to give up one draw's worth of equity on the off-chance that you can 'trick' him into breaking a J or a T.

3. If HU with Neil and he draws then obviously you pat. However, if he pats on a later draw then you should break - barring a ninja read that he is putting a move on you with a flush/bigger padooki. It is a very bad play for him to pat as a bluff in this spot for several reasons, the main one being the strength of your range. So if he randomly manages to get you to break by patting a small flush (and you fail to outdraw him when you break) then you can just console yourself that he made a mistake against your range, and simply got lucky to run into the bottom of that range.

N.B. If you had a hand like Qc 4s 2d Ahrt it is a MUCH easier 4bet. It might not look like too much of a difference, but replacing the 6 with a 4 makes a significant difference to equities in those situations where you end up breaking. In general, the majority of players do not appreciate the importance of drawing smooth at this game. In fact, if your hand was Qc 7s 2d Ahrt then I would recommend almost always folding it. Like I said, the Qc 6s 2d Ahrt is right on the borderline.

Think that is all I am going to say on this hand. Don't want to give the shop away for free at padooki.

Thank you Stu, that is a great post. I'm actually glad you didn't go into more detail or make it more complicated as I feel good that I understand all of it, and it was pretty much what I was thinking, besides being wrong about trying to get him to break a better hand by patting behind on the first draw.

I'm also happy that I didn't make a bad mistake and also that I could realise that this hand was close.

Two things to take into consideration :

- how much is being drunk going to make me want to give my money away?
- Pete is the one player I am not going to be iso-ing light in this game.

If I had iso-ed virtually anyone else, then I think shipping with your hand is somewhere between fine, and compulsory.

I have no recollection of any of the hands I won or lost, therefore no idea what I was thinking at any point during this session (most probably 'who's round is it?' at frequent intervals), so I can't add a lot more .

lol. Great post