blonde poker forum

£50 rebuy tournament.

Just finished the rebuy period blinds are 400-800/100

I have 50k, Villain has me covered (just - he has about 58-60k)

I'm new to the table, and villain is a complete unknown. he's about 40, smartly dressed and looks studious.

I open in the cutoff to 1800 with 66.

BB defends.

Flop JT6 with two diamonds.

He checks, I bet 2500. He calls.

Turn is a black 9.

He checks again, I bet 6000. He dwells up for a long time. I *think* he's contemplating a raise rather than a fold, but eventually flats.

River is the 9 of diamonds.

He fairly quickly bets out 10k.

We?

Without reads just call - Stacks seem awkward to raise fold.

I'd raise. Sizing seems a bit blocky and not nutted - there's not a bunch that beats us combo wise and he'll have a flush/straight a lot of the time. I'd make it 25k/fold, like enough to look potentially like a bluff but not so much that his curiosity won't get the better of him.

If he quickly bet 10k in two chips worth of denominations i'm inclined to raise even more.

(mods: didn't seem to have option of editing my post to get that in)

32k in the pot. Call seems lovely.

Is this a 50p thread? You call and he shows quads.

I am trying to think what hands a probably solid/nitty player leads river with,that has called that flop? I don't think he would with a flush.

Raise. You're good here so often. There are so few boat combos he can have as played. The only hand that makes sense you're losing to is J9 and possibly 9T. Depending on villain he folds the odd suit combos pre anyway 

I also wouldn't worry about having to raise fold because we only going to do it with a boat and you're going to get flushes to call by almost everyone here. There are also quite a few diamond combos (naturally) so it seems a great spot to make it like 23k or so.

Not a 50p thread at all.

I called and was good.

He had KQ.

There was general incredulity at the table I didn't raise, including some dark muttering of "soft play"

If stacks were deeper I would have raised, but raise/folding didn't seem like an option here.

And if he shoves I'm not good very often, right?

You can raise fold, ignore that the fact the stacks are a little awkward. They are only awkward because when you do raise fold you have lost almost all your chips.

The combo of straights and flushes are pretty high compared to FH combos, he might fold to a raise but he will more often call and never raise.

Well if he jams then he just has the absolute top of his range in this spot so we have to fold, but that's no reason not to raise for value in the first place.

Flatting river seems insanely nitty, he just peeled cutoff vs button and while your smartly dressed 40 year old is more likely to be flatting the JJ/TT in that spot than most we still have to discount them to some extent and he has a ton of combos of flushes and straights and flushes. Even if he only ever calls the raise with A/K high flushes they still far outweigh his boat combos and you're not getting bluff jammed on by worse on a paired board.

I make it 26.5k and if he jams just fold.


Can you elaborate on this a bit? Wondering if theres something I'm missing here

Getting 6/1ish for my remaining 15k, I don't think I'm passing if I raise and he shoves.

Can I ever be 85%+ certain I'm beat in that spot?

With reads I guess it's possible.

Readless, I'm not a good enough player to do that.

I think raise calling is still even better than just flatting though. Admittedly I've called the river here when I've planned to fold because I'm tilted but I pretty much only ever do that if I'm steaming.

Aren't we in danger of folding the best and if we raise/fold here in this type of comp? I've seen people do all sorts of dumb shit. He might jam over with KQ

i jam

+1

raise/call for me for sure.

I can see an argument for raise/fold or even jam but raise/call seems risky. Calling a 4 bet river with bottom house would usually only beat bluffs and we don't know if this player is that good. I agree with George that if he is good then raising this river may be the only way we can lose the hand.

Still like the flat call. Certainly not a softly played hand IMO.

I think what George meant wasn't that he might be "good", but that he might massively overvalue his hand and accidentally turn a value shove into a bluff. I don't really agree with this reasoning though, it feels similar to saying we shouldn't raise rivers in general without the nuts because we might be beat. The long term result of it being (imo) a losing play is going to stay the same since we'd have a read on his comfort level at the table (posture, how he handles chips etc.) and live £50+r's don't typically attract the complete novice punters which he'd have to be here for the above to apply.

we'd all jam if we had you REP :P

seriously though given how likely it is he has a flush, and how unlikely he is to fold it raising seems fairly mandatory.

I can agree with all that, but I still think the flush would only call your raise (assuming you are not jamming) and if he 4 bets you he simply must have better than a flush.

I know I bang on about tourney equity all the time, and it kind of appears nitty to just call or maybe fold certain PHA threads. However this is the prime example of tourney equity suicide I mean. That goes double for satellites where there may be many first prizes as most live sats have.

If there is only one seat for first I jam hoping for flush to call. In this situation with multiple seats I call and reap an already juicy pot most of the time and occasionally when I am beat I look like Phil Ivey. Is this correct theory or am I way off base?

Gouty - 100% think in a satellite flatting absolutely best play theory wise where it is all about accumulating chips. I would say that there is an argument even there for jamming to lock up a seat tho. Situation/blinds/players left/ number of seats dependent obv

Think flatting best in all situations tbh. Feels like we may have been coolered and raising just creates the potential for another sick feeling in the stomach if we get jammed on. Yes, we may feel we have an easier decision but that does mean we have put a vast amount of our hard earned stack in the middle, only to have to fold and not even see of we are beat. Therefore I think if I raise in game, and he jams I am likely in a "show me a winner" mode.

Pot size says to me flat. If we win we have a really healthy stack to go to war with going forward. If we lose we still have a stack we can get some play out of and are not straight into push/fold

Just read the op and nothing else before deciding and i think as it is explained and without history or reads its a call. Plenty of players i know where you could jam here and get called off by a flush or worse but would need to know them before jamming.

Raise/fold just sucks here against an unknown so why even entertain it? Again, if i know the player and their game then we could raise fold.

If we give him a river range of straights or better and he jams river with nut flushes and boats then I'd estimate that we're getting jammed on <10% of the time. Even if we always fold when he jams, he only has to be calling his good K-high flushes to make this raise greater EV than calling.

I'd contest that the vast vast majority of players aren't even thinking about jamming their nut flushes, they're just calling which makies this a clear raise imo.

Taking villain as described (40ish, smartly dressed playing a live £50r), which statement do people think is more likely to be true?

a) Villain will play cautiously against river raises
b) Villain will make thin river 3b jams for value

I know which one I'm choosing

Ok its reasonable for him to have a better house, however this bet size seems pretty weak. This, coupled with the fact its so hard to make straights and flushes live, probably leads me to jam.

Raise fold totally out of the question due to stacks. People love to hero call live...etc.

(You've gotta also remember people sometimes over value hands - particularly  live - and therefore if we raise and he jams, theres a small chance he does this with worse).

strongly agree with this, especially in a live 50r, vs a well dressed 40 year old :-)

40k in our stack, facing a bet of 10k into 20k pot.

How often do we get called by worse? Why would a flush bet-call? Even those would be Ax hands and he only called pre OOP. I would think it more likely he has a hand that is behind that doesn't call or ahead that doesn't fold.

Seems like a 90% call to me, unless you can read weakness or smell pigeon.

Will now read the other responses and learn how wrong I am...

I hate this "people won't call worse" ethos. Let's not raise quads- we don't get called by worse. People call with 89th nuts all the time

Ok, fair comment. Let me rephrase:

Villain has defended, check-called, contemplated a check-raise (we think) but elected to call and then led the river for half pot.

If we raise and he calls, are we more likely to see him turn over T9o or A4dd?

need to dust off my smart shirts and tweed sports jackets and look a few years older next time i play. i wanna look like a well dressed, 40 year old and have these internet kids jamming on me.

every time i ever bluff in live comps they call me with something fairly weak. Hence why I like to go all in when i have a good hand :)

Bolded seems pretty important. T9/J9 may well raise the turn and sets raise the flop. I think how villain has played this hand explains enough to show that raising the river is best.

We think he intended to check-raise the turn but changed his mind. Does that influence your thinking?

Not as good when they are jamming on you with FULL HOUSES though :P

I still think there are enough weird and wonderful hands in his range. I can imagine flatting with a really strong read but I dont think this is enough on its own.

I would definitely raise-call. Don't like thr mindset of jamming just to save ourselves a difficult decision, especially when it happens so very rarely and realistically it's not a difficult decision at all. Raising is better than jamming as he may not know he covers us and if he does know he'll know it's not by much so by going all-in we're essentially putting him to a decision for his tournament life.

In any case, going by his line and sizing and the fact that this is a live £50r, imo he has better ~5% of the time if that.

If you aren't prepared to elaborate on that and explainwhat about the line and sizing makes you think that he is only in front one in every twenty times, this looks like an empty statement to me.

Think the only two people saying jam is Railtard and Middy, pretty sure neither of them think it's best to save a tough decision.

If we raise we expect to just get called by worse pretty often, I'd say in live poker with stacks sizes if he's calling a raise he will call a jam a high enough % of the time for jamming to be better than raising.

this seems like a clear jam yeh. he most likely wont fold very good hands and we lose a decent chunk when he just calls when we make it small.

i just call like keith did in these surroundings, ive seen some real hero folds in this spot in live local rebuy tournies and the range the villain would need to call is so very thin. there is an intangible relationship that you need to build up with your neighbours in live poker, that gives you a huge edge :). Seriously, just call and tell the guy that you could have raised but were being friendly, then simply open on his BB every time and show one card and claim a pair. EX GAMEZ

Ha, great post. There speaks the voice of real experience.