blonde poker forum

It's a live MTT, this hand is against the only other decent player at the table. The rest of the table wants to limp every hand and fold when they miss. I'm raising most hands, and taking most hands down without showdown. At the point of this hand i have 75k, starting stack was 30k.

Blinds are 200/400.

I have pockets 9s in the bb, there is 3 limpers and the SB makes up. I raise pretty big, about 5/6x. 2 players fold, 3 of us see the flop.

Flop comes down 872 rainbow, no flush draw.

I bet about 55/60% pot.  Limper folds and the sb calls.

The turn is a K.

Would you check or bet here?

Just curious what the best option here is. I was thinking about checking, but felt the King was a kinda brick, didnt see him having 2 many Kings, AK KQ felt would have been raised pre. I'm not worried about the King 2 be fair, so i value bet quite small, it was about 40% pot. I was doing this for pure value, to get called by his 8x or 7 x hands.

Opponent min check raises me, i'll go into that later.

On the turn, Check or bet?

I'd do the same as you and bet on the smaller side for value/protection. Checking would probably be fine too but i prefer to bet just so another overcard can't peel off making it harder for us to extract value from worse, allowing him to realise equity and potentially just avoiding giving us a tougher spot otr on some runouts if faced with a bet.

Once he c/r's turn i'm folding. In the situation as described i'd expect some silliness to go on but expect to be way behind around 85% of the time.

Personally, I do not raise this hand pre. If I get the chance to set mine 5 ways at the relatively early stages of a live comp, I'm going to take it. People don't fold pairs, and with 4 other people out there it makes it a whole lot easier for one of them to make a pair if we make a set. If we raise, end up OOP, likely in a multi way bloated pot, with a hand that does not actually flop very well. We're very often going to flop second pair and be left guessing, and put ourselves in tough spots for absolutely no reason. Just my opinion, I know some people like raising these hands.

I would bet this flop regardless of whether I've raised pre or not, for sure.

I also bet this turn card again either way, because it is basically a brick. Highly unlikely to be floated by a Kx hand, there's always a chance someone can have AK/KQ (this is a live comp, people do lots of weird shit because they "don't like AK" etc so its not completely out of their range), but this is a relative brick and we can potentially get another two streets for 8x, and another one street for 7x or a bunch of straight draws, depending on the player. So yeah, I bet turn, probs like 50% pot and then smaller on blank rivers for thin value, but 40% is probably fine too.

I also definitely fold to the check raise. This is just so rarely a bluff, almost always a set of 7s/2s in this spot. Definitely throw my hand away here, and ask him to show the 2 :p

I called the turn raise, theres no draw's, I don't think he check raises a King here ever (if he has a king), i'm pretty sure he doesn't have a king.

I'm only really worried about a set. Really it's a set or air, unless he's made a crazy call with K8/ K7.

He could have slow played a set on the flop, but I suppose I was thinking he's going to want to take control of the hand with a set on the flop oop.

If he smooth calls, Checks the river, i'm checking behind.

I'm not loving it, but feel he can be bluffing here. I've been winning an awful lot of hands, and he knows I've been really aggro. He could be thinking i'm betting with air and the check raise will take it down.

The river is another king, villain bets 12k. I actually quite like the king as I can't see him having a king here. I reckon its a full house or air (hes slow played a set on the flop).

He wasn't really giving much away as he didn't seem to be nervous. I was so close to folding, but we were having a bit of a chat, he said if I folded he would show his hand.

When he said that I thought he was bluffing and called and snapped my cards over.

If there's no draws surely this therefore strengthens his turn c/r range? Live players who have limp called can have all K8 K7 and K2 combos, particularly with the price he'd be getting.

There seems to be quite a bit of "he thinks that I think" jazz going on here. He can definitely have a whole bunch of two pair combos that would check min raise the turn, along with a bunch of sets, and I guarantee that regardless of the outcome of the hand calling this bet on the turn is not going to win you money. This line is also a little complicated for a standard live player to take as a pure bluff, and for a good player is downright stupid. As already stated, the absence of any draws aside from the straight draw makes it very hard for him to be bluffing with a draw, and even then, I'm not sure I know many people that would check minraise the nut straight draw on the turn :p

I will also point out that people who are relaxed and having a chat with you in a live game are more often strong than weak.

How many chips did oppo have? I am pretty pissed again so probably missed this but I did read it twice. If he is decent as you infer he should have a set or 78?  K8 seems a pretty poor call pre oop. He won't bet 12k on river unless he is vv good with 78 so you are beat or he has gone bananas with 9t.

What did he have left or is he Aaawwww in?

The turn decision is dependent on his stack size too. It's either check/fold or bet/fold. I seem to find decent live players don't like making pots big oop early doors without either a hand or good equity. There aren't any hands with great drawing equity here though.

It's quite an interesting hand tbh.

Thanks everyone.

Gouty after this hand if he loses he is still going to have a stack, prob a bit below starting stack.

When I flip my cards over he insta mucks.

It was the hardest decision I had the whole tournament.

We continued chatting he said good call, and said he had J9 for a gut shot. Of course he might not have had this, but I believe him.

He seemed like the only decentish player at the table. As in when he entered pots he would raise instead of limping. Every other player at the table limped.

I don't really mind that he has raised here on the turn with a gut shot, as a lot of the time, I suppose, he feels he's winning the hand there and then (against me).

I think he has to just check give up on the river tho.

Well done on catching the bluff

I think long term, most players have it in this spot for the reasons given previously. (His table chat normally means strength, raising the turn after calling flop)

It appears that he saw your smaller turn bet as not loving your hand and saw it as a spot to take the pot. I agree with your defensive bet size but think you should fold now.

Sure he will bluff you a small percentage of the time but not enough to make calling the turn +EV

Thanks Swine/ everyone.

I'll need to learn to fold more:)

check pre, check/jam turn if you arent too deep. if u are deep, 3bet induce turn

The turn for me is a great barreling card. You could quite easily have any number of Kx holdings. A lot of the time you get this through.

His check raise screams of value.

the problem is we arent trying to get it through or bluff. We are trying to get the best value out of our hand.

I actually think this is a bad card for us, for this reason. Makes it a little less likely for us to get three streets from the range we expect to be calling the flop. We definitely don't want this range to fold. Bear in mind that in a live tournament such as this, we are NOT playing our range against their range, we are playing our actual hand against their range. As said before, their range includes a whole bunch of hands that we beat on the flop, and very few Kx hands. We don't want a scare card, we want value baby!

100% agree that his check raise screams of value though. However, you did succeed in catching one of the few times that he's bluffing in this spot, a lot to be said for dem ninja live reads!

Think it's a pretty decent turn for you to be honest. It's a card you're going to be barreling with your air a very large % of the time as it's one of dem big cards we would rep. Thus our opponent should know this and be calling pretty happily will most/all of his 1-pair+ hands (in theory) at least once more. If we barrel 3 streets on the biggest brick turn/rivers then it's pretty hard for us to be just air-balling around. We get a lot more heroes on run-outs like K,5 than we do on say 2,3. That said people don't much like folding pairs, so bricks are good too.

As played turn seems pretty polarised from villain, generally speaking people just have it here, so it's a simple fold. Pretty rare a random raises the turn without a very strong hand, let alone on a turn which hits our perceived range. But hey, you got it right, in live games I guess instinct can override population tenancies.

I would bet 1/3rd pot to encourage draws and hands we beat to continue. If we got raised I'd call and be pretty ok about it and would station most rivers

Echo comments about way the hand was played, but I'm interested in the reason for you calling the river.

Psychologically, people like celebrating success. It is a common thing to hear someone you know in any context say that something has gone well and want to share their joy with you. Not a brag, but a genuine and honest expression of joy. Poker sees a lot of that. How many times do you see people show aces when everyone folds to their pre-flop action? Why is that? We instinctively want to share our achievements and, as daft as it sounds, being dealt the best possible starting hand is an achievement.

Any desire to show cards may be taken as a desire to share an achievement. "I'll show you if you fold" is frequently a way of saying "Hurry up and don't throw your money away; I'm bursting to show you and everyone just how good these cards are!"

There are exceptions, as with every good rule. Some people will only show bluffs and this can be a way of demonstrating power and dominance over the table. It is a way of showing who is in control; who is boss. Where a player is identified as a threat, this is more common, as the alpha male will seek out the beta male to humiliate them and put them back in their place in the pack. In that case, a desire to show the cards can be a desire to show a winning bluff.

To test the theory, if you think Villain shared your view that you were the only two good players at the table and if you think it is likely he would be inclined to pull that sort of move, you can test him with a question that challenges his dominance or you can take a view on it and decide how important your image is (remembering that a weaker image than you play is normt a bad thing).

If he asked you the question just as you were going to fold, it's likely he was saying something to change your behaviour and that would mean he wanted you to call, which signals extreme strength. I'm expecting that isn't what happened here.

You might think all of this is irrelevant mumbo jumbo. It's one of the main reasons I love the game :)

I don't play much live poker. Hardly ever. I used to think it would be a lot easier to get "tells" live than online. Because i've played so much online now, though, it's so easy to get tells, mostly bet sizing tied up with how the player has been playing in general.

I don't really agree with the whole psychological aspect. Especially the 2nd part in bold. It's a table of limpers, some1 will limp and call a raise. Others, like the guy on my right, would limp and always fold to a raise. The 1s who limp call are always folding when they miss. At this table if the villian in this hand, he seems okish, but i'm going for value against the other players.

Maybe it is his attempt to try and assert some authority over the table, i would just imagine he's trying to get me off the hand. Don't think there's anything much deeper going on here. Sure if i fold he maybe flips over his cards to show a bluff. Would this mean he is the big man? Not really imo, he's bluffed 1 hand. I would just think nice bluff, onto the next hand. Naturally in poker there is a psychological aspect, a big aspect, but i would say the whole alpha beta thing is just over complicating things, and would say that's not really at play.

Why i called the river.

I never mentioned this before what happened was, after i bet the turn he went to raise. He put in an amount that was 2 small. So he had to make up the difference, so in the end it was a min raise. I suppose it was a bit odd that he had fumbled with his chips, and got the raise size wrong. I felt it was a bluff here and am pretty sure he just checks the river.

For some reason i had it pegged he would raise a set on the flop, given how deep we were. I know it's a dry board, but felt he wouldn't slow play a set on the flop.

The river another K, i'm loving this card when it drops. Pretty sure he doesn't have a k. As per the turn, i'm sure he's checking the river.

When he fires quite a chunky bet on the river i'm hating it. Normally i make quick decisions, online i have 15 seconds to make a decision!

I kept saying outloud is it a set, and chatting away, he wasn't budging there was no reaction. All the time i'm talking through the hand (out loud) he's giving nothing away. I was closeish to folding. I was thinking he's saying he has a set by his bet size (FH now on river). I don't think i ever considered it was a king tho it could have been. It was only a flopped set that was worrying me.

I was thinking, and this guy not involved in the hand chirped in that he was calling time. I don't even know if people not involved in the hand can do this, and without a tournie director being there. I didn't pay to much attention to this guy he has just limped pocket jacks 2 hands previous!

Before the guy had shouted time i had counted out the call. To see how much i had left behind, if i call i'm still above average stack wise (i doubled up the 4th hand).

The opponent said something 2 me, and for some reason i just announced call and snapped my hand over.

I believe everything that happens is significant. I place far more importance on what I see and hear than most but that is fine. It certainly doesn't mean I'm right or I'm doing something better than most. I can happily write a lot about my perceptions of things like these but 1) I'm far from an expert and 2) It would only be my opinion. Really would take it all with a pinch of salt.

The action you've just described of him fiddling with his chips and getting his raise wrong is a huge tell in this context. Mahoosive. It makes it very unlikely he is strong and that is crucial when you factor in his action, because his range is hugely polarised on this board. If he can't be quite strong (because there aren't any quite strong hands in his range) and he can't be very strong (because he has miscalculated the raise size in the way you described), he is almost certainly weak.

As for the dominance thing, don't overstate it, yes, but don't believe it doesn't exist. You are playing a game fundamentally designed to reward only a select few of the players. Human nature makes us competitive. It's in the wiring.

Like I say, just my two cents' worth.

Hey Tal,

Was a really interesting post you made 1st time i've ever seen something so psychological discussing a hand!

Definatly a lot of psychology in poker and we do all want to win!

In the hand when it came to the river, the fumbling with chips, was almost disgregarded cause he continued with such a strong line.

I was thinking maybe weakness shows strength and all that jazz.

Cheers for the posts.

No problem. It's good that we all have different ways of looking at things. Keeps the game interesting.

Nice call, btw ;)

Definatly! The hands thrown up some great discussion.

Regardless of the result, maybe i am 2 much of a station!