blonde poker forum

Wonder how you play this one. Paul is unknown to me, he's in his 30s/40s, definitely not a pro, has an unusual style as far as I knew at the time.

This is early on Day 3, I think about 14 people left, I'm just under average in chips, Paul has just doubled to just covering me. Forgive me but the details are really hazy.

I open Jh Th in late position and he min 3bs the big blind. I don't know the amounts/stack sizes/ blinds at the time but remember we weren't super deep (probably 30-40bigs). But peeling literally a minraise in position vs him with JT suited seem totally fine.

Kd 7d 3c he checks and I decided to check back. He looked like he had something decent and wasn't ever folding to a stab on the flop. I put him on QQ, JJ, TT, 99 as hands he was pot controlling, maybe AQ and AJ and AA/KK/AK/KQ as hands he was trapping. Didn't really see many other hands in his range (to me his min 3b pre from someone of his description was pretty damn strong)

The turn was a Qd and he bets 1/4 pot. I call. I felt I could bluff some diamond rivers when checked to, had 6 outers for a straight that was almost certainly going to be good and would get paid a decent river bet.

River is the 8d and he bets about 40% pot.

I seem to remember the bet was about 70k and I was playing 360k ish. So to bluff raise would cost me a large proportion of my stack and 360k was very playable/decent at that time and the remaing field was a mixture of tough good opponents and recreationals. I had a semi decent live read that he was weak, but nothing concrete. Also, the line he's taken is suspicious. I'd expect him to cbet the flop with AA/AK most of the time, and would probably cbet AQ and AJ sometimes too, not 3betting the latter most of the time also. So his check on the flop sort of eliminates lots of Ad, or at least makes them unlikely. Other flushes he'd bet - only really the Jhigh flush probably, I'd expect a c/c or c/f with inferior flushes. The only Jd combo is JJ with the Jd.

So I summised he probably was bluffing, but I only had Jack high so do we make the potentially suicidal bluff raise? Or opt for the lower variance line pussy out and fold?

Hi Alex,

Well done on your score. Just need to ask, had you been paying much attention to his body language? I watched some of the final table feed and this guy was the archetypal live poker tellbox. People say tells are overrated but not with this sort of player.

I don't know him either and have never played with him but from what limited play I saw, and the chips you need to commit, a bluff seems risky here. Not saying you shouldn't do it, but I pick better spots if I can, but maybe this is why I'm shit at tournaments...

Oh, and you are being very nice/diplomatic if you think he's in his 30s...

Hi, yeh I always offend somebody when making observations about a players age so I just hedge these days :P

I think his body tells are largely to do with other things.... But he was a bit of a tellbox I agree, I watched him so intently during every pot we played together and had a pretty good idea where he was in hands by the time we were 5/6 handed. Did you see the hand he checkraised the turn on and I called him with 2nd pair and was good? I felt I understood the issues he was having with Rastafish as well, and that dynamic allowed me to pull of the 33 bluff a bit earlier on.

This was right at the start of the day though and I had basically no info/history with him.

he never has ak+ i def like emptying the clip

Just bet.flop and turn and if necessary river. Once we reach the river we are repping so thin on this board if we raise river think u were right to give up

A flop bet gets thru almost never imo. Knew he had something. If I bet the flop I have to be prepared to empty the clip I think, which maybe I shouldve done, but in live donkaments I try to keep that to an absolute minimum as ppl just don't fold.

Bluff raising the river probably not a good idea in that case?

They dont fold their value hands, I was considering raising him off a bluff as I had no SDV.

think i just fold turn, call me a nit.

ur hand at this point would make little sense Alex. You're basically repping nuts on river and he may call you very thin. I have no idea whether he was good enough to work this out. I think as played you just have to give up.

From watching some of the final, it was obvious he liked a river hero call (I realise that you didn't know this at the time of this hand).
Pretty much makes him the wrong target for this move.

I'm not trying to get him to fold any value hands, just his bluffs.

He's not gonna bluff the river with ace high or a weak pair and then I raise and suddenly think "oh I'm good now, call".

Yeah possibly, but he maybe the kind to think he's turning his hand into a bluff, but then change his mind and decide he's ahead.
Given the type of player he is, I would be much less likely to try this move on him.

NIT, omg, what a MASSIVE NIT - look, look, look everyone, look at the MASSIVE NIT over there being an absolute nit nitting around wanting to fold like a TOTAL NIT.

NIT NIT NIT NIT NIT NIT NIT NIT NIT NIT NIT NIT NIT NIT!

SUCH A NIT, WHAT A HUGE HUGE NIT - ABSOLUTE NITTY McNITface NITBOX.

oh my god, you're such a NIT.

NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

yh I prolly fold as well, seems like a fine spot to bluff I just wouldn't do it because people like that paul skipper chap get a bee in there bonet about getting bluffed by "young kids" and get the sherriffs hat on with ridiculous hands - the amount of times I've done stuff like this and they've called me with a hand they were accidently bluffing the river is is ridiculous

"well I don't put you the ace so I have to call"

and so forth.

(Alex you're a nit btw)

+1

Can't justify not cbetting the flop by him having a strong preflop range but then call the turn on a card that greatly improves that range.

absolutely treble barrel that shit if need be, ok he's probably not folding the flop, possibly not the turn, but almost always the river as i feel he's range is heavily towards maybe 99-qq. I don't see these random guys check ak aa kk not near enough here deep to put them hands in there, but even if they are, these guys are gonna basically tell you. Ok the turns not amazing but like i said people tend to tell you here if he has qq once you've put in the second barrel in, and even if he does have qq and decided to just peel a second barrel we can still sometimes get a fold by the river this deep.... pressure pressure pressure needed here. As played i fold the turn, guys tend to get way more stubborn once you've checked the flop.

just +1 me.

nah in al seriousness this is exactly what I think too and although understand importance of tournament life etc but think this is too golden a spot to turn down.

Yeah definitely agree that if you fire the flop and he check/calls then you should be emptying the clip. He for sure values his 'tournament life'. We saw a couple of big river hero calls in lol spots but that was when he had all the chips

Maybe the players you guys play with like to fold, but my experience with live poker is that ppl don't fold. ppl don't fold JJ just cos there's a k there.

Trying to empty the clip vs guys like this is just burning money cos no1 ever folds. Just take three streets off them next hand when you have top pair good kicker. or pick off a spazzy river bluff. easy game.

I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've tripled barrelled a fish in a live donkament this year.

I could count the number of times on my hand that i've been called down here by the likes of jacks, not sure who your playing against, but with 14 left or whatever it is left, there's just no way the likes of these guys are calling 3 streets. Im actually LOVING it when they call the turn, more moniesssssssssss

Omg lildave, how did you not use mcnitus?!! Have I taught you nothing?

Oh yeah, poker. What pleno said

fair play, i guess the majority of my live experience is playing cash games where what I said is true.

the july monte carlo was my first 1k you know ;)

the fact he doesnt fold jj is good alex because by the river he definitely will fold it and we get lots of value from his flop and turn calls.

i think in general not barrelling in live poker vs alot of villains in a lot of spots is probably quite a large leak.

A leak that I definitely had in my own game until very recently was being far too quick to label someone as 'station, never folds' and playing way too passively vs these players. The fact that the guy is check/calling with a pretty wide range is a great reason to barrel. When he check calls the turn too we're kinda concerned at this point but he still can have a lot of stuff, a ton of draws, weak pair+draw hands all of which are folding river the vast majority of the time when you put him to a big decision with a pot size river jam.

Against this player specifically I like it even more because I don't see a reason to give him credit for being able to check river with the Ad, and maybe not the Jd either.

Once he has check called flop and turn, the pot is big enough that the river jam doesn't have to work nearly as often as most of us would like it to for it to be +EV

qft

u'll lose a lot of money if you think that ppl will definitely fold JJ by the river just cos it's K high. seriously mate, you've played with ppl in Gib/Spain. They don't fold ever!!!!!!

just manipulate them with bet sizing so that they fold by the river, they hate folding, so you gotta have 3 attemps before its successful.