A hand at DTD, £0.50/£1 cash game, I have £230 in front of me. The table is eight handed, the fish are all at one end of the table and they have been getting lucky.
I am in early position with
I raise to £8 and get two callers. Pot is now £25. I have position post flop amazingly.
Flop is
Checked to me, I briefly consider checking it back but then remind myself that this always ends in tears, so I bet £15. The only caller is a young oriental kid who is the living definition of a calling station. He could have anything. He and his mates are out to have fun so he really could have any two cards. He has around £150 when we started the hand.
Everyone else folds.
The turn is
Happy days. He checks to me again. He has something. I am putting more money into the pot. The flush draw is there and some weird combos might make a straight. I bet £35, maybe not quite enough but if he calls £35 he will call a pot sized £55.
He calls. The pot is now £125.
The river is
He checks, I bet as big as I think he can call with a weak Queen, King or weak two pair, which is £50.
He instantly topples his chips all over the line. I am not going to be stacked if I call but it’s about £80.
It’s £80 to call and there’s £305 in the middle. Minus the rake it’s 3.75 to 1 to call.
He either has a big queen, maybe a king, a set of threes, Q,10, KQ, a backdoor flush or a straight. He is not bluffing.
Any Jack makes a straight with this river but I can’t put him on that as easily - what hand that includes a Jack would he call me with on the flop? Maybe pocket jacks but they would surely have raised pre-flop? A suited jack (clubs) will find a call and then another one obviously once the King on the turn gives him an up and down straight draw.
So it’s not looking great. I don’t think he has a flush or if he has he’s an even bigger fish than I thought. A set is consistent with the way he has played the hand. So is two pair, especially if he puts me on AK, as everyone always does.
I make the crying call and he then f***ing slow rolls me, taking an age to turn over his cards, long after I have patiently displayed my set, even though I didn’t have to.
He tables
Someone else has a go at him for slow rolling but I can see that he’s just an idiot who genuinely doesn’t know what slow rolling actually is, so I don’t say anything. Actually that’s a lie - I say out loud to the player who is complaining about it, “..look if he’s stupid enough to call with that shit pre-flop in the blinds, and then a gut-shot on the flop, then he really won’t know about poker etiquette.”
Yes, meow. Anyway, in what situation can you pass top set on the river when you have been check raised? Two friends at the table disagreed about whether I should have called - one said my opponent was so confident that he had to have the nuts and the other said that as the way the hand played he would look just as confident with two pair or a set of threes.
Is anyone passing here with those odds even though his body language was very strong and to be honest how often is a check raise on the river a bluff?
..oh, and if he turns over
, have I made a bad call - seeing as this is the only hand out of about four or five that he can have that can beat me?
I often get criticised for not betting the river in position but recent check-raises from my opponents holding the nuts have reminded me why I often don't bet if the board is too scary.
Whatever, I am sick of giving away money on the river. I need a break.
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