5/10 nl - flop play

Bozzer

Villain in this hand is a tough LAG. One of the top NL players on this site.
This is only 2nd time we’ve been at a table together.
I’ve been playing tighter than usual.
Villain probably thinks I’m a little tight.

We’ve been playing together for nearly 2 hrs but haven’t tangled much. He’s been raising a lot preflop.
I think I’d only reraised him twice - 1st time he folded, last time I got to showdown kings.

On to the hand…

5/10 nl (7 handed)

A loose limper (1100). Villain (3.5k) raises to 45 from MP.
I (2.8k) re-raise to 160 from button with 10d4d.
Villain calls.

Flop 6s 5d 4h (345)

Villain checks. I bet 300. Villain check raises to 1k.
I push for 2640.

Comments?

Dr_Colossus

Terrible play and I would expect he calls getting 3:1 and shows you a good pocket pair or suited connectors such as 5 6, 6 7 or quite possibly the nut straight 7 8. Your all-in re-raise is putting him on AK or possibly AQ when you only hold bottom pair with no draws bar a back door flush draw. Granted your tight table image might get him to fold mid pocket pairs but against a good LAG player your play has to be -EV. I don't think he's check raising a tight player who showed strength preflop and on the flop with air.

handsfree

you've got balls man. its this type of play which costs me money. if the villian thinks your tight he probably has you on a k or something. anyway he probably thinks you've missed and would call with a pair of 4's. your kicker is crap so basically your fooked.

NeVeR

i agree, this is bad play. He raised. and for some reason you re-raised with 10 4,,?

Even tho he raises alot a reraise was not the move here...

I'd put him on pocket 8's or 9's

But thats alot of money to risk on the hope he had nothing... he might even have A6

Ste05

I have to say I love this play.... In over 2 hours of play he's only tangled with him once or twice, one re-raise he folded the other he got to show KK.

Look at this from the other guy's point of view, he knows that Hero's not mixing it up too much with him and only playing solid hands against him, he re-raised pre-flop, bet the flop, then re-raised all-in what do you put him on???? And what do you call with.....

The move takes balls, and at the lower levels there's not a chance it would work, but I find it very hard to see the Villian calling this bet without AA, KK a set, or a made straight.

Looking forward to seeing how it worked out. I know when I do this kind of thing my timing is way off and I'd be crushed but I'm looking to see what happens here..

Bozzer

Preflop reraise is definitely questionable. It is something I would do very rarely. I thought there was a good chance he would fold and I had intended to show (to induce action later).

I'll give my full thoughts on the flop play later, but you should think about how villain would play a big hand here (note stack sizes and my likely hand range - JJ+/AK)

ocallagh

He should make a good lay down with JJ/TT, because 98% of the time you have AA/KK here. wp

edit: this move rarely works at lower levels.. but 5/10 I suppose you have to mix it up now and again! It has to be timed perfectly.. i think you got it just right here.. so did the villain make a bad call? or did he get lucky to hit top set?

Bozzer

I mightn't be around later so I'll post my thoughts on the flop action now.
(Slightly looong)

You need to ask yourself why villain would take this line with a straight/set/2 pair. He's interested in maximising his winnings against my big pairs(which are quite likely given preflop action). How would he do this?

The answer is not by check-raising. If I have 10's/J's/Q's and maybe even K's his check-raise puts me under maximum pressure. It's not just a case of having to call the extra 700 on the flop. I will have less than a pot sized bet left on the turn and so I will essentially have to bet my whole stack when I call the flop. So what villain is doing is putting me to a commitment decision with his check-raise. Great nl players are expert at this, putting their opponents to a decision for their whole stack without committing their own.
It's a skill you have to learn to do to beat the higher levels.
So a chk-raise by villain has a lot of folding equity against 10's-Q's. This means villain could do this with a wide range here - air/7's-10's/2's&3's/67. Out of these hands 67 and 77 are the only ones I'm worried about.

For the reasons above it is unlikely that villain is gonna take this line with a monster. He's far more likely to lead hoping i'll raise it up with a big pair or call down. If he doesn't lead he's more likely to chk-call than chk-raise.

How might villain play J's-A's. I think JJ/QQ would look to chk call flop, lead turn and fold to a turn raise. It is possible tho that he'd chk-raise the flop.
I think AA would not chk-raise the flop as it could drive out the smaller pairs it wants to play against. Similar reasoning for KK.

As Ste said,what hand does it look like I have here given the action so far and the fact that I've been playing solidly for 2 hours. Villain's not gonna call my push with some random medium pair and not even JJ/QQ if he happened to take this line with thise hands.

So I believed a push was +EV. I also have about 16% equity if it turns out I was wrong:) .

I had considered checking behind on the flop,but I bet when I realised that villain was unlikely to have a big hand if he check-raised,yet there was a decent chance he would try one given that he likes to run over games.
If he had raised to more than 1k then I'd be more inclined to just fold.

Bozzer

Oh yeah villain folded after about 5 seconds at which stage my balls slowly began to unshrivel.

careca

Bozzer wrote:

Oh yeah villain folded after about 5 seconds at which stage my balls slowly began to unshrivel.

Did you show ? (your hand now, not your balls )

Hectorjelly

Do you mind saying what site this was on?

Theres about 1645 (345+300+1k) in the pot and you call 700 more (2345) and push for 1940 more. So the villain needs to call basically 2k into a pot with a little more than 2k in it. So he will always call with a set, 2 pair or a pair and straight draw. He should fold an overpair if he thinks hes behind to a bigger one, (but AA is probably possible here).

You are risking 2640 to win 1645, so your bet has to win 61% of the time to be breakeven. Allthough you have some equity when called it will be sometimes close to 0. So whether the reraise all in is profitable largely depends on how often you think the villain has air here, based on your description it sounds like he is unlikely to have a strong hand most of the time, but 67 is the real danger hand because he cant fold it getting 2:1 and it fits the play because he would want to maximise his folding equity given that he assumes he is behind.

I hope you showed the hand when you folded, because that IMO would change a marginal high varience play into possibly a great one. Even strong players tilt, and even if he doesnt the other players will notice.

Culchie

These stakes make me dizzy, never mind the types of play you need to be able to pull off.
Fecking 2K in a pot, 2 fecking K, with another 2K to call !

Bozzer

Yeah i showed it - had to. Villain didn't tilt but others certainly gave me action. Hand was played on stars, I don't usually play there but decided to for a change.

As for the hand, I really didn't feel villain had aces here. He gets weaker hands to fold too often by check-raising. As I said before 67 and 77 make sense with his play but I felt like he had air enough to make the push profitable.
A big weakness villain has is not being able to adjust his play against tougher players. He still tries to run them over but good players will be able to spot situations where he's gonna be weak often. I think this was one of those situations.

hotspur

You said the villian was one of the better players, who was it?
Well done btw

CoD

The way i see it, villan has a marginal hand, puttin you on AK etc.

Sees your tight knows you'll fold anything except a high PP here, so raises your continuation bet on a low flop, and if you push he can get away from it easy enough.

When you push he puts you on a high PP so gets out. Its a good play against a good player as long as u dont run into the top 3 hands.

willis

Bozzer wrote:

I mightn't be around later so I'll post my thoughts on the flop action now.
(Slightly looong)

You need to ask yourself why villain would take this line with a straight/set/2 pair. He's interested in maximising his winnings against my big pairs(which are quite likely given preflop action). How would he do this?

The answer is not by check-raising. If I have 10's/J's/Q's and maybe even K's his check-raise puts me under maximum pressure. It's not just a case of having to call the extra 700 on the flop. I will have less than a pot sized bet left on the turn and so I will essentially have to bet my whole stack when I call the flop. So what villain is doing is putting me to a commitment decision with his check-raise. Great nl players are expert at this, putting their opponents to a decision for their whole stack without committing their own.
It's a skill you have to learn to do to beat the higher levels.
So a chk-raise by villain has a lot of folding equity against 10's-Q's. This means villain could do this with a wide range here - air/7's-10's/2's&3's/67. Out of these hands 67 and 77 are the only ones I'm worried about.

For the reasons above it is unlikely that villain is gonna take this line with a monster. He's far more likely to lead hoping i'll raise it up with a big pair or call down. If he doesn't lead he's more likely to chk-call than chk-raise.

How might villain play J's-A's. I think JJ/QQ would look to chk call flop, lead turn and fold to a turn raise. It is possible tho that he'd chk-raise the flop.
I think AA would not chk-raise the flop as it could drive out the smaller pairs it wants to play against. Similar reasoning for KK.

As Ste said,what hand does it look like I have here given the action so far and the fact that I've been playing solidly for 2 hours. Villain's not gonna call my push with some random medium pair and not even JJ/QQ if he happened to take this line with thise hands.

So I believed a push was +EV. I also have about 16% equity if it turns out I was wrong:) .

I had considered checking behind on the flop,but I bet when I realised that villain was unlikely to have a big hand if he check-raised,yet there was a decent chance he would try one given that he likes to run over games.
If he had raised to more than 1k then I'd be more inclined to just fold.

Thanks for this excellent insight into your thinking here, its a really deep insightful analysis into the reasons for your play and i havent read too many posts likely. WP and nice pot

NickyOD

The reraise with T-4 is -EV regardless of the fact you're on the button. Also no matter what the villain had he misplayed his hand. If he is considering folding after check raising then he shouldn't be doing it. A better play would have been to check call then lead the turn.

Hectorjelly

NickyOD wrote:

The reraise with T-4 is -EV regardless of the fact you're on the button.

Poker is a game of situations, and there are some situations where your cards are almost irrelevant; for sure a reraise with T4s every time you get it is going to be - EV, but then so is raising 67s on the button every time. In this case with the image that Bozzer has, and the positional advantage he has this is going to be a money making situation, as long as he can outplay the villain. And based on the hand he did just that.

Very few hands will get showdown in hands like this, especially at this level, so unless someone flops a monster your hand strength is actually pretty immaterial. T4 has the added advantage that when you show it looks crazy. Even if its a slightly -EV move (and I dont think it is) it doesnt exist in a vacuum, and could help getting paid off in the future.

NickyOD wrote:

Also no matter what the villain had he misplayed his hand. If he is considering folding after check raising then he shouldn't be doing it. A better play would have been to check call then lead the turn.

It would be a big mistake to never fold after a big check raise, as it helps your opponents to play close to optium from that point on. Also check calling and leading the turn is ok play if you have a medium overpair that wants to see if its good and you are playing someone with no balls, but you will get eaten alive playing like that against a good LAG. Its hard to fault the villain on this hand alone as he tried to push someone off a hand and got rebluffed in a spot where almost noone will bluff.

fuzzbox

Bozzer wrote:

Villain in this hand is a tough LAG. One of the top NL players on this site.
This is only 2nd time we’ve been at a table together.
I’ve been playing tighter than usual.
Villain probably thinks I’m a little tight.

We’ve been playing together for nearly 2 hrs but haven’t tangled much. He’s been raising a lot preflop.
I think I’d only reraised him twice - 1st time he folded, last time I got to showdown kings.

On to the hand…

5/10 nl (7 handed)

A loose limper (1100). Villain (3.5k) raises to 45 from MP.
I (2.8k) re-raise to 160 from button with 10d4d.
Villain calls.

Flop 6s 5d 4h (345)

Villain checks. I bet 300. Villain check raises to 1k.
I push for 2640.

Comments?

This is chip spewing. If Villain has AA then you certainly wont convince him that you have that beat, and it sure looks as though villain is ready to play, and therefore almost certainly wont fold.

Villain probably plays KK to the felt too. Maybe you can take him off QQ/JJ, but thats about it.

I dont like it - hope it worked out.

fuzzbox

Ste05 wrote:

The move takes balls, and at the lower levels there's not a chance it would work, but I find it very hard to see the Villian calling this bet without AA, KK a set, or a made straight.

But thats precisely what villain has!
The problem here is that Villain almost certainly has AA/KK (or *maybe* a set, but he probably doesnt check-raise a set so hard), and when he makes it 1k to go postflop, its not likely that he is laying it down.

heros hand looks like a big pair/AK, therefore the rag flop doesnt scare the villain and he is very likely to call.

Horrible play.

Amaru

You know what always helps in making an informed opinion? Reading the whole thread first!

fuzzbox

Bozzer wrote:

I mightn't be around later so I'll post my thoughts on the flop action now.
(Slightly looong)

You need to ask yourself why villain would take this line with a straight/set/2 pair. He's interested in maximising his winnings against my big pairs(which are quite likely given preflop action). How would he do this?

The answer is not by check-raising. If I have 10's/J's/Q's and maybe even K's his check-raise puts me under maximum pressure. It's not just a case of having to call the extra 700 on the flop. I will have less than a pot sized bet left on the turn and so I will essentially have to bet my whole stack when I call the flop. So what villain is doing is putting me to a commitment decision with his check-raise. Great nl players are expert at this, putting their opponents to a decision for their whole stack without committing their own.
It's a skill you have to learn to do to beat the higher levels.
So a chk-raise by villain has a lot of folding equity against 10's-Q's. This means villain could do this with a wide range here - air/7's-10's/2's&3's/67. Out of these hands 67 and 77 are the only ones I'm worried about.

For the reasons above it is unlikely that villain is gonna take this line with a monster. He's far more likely to lead hoping i'll raise it up with a big pair or call down. If he doesn't lead he's more likely to chk-call than chk-raise.

How might villain play J's-A's. I think JJ/QQ would look to chk call flop, lead turn and fold to a turn raise. It is possible tho that he'd chk-raise the flop.
I think AA would not chk-raise the flop as it could drive out the smaller pairs it wants to play against. Similar reasoning for KK.

As Ste said,what hand does it look like I have here given the action so far and the fact that I've been playing solidly for 2 hours. Villain's not gonna call my push with some random medium pair and not even JJ/QQ if he happened to take this line with thise hands.

So I believed a push was +EV. I also have about 16% equity if it turns out I was wrong:) .

I had considered checking behind on the flop,but I bet when I realised that villain was unlikely to have a big hand if he check-raised,yet there was a decent chance he would try one given that he likes to run over games.
If he had raised to more than 1k then I'd be more inclined to just fold.

I have to say that I believe that your thinking is flawed. Sure villain probably doesnt have a set/str8, but he probably *does* have AA/KK. If he has AA then he calls instantly. I would call with KK too, but maybe you made him laydown KK here. He can play QQ/JJ like this also, and you *might* get him to lay those down (Although if he is a LAG, then he is used to ppl taking shots at him with less than stellar hands).

I think your big stack is your only saving grace here.

Trying to induce *big laydowns* is not +EV.

fuzzbox

Amaru wrote:

You know what always helps in making an informed opinion? Reading the whole thread first!

Why?
Reading the whole thread will potentially cloud my judgement (especially if I see the results).

Bozzer

fuzzbox wrote:

I have to say that I believe that your thinking is flawed. Sure villain probably doesnt have a set/str8, but he probably *does* have AA/KK. If he has AA then he calls instantly. I would call with KK too, but maybe you made him laydown KK here. He can play QQ/JJ like this also, and you *might* get him to lay those down (Although if he is a LAG, then he is used to ppl taking shots at him with less than stellar hands).

I think your big stack is your only saving grace here.

Trying to induce *big laydowns* is not +EV.

Just to clarify I'm not trying to induce a big laydown here. I'd reason to believe villain was weak(which I gave in my post).
You say that villain might laydown JJ/QQ here - I believe he lays them down close to 100% of the time.
You do correctly talk about the fact that LAG's are used to ppl playing back at them without a big hand/as a bluff. But this definitely was not a situation he expects somebody to bluff in and I was not the person he would expect to play back at him with a marginal holding.

There is an argument against my play which I'm not sure has been brought up yet.
If villain is taking this flop line with air then he should also be taking this line with his strong hands. But this isn't necessarily true if your opponents aren't adjusting correctly. If most of the table is folding to often to your aggression then you don't 'have' to play equally aggressive with your strong hands.
In theory your play should be easily readable but poor players have trouble reading. If a good player(s) is at the table then he might pick up on what you are doing but you don't really care because the masses are making enough mistakes (by not adjusting properly) to more then compensate.

Besides,if villain did decide to balance his play with a big hand,I don't think he would choose this particular situation to do so.With a big hand in this spot he's gonna focus on making some $ against JJ/QQ which are in my range. I don't think check-raising the flop to 1K is how he'd go about it.

It's also important not to understimate what a play like this can do for your image. Say if I thought that this play was neutral EV(but high variance) in a vacuum then I'm definitely gonna make the play so long as I got the roll because of future implications.

handsfree

this is the type of play i am looking to achieve where the game becomes not one of cards and hand strengths but one where you can pick up on your opponents patterns and manipulate situations where you can make a profit. well done and continue this style.

fuzzbox

Bozzer wrote:

Just to clarify I'm not trying to induce a big laydown here. I'd reason to believe villain was weak(which I gave in my post).
You say that villain might laydown JJ/QQ here - I believe he lays them down close to 100% of the time.
You do correctly talk about the fact that LAG's are used to ppl playing back at them without a big hand/as a bluff. But this definitely was not a situation he expects somebody to bluff in and I was not the person he would expect to play back at him with a marginal holding.

There is an argument against my play which I'm not sure has been brought up yet.
If villain is taking this flop line with air then he should also be taking this line with his strong hands. But this isn't necessarily true if your opponents aren't adjusting correctly. If most of the table is folding to often to your aggression then you don't 'have' to play equally aggressive with your strong hands.
In theory your play should be easily readable but poor players have trouble reading. If a good player(s) is at the table then he might pick up on what you are doing but you don't really care because the masses are making enough mistakes (by not adjusting properly) to more then compensate.

Besides,if villain did decide to balance his play with a big hand,I don't think he would choose this particular situation to do so.With a big hand in this spot he's gonna focus on making some $ against JJ/QQ which are in my range. I don't think check-raising the flop to 1K is how he'd go about it.

It's also important not to understimate what a play like this can do for your image. Say if I thought that this play was neutral EV(but high variance) in a vacuum then I'm definitely gonna make the play so long as I got the roll because of future implications.

What hand, then are you representing? You are trying to represent AA, but why would you push with AA after this check/raise (if indeed you had AA), as you then give villain an opportunity to get away from KK/QQ/JJ. No, you should often call this check/raise in position and then just call when he pushes the turn.

Villains can certainly make this play with JJ+, but its more likely to be QQ+, and when he lays down its almost certainly QQ or KK you got him to fold. QQ does not want to see an A or K on the turn, so check/raising to end it there winning a pretty nice pot is perfectly reasonable. Same for KK really.

I think you did induce a big laydown, and that is good, but you were risking an awful lot to find out if he did indeed have AA or if he was too stubborn to lay down KK or QQ.

padser

Bozzer wrote:

I mightn't be around later so I'll post my thoughts on the flop action now.
(Slightly looong)

You need to ask yourself why villain would take this line with a straight/set/2 pair. He's interested in maximising his winnings against my big pairs(which are quite likely given preflop action). How would he do this?

The answer is not by check-raising. If I have 10's/J's/Q's and maybe even K's his check-raise puts me under maximum pressure. It's not just a case of having to call the extra 700 on the flop. I will have less than a pot sized bet left on the turn and so I will essentially have to bet my whole stack when I call the flop. So what villain is doing is putting me to a commitment decision with his check-raise. Great nl players are expert at this, putting their opponents to a decision for their whole stack without committing their own.
It's a skill you have to learn to do to beat the higher levels.
So a chk-raise by villain has a lot of folding equity against 10's-Q's. This means villain could do this with a wide range here - air/7's-10's/2's&3's/67. Out of these hands 67 and 77 are the only ones I'm worried about.

For the reasons above it is unlikely that villain is gonna take this line with a monster. He's far more likely to lead hoping i'll raise it up with a big pair or call down. If he doesn't lead he's more likely to chk-call than chk-raise.

How might villain play J's-A's. I think JJ/QQ would look to chk call flop, lead turn and fold to a turn raise. It is possible tho that he'd chk-raise the flop.
I think AA would not chk-raise the flop as it could drive out the smaller pairs it wants to play against. Similar reasoning for KK.

As Ste said,what hand does it look like I have here given the action so far and the fact that I've been playing solidly for 2 hours. Villain's not gonna call my push with some random medium pair and not even JJ/QQ if he happened to take this line with thise hands.

So I believed a push was +EV. I also have about 16% equity if it turns out I was wrong:) .

I had considered checking behind on the flop,but I bet when I realised that villain was unlikely to have a big hand if he check-raised,yet there was a decent chance he would try one given that he likes to run over games.
If he had raised to more than 1k then I'd be more inclined to just fold.

I dont like the play. I think you are getting called with AA, KK, and a set. I think all of the above are possible. You have already said the player is one of the top no limit players on the sight.

Also the detailed reasoning you gave is possible in live action but not so possible online where (certainly I find) you simply dont have time to go with such detailed reasoning.

Bozzer

padser wrote:

Also the detailed reasoning you gave is possible in live action but not so possible online where (certainly I find) you simply dont have time to go with such detailed reasoning.

My reasoning during the hand wasn't this detailed. When he check-raised the flop I felt he was putting a lot of pressure on me and that he probably would take a different line with a big hand. I felt I could get him to lay down pairs from QQ down and maybe KK. You don't really need to think hard about your image or how your opponent's playing because that's always in the back of your mind and governing your play.
For this thread I just expanded on some thoughts I had during the situation.
You can take an action at the table without necessarily covering every reason why you are doing it - a lot of it is instinctual,yet given time you can articulate why you took such an action.

Bozzer

fuzzbox wrote:

What hand, then are you representing? You are trying to represent AA, but why would you push with AA after this check/raise (if indeed you had AA), as you then give villain an opportunity to get away from KK/QQ/JJ. No, you should often call this check/raise in position and then just call when he pushes the turn. QUOTE]

A lot of players could push AA/KK in my situation. Maybe they don't wanna give a free card to a straight. Maybe they expect to get called by a smaller pair. Maybe they think a 4 card straight on board will kill their action.Maybe they just push it in because they are happy with the size of the pot.

Villain doesn't know that I'm not thinking any of these things because we haven't played enough together.