iggymcfly

Hand 1: I think you played it exactly right. That looks a lot like A-K or even a set of aces or tens. You pretty much have to throw that away on the flop. One possible mistake is the re-raise preflop. Unless you know that people are raising with garbage, that A-Q might play better by just calling. That way you'd be more likely to get action from a weak ace, and less likely to get into trouble against A-K, QQ, KK, and AA.Hand 2: Your move works fine, but I'd probably bet the turn in a NL game. Checking telegraphs your flush draw, and pretty much guarantees that you won't get paid off if you hit

I actually do like the idea of a check-call on the turn. When you check-call there, it's much easier to get an idea of what your opponent might be holding, and then you can either get paid off well if you think he doesn't have it or fold with minimal damage if you think he does.Redpill, the impression I get from this hand is that you're playing too tight/straightforward, and that your opponent picked up on that. I'm thinking he figured he was ahead and had so few chips left in relation to the pot that he decided he might as well push all-in.

Oh, one more piece of information. The opponent flopped a nut flush about 30 hands ago, and check-raised an opponent all-in who had $125 remaining when it was 3 handed. Just thought I'd throw that in there as I was definitely thinking about it at the time.

This is a heads-up hand in a cash game that I thought was interesting. We'd initially been playing 5-handed, but after people kept leaving the game (mostly due to going broke), it got down to just the 2 of us.I thought this would be a good hand to post on the forum, as I didn't find out what my opponent had until after I'd decided that I was going to post it. Thus, you can't guess what my opponent had just by the fact that it's up on the board.Anyway, here's the situation. My opponent was initially playing tight and straightforward, but has been getting more agressive as we got three-handed an

I say there's about a 5% chance at best that he actually had 33. He probably actually had something like A-10.

Actually, I didn't phrase that well at all. I was thinking in a heads-up situation, it would be 55%. I guess what I really meant is that on average, you'd have 110% equity on the money you put in the pot. Obviously, if you see an 8-way flop, you're not going to be a 55% favorite to win. Being 14% on average, and then 28% when you're one of the four people that continues on the turn would be perfectly reasonable however.The point is that it doesn't take a very big edge to beat the rake in limit poker.

lol @ somethingwicked. I'm in Washington right now, and I'm playing a 10/20 game online while I'm posting.Now for the OP, don't listen to the people that say you need to "set aside" $2000 to play in a 3/6 game. That's absolutely wrong. If you were trying to play for a living, or bound and determined to make your internet bankroll go up, or even decide if it was profitable to move up in limits, those considerations might be true. However, if you're looking to have fun at the casino, and make a little money on the side, then there's no need to get so extreme.I'd say that if you're playing 3/6, j

Sometimes, I might like to check-call with top pair, but this is absolutely terrible situation to do it. First off, your pair is low, and you'd be vulnerable to be outdrawn by a 10, J,Q, or A. Second, you have such a solid kicker, that it's extremely likely you're ahead. I say c/r the flop if you think there's a decent chance they'll bet with no hand, and lead out if they're weak-passive. I think that check-calling was unequivocally wrong in this situation.

To the OP:Just by playing good cards and playing the well, it is possible to gain significant advantages on your bets. I'd say that in a limit game around the 15/30 level, it is easily possible to get your money in on average as a 55% favorite. So, if you're playing at a table with a $150 average pot, and a $3 max rake, even if you consider an average rake of $2.50, then that's still less than 2% going to the house. Thus, if you just play as well as I listed, than you'll be consistently making profits. It's not that hard to understand. Variance makes it difficult to make money in the short ru

I think that if you'v got a solid read on him for A-K, you should really just take a flop. A-K's a really hard hand to move people off of, and if you see a flop, you have an advantage because he only has 3 cards to catch an ace or a king instead of five. Of course, with the flush draw + overs, you probably would have gotten called anyway, but I think that taking a flop would definitely be advantageous in the long run there.

Your real mistake in this hand is the minimum raise on the flop. Having trips with a low kicker is pretty much a "way ahead/way behind" situation. If someone doesn't have trips, they're likely to bet out only if they have you beat, or if they're making a bet to see where they are and will fold to a raise.Also, the minimum raise is basically telling the other player "I have a king and I want you to put money in the pot." If you were going for a re-steal, you would have bet more in order to put some pressure on your opponent. I think that in this situation your best move is to just call the $7 b

OK, folding that A-Q from the first post would be ridiculous. You were easily getting the right odds to draw to the nut flush with implied odds.If the all-in player had the straight flush, then bad luck I guess, but I don't see how you could possibly know that from the action. Furthermore, if you do hit your spade, you can still win money on the side pot from the other player, (who appears to have been on a spade draw as well.)Finally, raising makes no sense whatsoever as there's already an all-in player, and you'd make very little by stealing the pot, and also cut down your equity significant

If you just came to the table, then I guess you can go ahead and fold, but a lot of players at the 1/2 level will bet just over the size of the pot on the button only as a bluff. If you've seen him do that a couple times already when he's last to act, then go ahead and call him down. If the draw hits, give the "hesitate and then check" like you hit your hand but you want to check-raise. If he gives a big bet after the draw hits, go ahead and fold.

There are certain situations where this bet works. (In a tournament, where you're not sure if you're ahead and you don't want to commit your whole stack.) However, in general, I think it's almost always a -EV move. I found that the biggest leap I made in my NL game was deciding to check and then make a decision when I was unsure, instead of pounding out "defensive bets".The thing is that you usually do better in either situation by checking when you're unsure. If you're ahead, you're much more likely to get a bluff out your opponent who will read you weak and try to take advantage. Likewise, i

Actually, some of these hands are possible to fold, just not in the situation listed.I had a situation the other day, where I had top full house, (with two pair on the board, and hitting my kicker), me and my opponent both had 200+ big blinds, and my opponent moved in on me.In retrospect, I really think I should have folded it, but I didnt and I cost myself a huge pot.Likewise, I'm pretty sure that if you're similarly deep-stacked, and there's two all-ins, you might be able to assume that one of them has AA.However, if you're folding either of these hands with only something like 100 big blind

I'd say at least take a shot at 2/4. If you decide that the game's too tough when you get up there, you can always go back down.Actually, I'd say there's a small enough difference between the levels, that if you have been "crushing" the 1/2 game as you say, you should be able to beat a 2/4 game no problem.

Oh, you won. Never mind. I know for sure now.It has to be.......pocket deuces!I could totally see someone deciding that they weren't going to let go of their full house when you were on such an obvious bluff. If it's not that, then the backup choice is A-10.

I'll routinely limp with KK in early position in NL Sit & Gos in the first couple rounds. I'd say I get a chance to reraise at least 80% of the time, and lots of times, people will get pot-committed and call off a good portion of their stacks. As for cash games or limit games, I might limp if I knew there was a maniac that would reraise me, but I'd certainly do it a lot less often.

Yeah, I'd go with A-3 as well. That's a monster that you couldn't possibly get away from for a raise to 13.5 times the big blind.

I'd say fold. All of his actions are pretty consistent with the flush draw. (The quick call on the flop, pondering an all-in/checking implied odds on the turn.)There's no way he'd raise all-in on the river unless it's either the flush draw or a total bluff, and if he has a hand weak enough that he wants to bluff all of his chips on the river, I can't imagine why he'd call on the turn. Figure in that there are no other obvious draws that he could have called with and missed and I think it adds up to a pretty easy fold.

I must have seen this at least four times in the last week, playing 3/6 NL, usually when they catch a card on the turn that no one would possibly give them credit for a big hand on. And then if you raise them, they just minimum raise you right back. I guess they just can't bear the thought of someone folding.Back when I used to play $10 sit & gos, I used to think of this as a red flag, but as I progressed, I completely disregarded it as a tell, thinking that "good players" wouldn't use it. Well, now at the 3/6 NL level, I've found a reappearance. I guess I'm going to have to start watching

I think betting the river's too aggressive. You're going to get a hand like 8-7 to check to you a lot of the time if you're behind, and I think it's pretty unlikely that you'll get called by ace high here.

Well, maybe if you're playing real high limits or real low limits, you want to limp, but I know that playing anywhere from 3/6 to 10/20, you get way more fold equity than you deserve when you raise from the small blind.Also, it seems like if you limp, your opponent will raise you every time unless their hand is so weak that it would have warranted a fold if you'd raised. Really, it seems like the only time you lose value is when you get three-bet, and a lot of times, a three-bet in this situation can be a good warning to keep you from overplaying a marginal hand.Maybe my view of the situation

Actually, calling the turn and then folding unimproved is the worst play you could make here. If you think he's prone to crazy bluffs, then call him down. If you don't think so, then fold. It's as simple as that.

OK, maybe I misread your blog; I just looked over it quickly.Anyway, I got the impression that you'd been tilting like crazy the last couple weeks, and were blowing through your bankroll.If you're actually still ahead, then you need to just mellow out a little bit, and accept that you're not going to rake in shitloads of cash every day.