Monday, August 16, 2010

No Peeking, Part 2.

Another dual table session tonight with no peeking at my results. Felt like I was playing pretty well, but couldn't be sure - my top table kept losing and losing, and never crawled above my starting stack. But my bottom table was doing great, and my stack grew and grew. Were my losses bigger than my gains? Such a mystery!

So I didn't know my results until the end - and the happy surprise was +106 big blinds. Nice!

Gotta question for the readers - how do you play a good draw out of position, when you don't know if your opponent is going to fold?

Cows play poker with cow chips
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em $0.05/$0.10 - 6 players

BB: $4.00
UTG: $10.53 (Hero)
UTG+1: $15.37
CO: $3.62
Button: $9.80 Very few reads. 6 hands of history, he has raised 3 of them. No postflop stats.
SB: $38.39

Preflop: ($0.15) Hero is UTG with (6 players)
Hero raises to $0.30, 2 folds, Button calls $0.30, 2 folds

Flop: ($0.75) (2 players)
Hero bets $0.40, Button raises to $0.80, Hero calls $0.40
The dreaded minraise. He's probably not playing 6-8, but who knows, he's on the button. He could have 2 pair or a set, or maybe top pair like T9/J9. He could have an overpair like TT/JJ. He could even have the nine of hearts and another heart for a pair/flush draw combo. Anyway, there are enough strong hands he can have that won't fold to my shove, so shoving just feels like flipping a coin for a stack, no? I decide to call the minraise (4.9:1 odds, enough to draw to the flush, a bigger overlay if my overcard outs are good).

Turn: ($2.35) (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $1.70, Hero calls $1.70
2:38:1 odds now. Good enough to call if all my outs are good, possible implied odds as well.

River: ($5.75) (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks

Hero mucked
Button showed , and won ($5.37) with a pair of Nines
Button won $5.37
(Rake: $0.38)

As it turns out, my overcard outs were good. If he was a good player, he probably folds to a flop shove (UTG raiser all in on flop looks like an overpair to me), but I didn't have any numbers in my HUD as to his aggression, so I reverted to playing passively. He didn't bet enough to deny me odds to any of my draws (including top pair draws), so I didn't play this hand "incorrectly" as it were, though I certainly didn't play it optimally.

What do you do? Do you just see "woohoo, flush draw + overcards!" and stick the money in? Or do you try and decide on the fly if your villain's ability to fold will turn this from a coin flip to a clearly profitable play?

No comments: