Tuesday, September 28, 2010

what would you do? underboat on river vs. probably fish


Feral Cow Poker
HEM/Full Tilt NL Hold'em $0.05/$0.10 - 9 players

MP: $15.98 a 65/0 after 17 hands.
MP2: $9.52
HJ: $10.35 (Hero)
CO: $4.00 posted after sitting back down. 11/4 after 92
Button: $10.00
SB: $10.00
BB: $11.01 26/6 after 90 hands.
UTG: $12.63
UTG+1: $10.00

Preflop: ($0.15) Hero is HJ with (9 players)
2 folds, MP calls $0.10, MP2 folds, Hero calls $0.10, CO checks, 2 folds, BB checks
I would normally raise a limper here, but with a poster behind me, one other to act, and a loose guy in the big blind, I decide to limp along.

Flop: ($0.35) (4 players)
BB checks, MP checks, Hero checks, CO checks
A whiff in a 4 way pot. Easy check.

Turn: ($0.35) (4 players)
BB checks, MP bets $0.20, Hero calls $0.20, 2 folds
Hey now, a set. But a flushy board (and a 34 straight). If he's just stabbing, a raise does no good. If he's got a flush or straight, then a raise gets reraised and I'm in more trouble. But a set is too strong to fold, so let's see a turn and keep the pot small.

River: ($0.75) (2 players)
MP bets $0.70,


Call here, or raise for value?



Hero raises to $1.50, MP raises to $3.00, Hero calls $1.50

MP showed ,
Hero showed ,
Hero won $6.40

I decided this guy was bad enough to call a raise with a flush on a paired board, so I raised for value. I wasn't sure if I was going to call a shove with the under-boat - with someone this loose, you can't put them on a hand, and A5, A9 are certainly possible. Fortunately for me, he didn't shove - he minraised, and I decided I could lose 31 big blinds with the underboat. But I won!

PS: bet size was tricky on river. If I bet too much, I may have odds to call a shove, which I don't want to do. I probably could have made it 2.20 or so, though and gotten away with it, especially if he was going to minraise.



6 comments:

The Poker Meister said...

A little advice: I can't ever see a reason to fold a hidden boat like this, on this board, at 10nl. I understand your logic - and it is sound, without a doubt. However, there are simply so many hands that your opponent could feel make him the winner that you have beat.

Perhaps its apathy, but if he has a better boat, so be it. You should be getting value from your boat. You missed out on full value here & gave donk a new life.

Forrest Gump said...

Exactly what Poker Meister said. At 10NL if you're thinking 2 levels above your making a mistake and giving up way too much.

The Poker Meister said...

Personally, I feel like this you're trying to apply the Zeebo Theorem here.

I understand that you have the lowest boat possible. However, you have to realize that your boat is completely hidden - there was no lead from you on the flop. It wasn't until the turn where you hit your draw (which turns out to be a bad card for you - well played BTW, flatting the turn, containing the pot). The river gives you the suckout, but what realistic combos can he show up with? Outside of A5, like you pointed out, there are plenty of diamond flush combos, 34 makes the obvious straight, trip 5's, etc. When you get 4bet, you should be shoving, not flatting. If you're wrong, oh well. But you let the donk off *VERY* easy here, where you should have inflicted max. pain.

Poker J said...

my 2 cents. If you cant afford to stack off here with a boat, you should probably step down in stakes.
If you can't put a villian on a range, it is probably best to try to get max value. This really helps your win rate.

matt tag said...

"Affording it" isn't the problem. I could actually easily move up in stakes just based on the money sitting in the bank account I have that's dedicated to poker (I choose not to deposit it b/c I don't need it). I would gladly stack off if I felt like that was the correct thing to do.

For example, tonight I stacked off with KQ on a QT9 board (TP, gutshot + backdoor FD). I was ahead of QJ and won a stack. I also stacked off with AcQc on a 2 club, all low board, and got called by a fish with an unimproved AK. I wasn't ahead, but I was close to a coinflip and had plenty of fold equity to make it a fine play.

I will readily admit that putting villains on a range of hands is my primary challenge right now. I am working on it (although the range for THIS hand would be pretty hard to narrow down, dude was a 65/0 after 17 hands). I am making mistakes as I learn, but it's NOT because I'm playing scared.

Thanks for the constructive advice.

The Poker Meister said...

Matt- Glad you can take the criticism as constructive. I believe that is all of our intents. I want to point out that in this example of a hand, you have been dealt a hand that literally should play itself, particularly at this level. For a dueces full hand at 10NL, you should not worry about stacking off into a higher boat - you should be happy to get it in there & grin & bare it if he shows up with a funky better boat.