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January 2, 2017
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Hi guys, first post. Looking forward to more.
Live Saturday morning tournament at local casino. $100+15, 55 players, early level one or two, let’s say 50/100 blinds. About right.
Villain is Chinese businessman to me left, great guy, very talkative, friendly and fun, life of the table. Very loose in the opening stages, gambling it up. 85% of the time limp-opening. Constantly showing me his hands as he’s playing and laying down, so a world of good information. He’s also making moves before action gets to him so I’m pausing before acting to see what he has planned.
I have KK, I’m in HJ. I see that he’s already counting chips for a raise, so I put him on a premium hand TT+, AQ+. I raise 4xBB. He flats. We’re heads-up. I’m leading with any flop without an A. Flop A66. I check. He bets a small bet – about 2xBB. I fold faceup and say nice hand.
For the rest of the tourny (I ended in 4th and he ended in 1st) whenever we sat together he told everyone at the table I folded KK. He said he was scared of playing pots against me, that I was disciplined and unshakable. I know for sure that at least for a while later at that first table my image was very tight so I could bet lighter and get more respect than my hands deserved.
What I’m still not sure of is that flop check. I’m wondering if I should have led anyway and if I was raised I could have thought of folding. I only played the hand the way I did because I saw him preparing to open raise if I folded PF. He later said he had a 6, and then later still he changed it to JJ, so there’s no telling what he held. But it was good enough not to limp, his standard open.
Thoughts? Was folding faceup also good (99/100 I will not show my cards, even with big laydowns).
January 26, 2015
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Hi Zampana,
Nice work spotting his pre-pre-flop activity, I always like to keep an eye out for this too.
Not sure what the starting stack is, though I’d even be tempted to call his tiny 2BB bet, in case he was feeling out whether or not you had the Ace. I’m no whiz with Flopzilla so I could be wrong with this, though plugging in his given range & the flop, I think you’ve still got ~45% equity which makes a 2BB call into a ~12BB pot compulsory (stack-size dependant?). Unless, of course, you simply KNOW he has an Ace (which happens at my local game where certain players are Ace-addicts ;-), in which case you’re screwed. I don’t see him having the 6 since you saw him planning to raise pre. You even become a favourite if you add 99, 88 to his range (but that comes back down to slight underdog if you add AJ).
My thoughts are he said he had a 6 first as he didn’t want his neighbour to feel bad about folding a winning hand, but maybe then his honesty meter kicked in & it was actually JJ all along.
I’m a self-confessed huge nit (this WILL change in 2017!) & I would have C-bet, hoping his range was more in the TT-KK part than the AQ+ part. If he raises, or even calls, I’m probably done with the hand.
(Not sure if it’s right, though against looser opponents, I’m happy to C-bet with JJ-KK on an A-rag-ragish flop, mostly as a bluff I suppose.)
I probably wouldn’t have shown the KK, just verbalised it if asked. There will always be a non-believer on the table who could never make such a laydown that thinks you’re lying, which is great later on when they call you down light.
Hope this helps, that’s my 2 cents :-).
Thanks for inspiring me to pull out Flopzilla & get it updated!
June 2, 2013
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I wouldn´t cbet KK on A66 flop, most of V´s calling range will be Ax, 6x, pocket pairs or some random floats, but most on Ax to call your cbet; after you check, V probably raise a lot of that range, so makes more sense to check call the flop, and reevaluate on future streets, because V can bet some weaker hands thinking he has value, or to bluff you out of the hand.
TPE Pro
December 6, 2012
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I’ll second the nice work on watching Villain’s pre-flop behavior even before the action is on him. I’ll say that check-calling seems strictly better to me than betting. If you bet, you only get called by worse, but if you check, you at least give him a chance to bluff. If you’re going to put money into the pot in this spot, you’d rather do it by calling than betting IMO. Basically, your hand is too strong to bluff with, because better hands aren’t going to fold.
Now, that still leaves open the question of whether you want to put money into the pot at all. Facing a larger bet, I’m fine with just folding. However, when Villain bets 2BB into what was probably about a 10BB pot, you simply don’t have to win very often to justify calling. So, I think you should call on the off-chance that you’re good, even though you’ll often end up folding to a big bet on a later street.
I suggest watching my Getting Off on the Right Foot series on TPE. It explains a lot of what you’re struggling with here, including thinking in terms of pot odds and equity, how to choose good hands for betting vs checking, etc.
January 2, 2017
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Awesome responses guys, thank you. I do think I should have called the small bet, although I remember thinking at the time that it felt like one of those “I’m so weak, but really I’m so strong” bets. I can’t remember now for sure whether he said before or after this hand, but he did tell me he never reraises AK/AQ/AJ/AT, that he always calls and wants to see the flop. And I also thought, what other than a K could come on the turn that would allow me to call any more bets? Of course he might have checked the turn, so I can’t say for sure I wouldn’t have seen the river.
Since we were early we were basically equal in stacks – 120bb each at that level. So it was deep and the price to call the flop was negligible. It was interesting later how much it became a defining hand through the rest of the tournament. And yes Merv, nice call on not showing but telling – I’ll rarely say what’s in my hand so I thought actually showing the mega-nit would be better.
Just starting on University videos but I’ll definitely flag GOOTRF to watch!
February 20, 2015
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First of all, congrats on finishing 4th.
Agree with other posts regarding flop action. It’s a common worry to call a small flop bet when you might only have 2 outs. You’re not necessarily calling because you hope to improve but because it is +EV to call. If you’re ahead, V may check behind on the turn (and river). That will happen often enough to call such a small bet.
TPE Pro
December 6, 2012
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Oh yes I also want to emphasize that you should not show OR tell if you are going to make a fold like this. Why on Earth would you want to let the nit know what your read on him is? Not to mention that showing tight folds has the potential to embarrass “action players” because they know they would not make those folds.
January 2, 2017
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Interesting. Don’t show tight folds. Isn’t there some value in showing how tight you can fold so that later you can use that to seem stronger than you are when betting with semis and full bluffs?
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