Disaster hero call

Submitted by : iakim322

Full Tilt Poker Game #6448279748: Table Wade (heads up) - $3/$6 - No Limit Hold'em - 3:18:42 ET - 2008/05/17
Seat 1: Thee Asian ($1,164.75)
Seat 2: Playing2Learn ($714)
Playing2Learn posts the small blind of $3
Thee Asian posts the big blind of $6
The button is in seat #2

Holecards
Dealt to Playing2Learn
Playing2Learn raises to $18
Thee Asian calls $12

Flop (Pot : $36.00)

   
Thee Asian checks
Playing2Learn bets $26
Thee Asian has 15 seconds left to act
Thee Asian raises to $65
Playing2Learn has 15 seconds left to act
Playing2Learn calls $39

Turn (Pot : $166.00)

   
Thee Asian has 15 seconds left to act
Thee Asian bets $135
Playing2Learn calls $135

River (Pot : $436.00)

   
Thee Asian has 15 seconds left to act
Thee Asian bets $946.75, and is all in
Playing2Learn has 15 seconds left to act
Playing2Learn has requested TIME
Playing2Learn calls $496, and is all in
Uncalled bet of $450.75 returned to Thee Asian

Showdown
Thee Asian shows a straight, Queen high
Playing2Learn mucks
Thee Asian wins the pot ($1,427.50) with a straight, Queen high
Playing2Learn adds $600

I'm sure more competent players will give you some great advice, but here's my take on it:

If I've decided that he is full of shit I'm pushing turn cause a lot of cards (any card higher then a T, any 6) is scary as hell and I feel that he can pretty much both valueshove pretty thin and bluff us a lot on scary cards which sucks for us. I also feel that even if he doesn't rep much we kinda need to give up on turn a fair bit since we're getting valuetowned a lot here, I also feel that he has to put us on something here and should continue a "pure" bluff all the time.

I'd much prefer to have highcards in this situation since then we at least have some equity vs his valuerange. People will make moves on this kind of a flop all the time but that's only because it puts hero in a world of shit. I'd go with low variance and give up turn, or if I'm on tilt, shove it.

If you decide to call and play it like this I guess I semi-like giving up on a A, even though it's a great card to bluff a lot of his range hits it. I might give up on a J too since it's a less obvious bluffcard but hits most of the hands that he picks up outs with on the turn. I feel that this line is exploitable though and I'd probably try to find a better spot. When we're herocalling on a board like this I think we're getting owned a lot.

eh?

i think this hero call is fine if he showed up with J9, just a sick cooler that you correctly sensed his huge bluff and he backed into a straight

i think??

btw small raise flop, huge bet turn is sooooooo bluffy but it does actually mean a draw a lot. you can shove over the turn bet if you think he'll be committed with draws. like if there was a flush draw on board in this hand, shoving turn would be good i think

I think its a fold since his bluff/semibluff hands on flop/turn actually can have hit river, not sure if he is capable of shoving QJ for value though... just a thought.

I dont agree with the logic that "he showed up with a hand he was bluffing flop and turn with, hence good river call". Because I dont see many people bluff off their stacks off like this, maybe on 10/20+, but not really common on midstakes.

On May 17 2008 15:39 Zanjong wrote: I think its a fold since his bluff/semibluff hands on flop/turn actually can have hit river, not sure if he is capable of shoving QJ for value though... just a thought. I dont agree with the logic that "he showed up with a hand he was bluffing flop and turn with, hence good river call". Because I dont see many people bluff off their stacks off like this, maybe on 10/20+, but not really common on midstakes.

completely agreed, I don't think people bluff with smaller pairs and Ax on that flop very often since its a safe one to just call, so his range is generally weighted toward middle connected cards, and with the queen on the river which is one of the worst cards for you, most of his bluffing range has hit.

Also, I think its probably best to reraise flop. There are no 2pair combinations or draws that he could semibluff shove with (except 54), so basically all you're worried about are sets and sometimes he'll play top pair for stacks like this. If u think its just a bullshit flop raise I would rather just reraise and take the pot down than risk getting drawn out on or getting bluffed out.

On May 17 2008 15:39 Zanjong wrote: I think its a fold since his bluff/semibluff hands on flop/turn actually can have hit river, not sure if he is capable of shoving QJ for value though... just a thought. I dont agree with the logic that "he showed up with a hand he was bluffing flop and turn with, hence good river call". Because I dont see many people bluff off their stacks off like this, maybe on 10/20+, but not really common on midstakes.

what i mean is that if he plays J9 this way i think he's gonna be running a ton of big bluffs for his whole stack. really common to see check/raise flop followed by pot turn shove river as a bluff in my experience in hu

i think we should be 3betting flop. i really like Mcnasty's logic on that and i think its definitely best, OR if we know hes gonna 2 barrel often, shoving certain turns would be good. the 8 being a great one because it doesn't really help his bluffing range and if he somehow had like A8, he would mostlikely fold it anyway, that is to say, he didn't just check it cuz he thought he had showdown value, but thats niether here nor there.

I dont really like callign turn planning to call a river, because we get ourselves into a situation where, people often aren't fireing 3 barrels, 2barrls are soo much more common than 3 barrels so when we decide on turn to call river, then we end up in a spot where, a lot of people will almost never bet but since we already decided he is probably gonna bet the river, based on nothing really, cept he is probably 2 barreling, so we play a total guessing game. And when ur guessing u have no edge in a situation, ur just reacting somewhat blindly.


also id like to say that i really suck at making posts in a rush cuz it just sounds like im rambling about nothing, but im also lazy and not willing to edit it =( SORRY!

CLIFFNOTES:
raising flop is best,
flatting and shoving turn, also good sometimes,
calling turn to call river = bad (not to mention the arguement him having a lot of hidden equity against us if we decide to do this)

river is a pretty terrible card to be hero calling imo

I only like a flat call on the turn if i'm sure villain is agro enough to fire river a high % of the time.

If i'm going to take this to the bank i'm definitely going to shove turn as a way to protect my hand.

i think the call/call/call line is fine, as long as you pay close attention to his bet timing and have a decent read on his sizing and frequencies. i would usually fold this river tho, unless i had a good reason not to do so. its definitely close...HU is a unique beast and as an individual hand you may or may not have played this perfectly.

I don't really see anything wrong with the line you took...I mean, calling down certainly has its merit, and I think at this level it seems the critical info would be the turn bet sizing, but still it would be both bad to call turn fold riv if you put villain on such a narrow range on the turn, as it would be bad to shove something like 77 on the turn as that is super exploitable and basically senseless from the way ahead/way behind perspective.
I think the best way to analyze this would be to identify the biggest error your opponent makes and develop the best counter-strategy for that. In this case, the villain's biggest mistake is most assuredly his flop raise.
1. The raise size prices you in with almost anything that could tangibly make a hand.
2. He's taking the lead in a marginal spot with total air, and very little equity.
So your best move imo is to adjust your turn calling range slightly on the tighter side, and hope that he will not notice. Considering that he is making such a bad move, I think he will not notice this. Now, what you achieve is getting to the river with a nicely built pot where your range beats him badly. He has thus priced himself in (in his mind) with a variety of inferior hands, so now you take him to the cleaners. The benefit of this is that you know his flop holdings were quite possibly marginal so he really can't beat you longterm at this point, and you stand a good shot of forcing him into bad hero calls for stacks or close to it.

On May 18 2008 02:23 franchise wrote: I don't really see anything wrong with the line you took...I mean, calling down certainly has its merit, and I think at this level it seems the critical info would be the turn bet sizing, but still it would be both bad to call turn fold riv if you put villain on such a narrow range on the turn, as it would be bad to shove something like 77 on the turn as that is super exploitable and basically senseless from the way ahead/way behind perspective. I think the best way to analyze this would be to identify the biggest error your opponent makes and develop the best counter-strategy for that. In this case, the villain's biggest mistake is most assuredly his flop raise. 1. The raise size prices you in with almost anything that could tangibly make a hand. 2. He's taking the lead in a marginal spot with total air, and very little equity. So your best move imo is to adjust your turn calling range slightly on the tighter side, and hope that he will not notice. Considering that he is making such a bad move, I think he will not notice this. Now, what you achieve is getting to the river with a nicely built pot where your range beats him badly. He has thus priced himself in (in his mind) with a variety of inferior hands, so now you take him to the cleaners. The benefit of this is that you know his flop holdings were quite possibly marginal so he really can't beat you longterm at this point, and you stand a good shot of forcing him into bad hero calls for stacks or close to it.

cool post. another way we can adjust is to 3bet him smallish on dry flops such as these with a good frequency of air/10x/nut type hands, committing with the latter 2. this makes the hand much easier to play but also killd the possibility of him making bigger mistakes on later streets.

Yeah I was initially strongly swayed by people saying that raising the turn to protect my hand was the way to go. But then Franchise's post is a good alternate view. I do agree that if I'm going to go with the call/call/call line, the Q on the river is a bad card even if it is bad to call turn/fold riv. There is a lot of merit to protecting my hand but then there's also a little merit to taking a bit of risk (variance on river) to allow him to make a bigger mistake (air river shove).

As for a read on his sizing/frequencies, the only things I can say is what I've said. His flop/turn line just looked ridiculously bluffy/drawy, and I'd played with him long enough to see that he was barreling with close to air/semi bluffs a fair share of the time. My problem was reacting to this in the optimal way with a thin hand like the one I had above.

3 betting the flop is something I didn't even consider. I'm not sure how I feel about that really though. It's almost positive that he's going to come out firing on pretty much any turn after that funky flop raise so wouldn't the value of at least getting that bet from him enough to just call the flop?

On May 18 2008 03:33 iakim322 wrote: Yeah I was initially strongly swayed by people saying that raising the turn to protect my hand was the way to go. But then Franchise's post is a good alternate view. I do agree that if I'm going to go with the call/call/call line, the Q on the river is a bad card even if it is bad to call turn/fold riv. There is a lot of merit to protecting my hand but then there's also a little merit to taking a bit of risk (variance on river) to allow him to make a bigger mistake (air river shove). As for a read on his sizing/frequencies, the only things I can say is what I've said. His flop/turn line just looked ridiculously bluffy/drawy, and I'd played with him long enough to see that he was barreling with close to air/semi bluffs a fair share of the time. My problem was reacting to this in the optimal way with a thin hand like the one I had above. 3 betting the flop is something I didn't even consider. I'm not sure how I feel about that really though. It's almost positive that he's going to come out firing on pretty much any turn after that funky flop raise so wouldn't the value of at least getting that bet from him enough to just call the flop?

if we 3bet 77 we are turning our hand into a bluff because we cannot call a shove and we cannot call further action if he flats and then bets a later street. this is certainly OK because we are winning on the flop so much and also force him to re-adjust his c/r strategy on flops such as this, but like i said it also allows no room to make bigger mistakes.

On May 18 2008 02:23 franchise wrote: In this case, the villain's biggest mistake is most assuredly his flop raise.

v cool post, but i wanted to bring this to the front. if his biggest mistake is his flop raise, but we're ALSO extremely confident that he follows up on the turn almost 100% of the time, then don't we need to consider the implied turn spew as a bigger mistake?

On May 18 2008 07:35 [vital]Myth wrote: Show nested quote + On May 18 2008 02:23 franchise wrote: In this case, the villain's biggest mistake is most assuredly his flop raise. v cool post, but i wanted to bring this to the front. if his biggest mistake is his flop raise, but we're ALSO extremely confident that he follows up on the turn almost 100% of the time, then don't we need to consider the implied turn spew as a bigger mistake?

Well we're viewing it as one thing leads to another. His mistake is that he's taking initiative with a raise that doesnt fold out enough hands on the flop, without having a hand himself. If you take any of the three components out of that, eg he takes initiative with a strong raise on the flop (we fold something like kj, aq, that sort of thing, or we're forced to fold 77 to a turn bet), or he makes the smallish raise with only very strong hands, or he simply calls the flop cbet with air type hands planning to bluff later...those options are better imo than what he's chosen (I'm not advocating anything I'm just saying it would be an improvement over his decision). So given that, view it as one smaller mistake leads to a myriad of bigger potential mistakes, and opening yourself up to alot of those usually spells GG.

So to answer your question, yes, but focus on finding the mistake that would be the impetus for future mistakes.

honestly this looks great

i'd do this alot

On May 17 2008 21:28 Fayth wrote: river is a pretty terrible card to be hero calling imo

This is my thought exactly