1/2 hand. I think I played it wrong. (4 Viewers)

[Moxie Mike]

I think in the end, the misplay got the guy to loose his crap with like zero equity
not ideal but sure works sometimes

Sorry man but I think you're being quite results oriented here. HERO is very fortunate to drag this pot considering it went 4 to the flop and the board ran out with a 4-flush. The more I think about it, this hand is almost an anomaly when you consider all the things that had to happen for the HERO to stack this guy.

The BB in this hand is an idiot. From his perspective, he flopped second pair with a marginal kicker, bet into 3 people including the preflop raiser, got raised by someone other than the PF raiser, decided to stubbornly min-re-raise for some unknown reason, only to get 4-bet and still called for yet another unknown reason. Then, he desperately turned his hand into a bluff when a moderately scary card hit the turn. Not the worst play in the world in some circumstances but he didn't have enough left in his stack to make a meaningful bet, against an opponent whose shown considerable strength repeatedly.

The BB showed a complete lack of understanding of some of the most basic tenets of NLHE cash games. If this hand is indicative of his playing style, he is beyond terrible. Players this bad are pretty uncommon these days.

 

[WedgeRock]

villain plays badder.

So if you jam the flop to the BB 3bet like the consensus said, I don't think you get all his chips. But that doesn't mean it's not a mistake. You dodged a bullet and extracted max value. Here, your mistakes probably caused some butt clenches... Play it like that again and it probably costs you alot more.

Edit: ...and nh.

 

[JustinInMN]

I freaked out at the 4th diamond , but SB had complete trash with and we scooped the pot.

Huh, didn't see that coming. So really SB was targeting UTG as the pre-flop raiser here. He had 2nd pair, which may be ahead of some of UTG's no-pair range (AQ, AJ), or the mid pair range (maybe 77-99). SB probably never assumed hero was the power in this hand, I think the flop bet was designed to fold out UTG, and then see what our hero decides.

Now calling off that much on the flop after getting raised with just second pair bad-kicker, is just plain spew on villain's part, so it looks to me like hero priced the flop raise right.

Glad you got a good result. The chance that villain has some spew usually makes these spots worth a call with holding above average in strength.

 

[Moxie Mike]

Huh, didn't see that coming. So really SB was targeting UTG as the pre-flop raiser here. He had 2nd pair, which may be ahead of some of UTG's no-pair range (AQ, AJ), or the mid pair range (maybe 77-99). SB probably never assumed hero was the power in this hand, I think the flop bet was designed to fold out UTG, and then see what our hero decides.

Now calling off that much on the flop after getting raised with just second pair bad-kicker, is just plain spew on villain's part, so it looks to me like hero priced the flop raise right.

Glad you got a good result. The chance that villain has some spew usually makes these spots worth a call with holding above average in strength.

This is all a nice idea but the bottom line is the BB is not a thinking player. His bets/raises don't mean anything. He's just spewing. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he is new to poker, or was drinking heavily during the game.

If I had to guess, he's probably a 'gambler' type of player. He has chips and he's there to bet them. The thought process goes like this:

"Pair of 10s with a king on the board and 3 opponents yet to act? Sure let's put a bet out there and see what happens. Fuck that 'check to the raiser' bullshit. What? Someone raises? Well that aggression can't stand. Let's reraise - show him we're serious. What? He's raising again? Well shit... maybe he's got something after all. I guess we'll just call."

***diamond peels the turn***

"Well I'll be damned. A 3rd diamond. Maybe we can get a bluff through. Only way this could ever work is if I bet all of it. Fuck it. ALL YOU CAN EAT BABY!"

***HERO inexplicably tanks then tables his hand for a reaction?!?***

"Oh shit. He really had something. Please fold. Please fold. Please fold.

FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!

Nice hand."

 

[HaRDHouSeiNC]

Sorry man but I think you're being quite results oriented here. HERO is very fortunate to drag this pot considering it went 4 to the flop and the board ran out with a 4-flush. The more I think about it, this hand is almost an anomaly when you consider all the things that had to happen for the HERO to stack this guy.

The BB in this hand is an idiot. From his perspective, he flopped second pair with a marginal kicker, bet into 3 people including the preflop raiser, got raised by someone other than the PF raiser, decided to stubbornly min-re-raise for some unknown reason, only to get 4-bet and still called for yet another unknown reason. Then, he desperately turned his hand into a bluff when a moderately scary card hit the turn. Not the worst play in the world in some circumstances but he didn't have enough left in his stack to make a meaningful bet, against an opponent whose shown considerable strength repeatedly.

The BB showed a complete lack of understanding of some of the most basic tenets of NLHE cash games. If this hand is indicative of his playing style, he is beyond terrible. Players this bad are pretty uncommon these days.

Every hand is results oriented
Either you win or you don’t
You can play GTO in your opinion too and loose every big pot

You want to vary your play so once in a while
If you are willing to get away from it
Why not
Especially against that guy

 

[joker80]

This is all a nice idea but the bottom line is the BB is not a thinking player. His bets/raises don't mean anything. He's just spewing. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he is new to poker, or was drinking heavily during the game.

If I had to guess, he's probably a 'gambler' type of player. He has chips and he's there to bet them. The thought process goes like this:

"Pair of 10s with a king on the board and 3 opponents yet to act? Sure let's put a bet out there and see what happens. Fuck that 'check to the raiser' bullshit. What? Someone raises? Well that aggression can't stand. Let's reraise - show him we're serious. What? He's raising again? Well shit... maybe he's got something after all. I guess we'll just call."

***diamond peels the turn***

"Well I'll be damned. A 3rd diamond. Maybe we can get a bluff through. Only way this could ever work is if I bet all of it. Fuck it. ALL YOU CAN EAT BABY!"

***HERO inexplicably tanks then tables his hand for a reaction?!?***

"Oh shit. He really had something. Please fold. Please fold. Please fold.

FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!

Nice hand."

Haha. This is exactly what he said after. He was trying to get me to fold. I thought hard about it but ultimately with my outs and the pot odds it's a mathematical call

 

[Moxie Mike]

Every hand is results oriented
Either you win or you don’t
You can play GTO in your opinion too and loose every big pot

You want to vary your play so once in a while
If you are willing to get away from it
Why not
Especially against that guy

Do I seem like one of those unimaginative GTO nerds to you?

HERO should NEVER be looking to get away from his hand. He holds top set! TOP SET! He has a stranglehold on the hand! That absolute last thing he should be doing is taking a line that compromises his EV.

The goal of any poker move is to maximize the EV of every single situation. There's no argument to be made that HERO maximized his EV with the line he took.

Think of it another way: the BB pretty much had to have exactly what he held and play the hand about badly as possible for HERO to get max value here. That is a perfect storm that's pretty much impossible to reconcile in a discussion about a topic as abstract as EV. If we're discussing ranges, the BB has a LOT of diamonds in his range and HERO's betting pattern pre & post flop would have allowed the BB to realize his equity had he held a diamond.

In the thread, everyone who opined operated on the assumption that we were dealing with a reasonable opponent. That turned out not to be the case.

I 100% agree that you need to mix up your play - especially in a private game where the player pool contains at least some savvy, observant opponents who will pick up on your patterns and are capable of making the appropriate adjustments. But that really doesn't apply in this situation since we're discussing a ridiculously bad opponent. HERO gets stacked a lot of the time with this line/runout against a quality opponent with a reasonable, predictable range.

 

[DrStrange]

I think folks are being way too hard on the villain. Sure, his bet sizing is poor. Maybe a bit clueless about pot sizing and commitment. But those sorts of errors are relatively easy to correct. He isn't that far from being a winning player.

And let's give villain more credit. Hero likely would have folded most of his winning range without a redraw. Sure, Hero isn't folding a set here and not most flushes either. But hero snap folds AK / KQ / KJ without a diamond redraw. Likely folds tow two pair with no diamond.

I think people are wishing for something they would be sorry to get in real life. I would not be so sure I want this guy at my table. Give me a passivize, fitt/fold villain. A whole table full. Aggressive bluffers pushing chips into the pot on scare cards are a lot tougher to play against.

 

[JustinInMN]

@Moxie Mike

Fwiw, my point wasn't to "excuse" the villain's play, but if you understand it, you make the mental note of what he is capable of (in this case compounding spew) and that will influence future decisions.

Especially, don't even think about anything resembling a "hero laydown" against this villain.

This villain is the NL player I like to make fun of. The guy that skimmed "Super System" once, and misinterprets it as a call to unbridled aggression. And a belief that he can bet his way out of any situation and if he can't, well the other guy made a mistake.

 

[Moxie Mike]

I think people are wishing for something they would be sorry to get in real life. I would not be so sure I want this guy at my table. Give me a passivize, fitt/fold villain. A whole table full. Aggressive bluffers pushing chips into the pot on scare cards are a lot tougher to play against.

Right... but the nits are a lot more difficult to win large sums of money from. And that's why we're participating in the first place, right? Sure they're more predictable and are fundamentally easier to defeat but wouldn't you rather have a dude randomly juicing the pot? I love it when I can count on a maniac to bet my hands for me. It's a fucking gold mine if you know how to manipulate them.

Admittedly, they do create some tough spots from time to time and engaging with them regularly certainly adds more variance to the results. But part of the challenge of poker is crafting a strategy to defeat every playing style.

 

[nighthawk1990]

Just a standard 3x raise.

 

[allforcharity]

IMHO If you won the pot, you cannot have played it "wrong". You might not have played it "optimally", but at least it's not a loss.

 

[JustinInMN]

I think people are wishing for something they would be sorry to get in real life. I would not be so sure I want this guy at my table. Give me a passivize, fitt/fold villain. A whole table full. Aggressive bluffers pushing chips into the pot on scare cards are a lot tougher to play against.

Absolutely not. Yes, villains like this throw your variance way up, but if you are the better player, in the long run, variance is to your advantage. If the short term swings are too much, it's a sign that you aren't rolled for the game.

 

[CrazyEddie]

IMHO If you won the pot, you cannot have played it "wrong". You might not have played it "optimally", but at least it's not a loss.

Depends on whether you want to win pots or win money.

Any time you play suboptimally, you've lost. For every situation you find yourself on the Winning side of, you will also someday find yourself on the Losing side of the exact same situation - i.e. with you and the Villain having swapped hands. If the pot is small when you win because you played it wrong, but the pot is big when you lose because the other guy played it right, then in the long run you're losing money.

 

[Legend5555]

Depends on whether you want to win pots or win money.

Any time you play suboptimally, you've lost. For every situation you find yourself on the Winning side of, you will also someday find yourself on the Losing side of the exact same situation - i.e. with you and the Villain having swapped hands. If the pot is small when you win because you played it wrong, but the pot is big when you lose because the other guy played it right, then in the long run you're losing money.

Exactly. Winning hands is not what we strive for in poker. It's making correct money making decisions. Much like investing. I've won many hands where I know I played it badly by making a loose call on the river or making an aggressive move with a draw that gets there when I really shouldn't have.

 

[JustinInMN]

Exactly. Winning hands is not what we strive for in poker. It's making correct money making decisions. Much like investing. I've won many hands where I know I played it badly by making a loose call on the river or making an aggressive move with a draw that gets there when I really shouldn't have.

I've bluffed rivers against stations that were doomed as soon as I released the chips.

I at least own that mistake when I make it, most players blame the station.

 

[grebe]

IMHO If you won the pot, you cannot have played it "wrong". You might not have played it "optimally", but at least it's not a loss.

I could not disagree with this post more. Sorry dude, but this is no way to improve your game. I mean, if you just want to play some cards and splash around, that's cool. However, if you are going to post up a hand and ask for advice on how to play better, the outcome is the LEAST IMPORTANT part.