Weekly Poker Hand #42

I am somewhat confused about what to do on the river. What do you think I should have done?

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10 thoughts on “Weekly Poker Hand #42”

  1. Jeff Ruszkowski

    I agree with your view of his hands and that he will be showing up with sets and over pairs lots and generally not calling with worse.
    I’m surprised being a tag he committed half his stack in a passive calling way.

  2. Michael Brandon

    I like the thinking in this video, but with him only having 2675 behind, I think that the thinking should have been checking with the intention of calling any bet. There are just too many hands that you still beat and you have about 2400 in the pot already, it gives you great knowledge about how he plays for a small call that wouldn’t hurt your stack. I find that most people that play that way usually think they are against AK and are not committing to many chips just in case or he had AK and thought with a low run-out you would have to check the river and he would win with high card, But I like that you played through IRL and got him to fold, just would have been interesting to know what he had.

    1. The problem is that I was not trying to get him to fold. When you are value betting, if your opponent folds, it means your bet may have not been ideal.

  3. I think pot controlling the turn is a vastly superior play as u save money when you are beat and induce a possible bluff. what happens if you get raised on the turn you cant be happy but you will be happy getting to showdown

  4. If he is TAG then he has most likely read your books and is familiar with your style. Also, I suspect that most Tight players have a problem with Loose players in that we don’t like LAG’s running over us especially when we have a better hand.

    The TAG calls with many players yet to act. This suggests to me that he puts you on a fairly weak range, he does not have a good, made hand and with a 25BB stack, he is concerned about someone behind waking up with a monster.

    The TAG expects you to cBet practically every flop so he still has no idea what to put you on. He calls with the plan to commit with TPTK but he does not have anything yet.

    On the Turn, he calls which is terrible (in my opinion). If he had any good hand, he should have pushed and if he had nothing he should have folded and preserved most of his stack.

    After not pushing on the Turn, I expected him to have nothing on the river unless a scare card hits which it didn’t.

    Given the way he played this hand, I would say he is overly intimidated by you and possibly more Tight Passive than Tight Aggressive.

    As a note: I am assuming that more TAGs are reading your books than LAG’s just because TAG’s are more likely INTJ’s and LAG’s are more likely ISTP’s)

  5. IMO in this spot, you get a payoff only with a stronger hand, i guess a pot size river bet was giving you the exact same info you sought with a all in bet.
    This guy was not going to bluff you

    WP

  6. I think I would have checked the river with the intention of calling any bet. I may be wrong sometimes and lose an additional 27 Big Blinds (in this case), but you’re getting nearly 3-1 on your money at that point and you don’t have to be right very often to make the move profitable. This gives the guy a chance to bluff off his stack because you’re image is probably looser than you think given your public image. If he checks behind, then at least you’ll maybe get to see what he was calling down with for future info. Regardless, he played the hand horribly!

  7. Along with your range provided – and as bad as the play is – I would not rule out AKs, AQs or even AJs in the villains range. I play exclusively low buy in local casino tournaments ($150-$500 buy ins) and ran into a similar situation a few weeks ago. With around 20bb (in my opponents stack) my opponent called my pre flop raise (I had pocket 10s).

    Flop comes all low cards, I c bet, they call.

    Turn comes another low card, I again bet and opponent calls. At this time a over half my opponents stack is in the pot.

    The river was yet another low card that completed a few straight draws and I was confused on how to proceed, I felt like I was either crushed or way ahead…..I ended up putting the opponent all in. They folded AKs face up with only a few big blinds remaining. I was very confused on this hand and how they played it. Let alone why they would show me.

    I got the feeling that they thought the hand was so good they couldn’t fold, yet they were somewhat scared to risk their tournament life on it. You would think most players – especially at the higher buy in levels that you explain above – would be aware of short stack play, but the more I play, read and watch videos the more I realize many just do not have a clue.

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