|
Swanny Duece |
| by Shaun Tobin | Contact | |
| Tuesday, 30 September 2008 |
|
There is always more you can do.
I forgot to mention a few interesting things about the hands I wrote about yesterday. Here’s one of them: The guy who stacked off to me when I turned the nut flush and called my turn bet then bet out all-in on his two pair river saw a bluff I revealed to the table earlier. I almost never show anything but when I know my table image is going to very closely resemble the actual way that I’m going to play then I’ll pick a situation, play very differently and, if successful, show that ONE hand to the table. I ran the bluff in position against the guy who not too much later tried his own on me when I called his turn check raise all-in for 4K of my 7k holding A This guy stacked off to me not much later though it was considered to be a pretty difficult call based on the large number of congratulations that were chatted to me after the hand. Another guy stacked off to me when I hit my turn flush draw and some of it had to be based on seeing this hand and not putting it all together correctly. After these two stacked off I had a giant stack and a pretty good, balanced table image of a guy who does a little of everything well. Here’s another interesting hand that illustrates what I mean about taking responsibility for controlling implied odds against you by not stacking off to the type of player that considers themselves meta-game by making moves that really are only EV positive, against me at least, as long as they are variance positive also. Around the third level one of these active “tricky” players raises and a more solid player calls in the cut-off, it’s then folded to me and I look down at AK in the BB. Now the tricky player’s range is suited connectors all the way up and if I raise here, as many people would swear is the most positive thing to do,and he has JJ or QQ, he’s going to push and quite likely at least one of my six over-outs are gone as the solid guy most likely has AK AQ or AJ. I don’t know any other poker writer or player who thinks and writes about the illusion of the “coin-flip” as much as I do. But my AK vs QQ is a 57/43 dog and that is not a flip. AND if my AK is up against a big pair and an Ace is already gone then my “flip” is actually a 66/34 dog. Variance is not kind enough to me and I’m not good enough either to overcome being willing to gamble huge portions of my stack as a 66/34 dog. In fact I’m barely capable enough to eek out a positive living playing for my whole stack when I’m a 80/20 or better favorite. So I just call. The flop is 5 I check and the tricky guy bet’s out 4/5 the pot and the solid guy thinks and thinks and finally calls. What would you do and where do you stand? When I read other “pros” blogs about having to go broke on certain hands like top pair top kicker I have to wonder about how deeply they think things out. 1) Would the tricky player really bluff out into a solid guy and me, the big stack who has made some sick calls with nothing? Even with QQ?—no! 2) What would the solid guy call with? Anything less than a good ace? Would he call w JJ? Not very likely. 3) Do you really have to pay-off with top and top? Of course, not. I folded easily. Of course the tricky guy had at least trips and the solid guy had at least AJ. Tricky went all-in on the King turn and I was not the least bit confused whether or not I made a good lay down—I did. Solid Guy called showing AQ and tricky had 57. Tricky’s play was perhaps plus EV against someone willing to pay him off and yet extremely negative EV against a player like me. That’s the beauty of taking responsibility for controlling the implied odds you give. I get to the debacle tomorrow as it’s somewhat interesting. Thanks for reading. |
|
10
on a 6
8| < Prev Blog | Next Blog > |
|---|
