17 replies to this topic

[DanielNegreanu]

I actually took this hand from a WPT final table that I watched between Erick Lindgren and The Grinder. Erick had the K-J and checked the turn. The Grinder thought about betting, but then decided to check and take a free card with 3c 5c, an open ended draw. The river was a 3, Erick bet, and Grinder thought for a long time about calling but then finally folded the pair of threes. Do I agree with Erick's play? YES! In this situation checking is the best play available to you. If Grinder was planning on calling you on the flop to steal the pot on the turn, betting the turn would take that play away from him. The board isn't all that scary so there isn't much to protect against. Also, he could easily have you beat. No need making the pot any bigger than it needs to be out of position against a great player. I say check the turn and do a combination of A) minimizing your losses, while at the same time B) allowing the Grinder to bluff his money off to you if he chooses to. The only thing I would have done differently was probably check the river against an aggressive player like the Grinder. A better chance he'd bluff at it or value bet a worse hand than him calling a bet from you on the river.

[nutzbuster]

I still don't hate shoving here, but your approach makes WAY more sense. One of my leaks is my tendancy to overplay hands and Mark (NoSup4U) is always preaching to me about my betting and controling pot sizes. SO true. Thanks for the insight (it sort of ties in with your book excerpt post in the Books forum) I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of that.

[dkelloway]

DanielNegreanu, on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007, 3:57 PM, said:

I actually took this hand from a WPT final table that I watched between Erick Lindgren and The Grinder. Erick had the K-J and checked the turn. The Grinder thought about betting, but then decided to check and take a free card with 3c 5c, an open ended draw. The river was a 3, Erick bet, and Grinder thought for a long time about calling but then finally folded the pair of threes. Do I agree with Erick's play? YES! In this situation checking is the best play available to you. If Grinder was planning on calling you on the flop to steal the pot on the turn, betting the turn would take that play away from him. The board isn't all that scary so there isn't much to protect against. Also, he could easily have you beat. No need making the pot any bigger than it needs to be out of position against a great player. I say check the turn and do a combination of A) minimizing your losses, while at the same time B) allowing the Grinder to bluff his money off to you if he chooses to. The only thing I would have done differently was probably check the river against an aggressive player like the Grinder. A better chance he'd bluff at it or value bet a worse hand than him calling a bet from you on the river.

Daniel,I understand your reasoning and the fact that you emphasize pot control. At first I thought checking was the better play, but betting the turn can get weaker kings to call, and protect from the draw incase he had 53. But the Grinder is very capable of floating to try to steal the pot, and double barrelling does take this play away from him...if he raises you can fold. But, if you check and call his turn bet, what will you do on the river if he fires a big bet?

[11 to 1]

Thanks, DN!! I thought I'd put the original question here, just for convenience if anyone forgot exactly how it went. (OK, I did.)

Quote

You are at the final table of a WPT event and came in raising from late position with K-J. The Grinder calls your raise from the button and the two of you take the flop heads up to the turn. You are both among the leaders in chips with five players remaining. The flop comes K 4 2 rainbow. You decide to bet 33% of the pot and he calls you.The turn card is an off suit 8... what now?

[Bubba83]

I absolutely nailed this one.From my original post:

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I think it's close between checking and betting 50% of the pot. Our flop bet is so weak that I think he calls with any hand he has. The Grinder will make the call to try and slow us down if we missed so that he might be able to pick it up on the turn. Since the turn makes the board fully rainbow, I think the best choice would end up being check, because I doubt The Grinder is coming over the top of a 50% pot bet that often without a hand that beats us. We are out of position against a great player who also has a large stack, so I think this is a very risky situation, which suggests we should play it carefully the whole way through, that's why I picked check.The reason I think he won't be so quick to pounce on a 50% pot bet on the turn is that with the WPT final table structure he would probably be commiting most or all of his chips if he makes the raise, despite the fact that you guys are two of the biggest stacks.I think the bigger question for me is what to do after we check, what's our line? If he checks behind we are going to want to value bet the 50% of the pot on the river I would assume. But what happens when we check and he bets 50% of the pot? Are we raising? Raising puts us in a pretty tough spot if we're beat, since we would have commited a lot of chips with this line. I guess we'd be check/calling the turn and then doing god knows what on the river...If we check, he bets 50% of the pot, and we call, do we donk-value bet the river? Or just check/call again?

[aasurfer]

Quote

Daniel i'm not sure who you were saying was "way off" so i guess i'll just be honest and say what i think and hope i don't get made fun of... and if i do hopefully i'll learn something... As a top pro I would assume the Grinder would call a raise from a nobody like me on the button hoping to out play me after the flop with a variety of hands. The flop bet of 1/3rd the pot is in the probe bet range and he could have called planning on stealing the pot if I let up at all or if he made his hand on the turn. While it is possible he concealed a very big hand like AA or AK i believe he would reraise more often than not pre flop.An article I was reading a while back from Erick Lindgren suggested checking the turn in some situations when you are the preflop aggresor in position against an aggresive opponent. In Erick's article he said the value you give up by letting your opponent draw to 5 or less outs is more than compensated for when he thinks your turn check was a sign of weakness and tries to take the pot on the river with a half to pot sized bet.I think this concept can be applied for this hand but with a twist. Instead of checking the turn in position, you're checking out of position... which sucks but bear with me. You know The Grinder is going to bet 50%- the pot when you check to take it from you, which may have been his plan the entire time with no part of the flop... So my play would be to put in a minimum check raise. I believe this is the best play because I'm pretty sure i'm ahead and by checking and inducing his bluff i'm adding huge value to a pot i may have won with a half pot bet on the turn.As my first time at a major final table i would be doing everything in my power to win. Against a top pro like The Grinder i'm going to have to guess sometime to win, and by making this play now I think he'd be a little more wary of entering a pot i raised in the future. Even at the final table the top pros want to play small ball if the blinds allow it and grind you down (no pun intended). By standing up to him on this hand in which i am very likely ahead based on the reasoning of previous posts (AA or AK on the button would usually raise, the only hands to worry about are 22,44,88, or QK) I am sending him a message to focus on the other 4 players and to stay out of my way until we're heads up.

I think I hit the nail on the head here... i even unknowingly referenced Erick in my thinking on how to handle this hand! I don't think you can blame Lindgren's bet on the river, but if i feigned weakness on the turn trying the play listed above i would definitely check on the river as well and give him another chance to bet into me.Phil

[blakheart]

Nailed it!! Great question

Check/call Our hand is vulnerable and we are out of position. Keeping the pot small here is important. If we bet out he may raise us off of our hand, and we don't want that. We may be giving a free card to A4, A3 etc, but it is more important to not get too invested in Top pair ok kicker. If Grinder checks behind, then we just need a blank to fall on the river. Then we can either check to let Grinder bluff, or value bet the river.If Grinder bets and we call, i think anything is an automatic check on the river.BTW on WPT final tables we can assume that neither player is real deep in chips here. The WPT structure is such that they want it to end in a resonable amount of time.

[JoRaff]

What's wrong with value betting top pair?

[JoRaff]

JoRaff, on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007, 8:24 AM, said:

What's wrong with value betting top pair?

Also I think this hand would be very valuable to improving my cash limit game. Please help me out, guys. Thanks

[cdannons]

Not such a difficult question. Anybody who chooses to argue against checking is just wrong. Betting isn't so bad, but definately not right. Shoving looks awful. You may get some better hands to fold, but you are only being called when you're beat. You are one of the leaders. Why risk your stack? Especially if you feel (as I'm sure you would if you were Eric Lingren) that you're one of the better players.

[acedecade]

I also would have checked there to get a better read on what he had. A raise on the turn and he folds. A bet and he calls your still not sure if he's slowplaying AK or if he's has A Q and on a draw or something completly different. Checking would give the most info. A big raise by him and you would have think he made something and proceed with caution. A small bet and I would assume a straight draw. A check and you know he's dead and just trying to not lose chips. I might have even checked on the river becuse I would know he's dead and would fold any bet. Maybe he would bet and then you could raise or call. If he doesn't bet it wouldn't matter because he was done putting chips into the pot anyways. Just my humble opinion. Any thoughts?

[Money022]

JoRaff, on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007, 11:24 AM, said:

What's wrong with value betting top pair?

What do you expect to get called by? You're more likely to get value from check calling than just leading out as you're folding players out more often than not.

[sven00100]

I really think this depends how big the pot is in relation to your hand.of the options given, i agree that checking is the best decision, but i like to put in a small bet here (15-20% pot?).Even with 2nd pair, they may call, and i find it increases EV in my experience, since to a small bet, a strong hand may make a big reraise, as they believe you hold enough to call, (while you could, I'd fold here) a speculative hand may call or reraise (but generally not as much as a monster hand) and depending, you can read the river better, and make a more sizable decision on the river, whether it is to bet, c/c, or c/f..I like decision making, and i feel checking doesn't really tell us where we stand, depending on the bet size, nearly as much as their action on a bet (even a small one)This is my reasoning, and please correct me, and if you disagree, please tell me how/why. (I also think this depends on the opposing player, though as Daniel says, he took it from a Final Table in professional poker, and in that situation, i would possibly agree with checking (personally) depending on who the opponent was)

[drewlovesomaha]

Ha ha - i thought this was a trick question since that is one of my favorite WPT final tables - you forgot to say not to let The Grinder hit a two outer later to cripple you- lol Classic final table, lots of action- Grinder, John D'Agostino, and E-Dog going at it. J Dags also makes a great call with KK when The Grinder check raises him all in on an ace high flop with two hearts. "I just know you have a flush draw - I hope it is not an ace high flush draw" Really looked like Erick had taken control, he had really picked up some big hands/flops and was cruising, Grinder had gone from chip leader to 3rd when the hand came up - I believe it was AQ vs 33 and E-Dog flopped a queen but Michael rivered a set - There are so many AQ losing hands on WPT final tables- Phil Ivey every time he got knocked out at a final table it was with AQ seems like. As a side note, Stuart Patterson (who was at this final table) went real deep yesterday in one of the FTOPS events - PLO Omaha. I really like his style of play, I know he has been around awhile, and it is kind of inspiring to see someone with a disability thrive in poker - yet another reason poker is the greatest game - people of all ages and backgrounds can excel at it.

[Datiger]

DanielNegreanu, on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007, 3:57 PM, said:

I actually took this hand from a WPT final table that I watched between Erick Lindgren and The Grinder. Erick had the K-J and checked the turn. The Grinder thought about betting, but then decided to check and take a free card with 3c 5c, an open ended draw. The river was a 3, Erick bet, and Grinder thought for a long time about calling but then finally folded the pair of threes. Do I agree with Erick's play? YES! In this situation checking is the best play available to you. If Grinder was planning on calling you on the flop to steal the pot on the turn, betting the turn would take that play away from him. The board isn't all that scary so there isn't much to protect against. Also, he could easily have you beat. No need making the pot any bigger than it needs to be out of position against a great player. I say check the turn and do a combination of A) minimizing your losses, while at the same time B) allowing the Grinder to bluff his money off to you if he chooses to. The only thing I would have done differently was probably check the river against an aggressive player like the Grinder. A better chance he'd bluff at it or value bet a worse hand than him calling a bet from you on the river.

Yea Daniel I understand. I like that thought as long as your totally confident that your in the lead and you know he's going to bet it. He did call the flop meaning maybe he did hit that flop and then you checking twice in a row he can overbet with the better hand act like he's bluffing and make more than if you were to bet half the pot and fold if he reraised. Thinking it over I think I might like your play better though.Definitely for me because I'm 22 and not known like you guys and I could see him trying to bully me around, now that I think about it. It might be harder for you, because he might think your setting up a trap and then you don't get any value from your top pair if he did have a low pair or something like that.Nice one Danny!

[Datiger]

cdannons, on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007, 8:45 AM, said:

Not such a difficult question. Anybody who chooses to argue against checking is just wrong. Betting isn't so bad, but definately not right. Shoving looks awful. You may get some better hands to fold, but you are only being called when you're beat. You are one of the leaders. Why risk your stack? Especially if you feel (as I'm sure you would if you were Eric Lingren) that you're one of the better players.

Yea not shoving, but betting 1/2 the pot to get value. He might call you because of the weak check on the turn with a weaker hand.

[Datiger]

dkelloway, on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007, 11:20 AM, said:

Daniel,I understand your reasoning and the fact that you emphasize pot control. At first I thought checking was the better play, but betting the turn can get weaker kings to call, and protect from the draw incase he had 53. But the Grinder is very capable of floating to try to steal the pot, and double barrelling does take this play away from him...if he raises you can fold. But, if you check and call his turn bet, what will you do on the river if he fires a big bet?

if he bet the river I would do a small bet on the river and if he raised then just fold

[Nedok]

I voted to to bet the turn because I think that he's not really likely to have a king here, only likely ones are KQ/KTs(KT might call pre) (AK 3bets or shoves preflop). Since he called the flop he is either floating or calling with a small pair. I'm still not sure about checking because we lose value when he has a small pair and thinks we're just double barreling. But when we bet we lose the value from his floats. I guess it comes down to how often you think hes floating here.