100%. Based on his actions and how he thought and called the turn, I really thought that J8 was the only hand that he could legitimately call the turn with isntead of pushing every time.

I know this has to beg the question of "if I had 33 for bottom set and the river was a J/8, am I check-folding?"
The answer to that is that I'm sure I'd want to but in reality I'd be like "I GOT A BOAT, I WANNA GET MONIES IN TEHRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I'm assuming this means am I calling with T9 if he shoves the turn?

The answer is no. I'd need 4-1 and I'm not getting close to 4-1. The other thing is that I said in a previous post that I thought he had more chips than he previously did, so I did not think it'd be a close decision based on pot odds if he pushed the turn. In reality, it's not that close, but it's still closer than I'd like. But, I definitely fold if he shoved the turn on me.

EDIT: Nevermind, I got it now. I'll think about that and get back to you.

This is a really good post.

I think it's important to note that I'm never value-betting a worse hand than J8 here. As shown, I often show up with semi bluffs and maybe total air in some instances. I think the point that I want to make in this hand, and the distinction that makes the villain's call with J8 unprofitbale is that up to that point in the game, he had no reason to assume that I would attempt, let alone be capable of such a bluff like this. I know that brings into play all other assumptions about him not knowing what my range is (would I do this with AQo for example?) and everything, but although I will often be bluffing here >1/4 of the time, nothing about my play so far has given away that possibility.

If we want to make the statement "well, the fact that the villain with J8 doesn't know whether I could be bluffing here or value bettting a worse hand should widen my range in his mind and make him more inclined to call me down." That is fair. With an overall TAGgy image and no bluffs shown down, I think it's hard to profitably make this call with a middle 2 pair against an unknown opponent.

Assume for this post the hypothetical situation in which the actual Acid Knight holds 9 T and his opponent shoves the turn after the check-raise.



That would be a disaster. You'd be getting the same 2.7 : 1 he's getting on the river. So you have to make the fold and give up a ton of equity in the process. I think you can see where I'm going with this; the player with J 8 comes out better with a push than a call if he can get a fold from the draws and sometimes a3 or a8.

Ok, I think I wind up calling with the A8 if I'm in that position. Here's the reasoning:

With the small bet on the flop, I would not give him credit for AJ becuase I think that hand bets bigger to protect itself on the flop.
A set of 3s is the hand I'm most worried about being beaten by obviously.
There are 3 combos of 33 hands that he could have (3 3 , 3 3 , 3 3 )
There are 6 combos of J8 hands that he could have (J 8 , J 8 , J 8 , J 8 , J 8 , J 8 )
Then also there's the outside chance of A3 or a semibluff of some kind.

Just looking at the fact that there are 6 combos I crush vs only 3 that crush me, plus many other choices for hands that I bet and few choices for those that beat me, I think this becomes an easy call getting 3-1.

Are you saying that the c/r and fold on the turn is a disaster?

Or not shoving J8 on the turn is a disaster.

I would fold A3 to the turn shove but not A8.

I agree. This post really got me thinking about how to handle a couple tricky regulars where I play.

Does anybody realize that 2/5 live is the equivalent of 25max online and that you will be hard pressed to find somebody who can lay down TPTK let alone 2 pair?

In order to bluff an idiot, you must be able to think like an idiot...

Why did the idiot bet $25 on the flop? Cuz he flopped top 2 and wanted to get as much money in the pot as possible. Even if you scare him, once he makes this retarded bet with a strong hand, his money is destined to be in that pot despite whatever shred of logic may run through his brain.

2/5 can be the equivilant of $25 max online or it can be the equivilant of 2/4 NL online. Two of the guys at the table were 2/4 online players. The guy with J8 was not one of them.

I don't blindly try and bluff players. This player seemed to make good moves in the 2 hours that I had been playing with him and he seemed to have a good understanding of the game. His $25 bet on the flop doesn't make him an idiot. It could be a stylistic difference between his play and other people's play or it could just be that he underestimated how big the pot was.

Not trying to make you look foolish. I'm sure in the moment you felt you could fold him out...

but If anyone knows how to think like an idiot, it's me

That bet doesn't fit anywhere into how I play, but that doesn't make it wrong. I called it retarded because I implied that I could've called with 45hh (total backdoor draws) since the bet was so small. This isn't true since we weren't deep enough for those kind of shenanigans, but if he had a solid reason for making the bet, it's fine. It doesn't make him look stupid, the bet itself looks kind of silly to me.

In the first paragraph, I'm saying that in a lot of 2/5 live games, you'll find good thinking players. Most are terrible, but there are usually a few good players there. I think that's not true a majority of the time at $25 NL online.

Yes, that one. The 9 T is worth $130 and then it's suddenly worthless when we reopen the betting and the other player prices us out.

Yeah. That's true. I guess I'm glad that he didn't push

He still got all of my chips, but at least I went down swinging!

I don't know where I stand on this. I almost made a long post a couple days ago about how badly I thought this hand was messed up, when Acid could have just played check/call check/call check/fold and played the hand perfect. But the way he played it gave him a chance to win the hand if the flop bet was just BS, and we don't find that out on turn without the big C/R.

Then if the flop bet was BS, hitting our straight is worthless anyways.

That was sort of my thinking why I would have taken out A8 and A3 hands from Acid's range here. I'd assume we're floating the flop with these hands to try to catch something sneaky and villian will call off if we hit good. Yet we think his call with j8 is awful, so our implied odds are awful to make the call unless we're bluffing him on the turn (which there's really no reason to if we had a hand like A8 and the A doesn't come). The only Aces up hand I see there is AJ. So like I said before, it seems like we're trying to communicate a very narrow range of hands to make our bluff work. Say if the board was j 8 3 K at the turn. Should I be folding 33 or does the possiblity of JK make it enough to call?

Although my post sort of implied it, I don't hate Acid's check-raise. I'm was more concerned about the right response from j8. Pushing > calling for when when Acid Knight has A3 or a draw, which I think means pushing > calling for the whole range.

Yeah, after looking at everything, pushing is probably >>>>>>>>>> calling with the J8 there, especially since he'd fold out A3 if I had it, as well as the draw.

In Scott's post where he's talking about implied odds, they really don't come into play on the flop, since I'm getting such a good general price and he *could* have a big hand here. On the turn, that's part of the reason I c/r honestly. Calling seemed wrong based on pot odds and it would make my hand too transparent and I didn't know if he had a big hand to be paying me off. As Tskillz mentioned, raising gives me another way to win the pot since all I have is T high. And if not, it gives me a way to bluff off an extra $500 or so.

Are you limited to doing this only on certain hands?

FMP

Because it's sneaky and you expected to get paid if you hit?

Bump.

?

I like how this thread isn't dying. I'm sure it will after this.

I guess I'd have c/r with it sometimes there since it's the same hand that I had (T9cc) in terms of outs except it's sneakier. I guess that sometimes I'd c/r with that too.