So some friends and I are playing a small buy-in homegame. About 7 people showed up..

A very tight/passive player raises before me nearly 7 times the big blind. I find this very odd. I mean, it's obvious he has a pocket pair, but why that big of a bet? Anyway, I looked down at 5/6 suited in spades.. I was the last person to act, so I call.

The flop comes 4/J/7 rainbow.. He bets a really small portion after the flop, like maybe 1/12th of the pot.. So I'm thinking that that was his sad attempt at a continuation bet and he was scared of that Jack.. I move all in with my up and down straight draw..

So my opponent is decided on what is going on.. He is thinking outloud a little bit.. What really ticked me off is everyone else that wasn't in the hand giving their two cents..

"Com'on Chris, you've already come this far.."

"Well, there isn't a flush out there.. "

"Nope, no flush draws.. Go for it.."

"I put him on 7's.. Chris should call.."

"Com'on Chris, you got him covered.. "

I'm hearing all of this and just getting steamed. I didn't want to say anything then, because that would have probably been a tell right there. He ended up calling anyway.

The turn came a 3 and gave me my straight so it all worked out, but I let everyone hear it.. I just had to get up and walk away for a few hands, after I said "Since when is poker a f ucking team game?"

Anyway, was I wrong here?

your play was wrong

they were wrong

he was wrong


you are all winners.


im a dick.

Your play was awful.

It's a homegame, so no need to get bent out of shape like that. I play in games all the time where there's half the table sweating your hand and what you should do, but those are the kind of games I goto and I know what to expect.

If you hate that, then don't play in this particular game. But what you shouldn't do is get mad and try to change the environment of the room because you feel it's not serious enough.

I don't necessarily feel that it wasn't serious enough, but when there are two hands in play, no matter how lax the environment is, there shouldn't be outloud discussion about it.. I assumed it was bad poker etiquette to do so.. If I'm wrong than I apologize..

And how was my play wrong?

When is a semi-bluff at a huge pot ever wrong?

I put him on the exact same hand that he had and put him to a tough decision..

If you know he has a low PP, then the push is fine bc you have tremendous fold equity.

Yeah.. They might mean my cold call with my suited connectors..

Oh well..

I had position on my opponent and had a really good read on him.. I'd be different if he went all-in and I called with a draw. My first intention was to push him out of the pot.. With a bet of 1/12th of the pot, I had to really doubt his willingness to play this flop.

But I had a back-up plan if he did call..

I actually think I made a good play.

so you closed the action pre flop?

wouldnt that make you a blind, thus oop?

Anyone else laugh out loud when they read this??

You were all in, Donk, according to your post...
What exact "back up plan" did you have???

chips counts and bet sizes would really help (even if they were just relavative)

but if you really want your opponents to stop talking, QUIT BEING SO GODAWFUL EASY TO READ

like, 5 out of 6 of your opponents put you on a weak hand and knew your friend was ahead. please change up your playing style, it's quite painful to read.

here's the summary:

your opponent overbet pf
you made a loose call w/ no overs to his pp (meaning you were a 4-1 dog)
your opponent makes an atrocious bet on the flop
you make a huge donk raise, which you would definately not have made if you had hit the jack
your opponent makes a good call (even though it was coerced)
you suck out

is your name danny ngyuen by any chance?

I was big blind, he was small.. Everyone folded around to him.. That's when he raised..

My up and down straight draw, which I'm 5 to 1 to hit if he doesn't fold..

Which isn't even the point, if you would pay attention...

The point was, I felt going all-in, due to his weak bet, would push him off of his hand.. Ya know.. A semi-bluff, chap..

The point of this thread was, everyone was goading him into calling, so he did..

WTF is up with people..

Yes, the call was loose.. No one, including myself, is disputing that.

You see, I'm not a professional by any means. I'm still very much learning.. I won't sh it you guys and say otherwise. I do think you all are being a little ridiculous, though.

Lately I've been reading the Super System's book, which states that calling with suited connectors, when in position, is a good play occasionally, when you have a good read on your opponent. If the flop hits right, you stand to gain a huge chunk of their chips, if not all of it.

I suppose I was just doing what I learned from that book.

Didn't know this place was filled with such professionals.

Btw, there comments had nothing to do with their "reads" on me. I think they just wanted a call so one less person could be at the table, thus strengthening their chances that they'd make it to the money.

I actually liked the comment.....

"Since when is poker a f ucking team game?"

You're right, they had no business commenting on the hand, and that's as fine a response as any to curtail it.

Thank you. Not so much about agreeing that it was bad etiquette, but for at least focusing on the right part of the thread..

sorry if i was a lil assholish my last post, it just kinda annoys me when i read bad poker. but im glad your taking steps to improve your game

and yeah, if you post in a strat forum, you should expect to get feedback on the way you played your hand, regardless of what question you may be asking (otherwise, it'd be more suitable for general poker)

believe me when in all earnest when i say i just want to help you improve your game.

here's how i'd play the hand (post-flop)

raise 4-5x on the flop
bet 1/2-the entire pot on the turn

play the hand like you hold the jack. rarely is your opponent going to make 2 good calls in the same hand if he's under a lot of pressure

but for this hand, chip stacks and bet sizes are crucial to a good strategy discussion

He had me covered, I remember.. I don't know exact amounts, though..

I remember wanting to raise and thinking to myself (If I raise and he shows strength on the turn or I get a card that I don't like, I'm going to be crippled from here on out..)

So my stack wasn't real strong at that point.. I had just called an all-in with my top pair and the other guy hit his draw, so I was getting sort of short..

Oh, and don't worry about being "assholish" or anything.. I don't take offense real easily and it appears that the mistake was mine anyway, as I posted this in the wrong forum.

Ah. I was about to make a post saying when the hell did strategy get so bad?

In home games though, rules tend to be MORE enforced by what the will of the house is rather than perfect vegas rules. People that abide by the rules are cool, and people that nitpick, even if they nitpick with the truth, get made fun of.

...Stress can make people remember stuff in better detail (the quotes you referenced) AND people can get p!ssed off more win OR lose (because of the stress they sweated out of you in the hand).

You're correct in that they were wrong to talk about the hand like that... but you were wrong too getting all mad at them. Maybe if you chuckled nervously about it, scooped your pot, and said "hey I thought it was one player to a hand, right?"

These home games are more for fun than profit, I find. I don't care if everyone in the room is gathered behind a lone opponent, looking at his cards, looking at me, and making suggestions, because it makes it more fun...more of a party atmosphere.

Besides, usually the advice given is contradictory and confusing, making your opponent's decision more difficult. Three people are going to have three different opinions on the strength of your hand (if all three are even thinking about your hand at all). Loosen up, have fun, and don't worry if the team occassionally reads you correctly. They just informed you that you need to tighten up for a while. Thanks, team!

In a home game, I dont sweat this kind of stuff. As long as nobody brings up their folded cards, I'm happy. If it happens all the time but you only got upset because it happened to you in a critical spot, then you really have no right to complain.

You needed to be more polite about asking people not to coffeehouse during the hand. If the game stops being fun for everyone, the action dies out. Either put up with it, or find a polite or funny way to tell people to shut up. The sarcastic aggressive "since when is this a ****1ng team game?" only makes you the most recent *******.

I agree with other players' comments on how you played the hand.

You know what, though? It's not like I'm asking people not to "coffeehouse" or whatever the hell you said. But again, no matter how lax the environment is, when is it ever correct to give the guy, who I put to a tough decision for a reason, advice or their "reads" to help him out?

If they absolutely must talk about it, they could have at least done it quietly among each other, or preferably waited until after the hand. It's not like I'm trying to be a rules nazi for a homegame, but I also want to get better at the game of poker. It's not like I'm a professional here. When 3 or 4 brains are working against 1 other guy, it sort of makes it unfair.

Read Super Systems. According to that book, I played the hand correctly. I'm not saying anyone's opinion on my hand are wrong or that I even really disagree with them. Sometimes there is just more than one way to do things.

Walter Sobchak: Am I wrong?
The Dude: No you're not wrong.
Walter Sobchak: Am I wrong?
The Dude: You're not wrong Walter. You're just an asshole.
Walter Sobchak: All right then.

no time to read replies...

Cash or Tourney?

If Cash.. how deep stacked?

Call PF marginal; but much worse if not DEEP STACKED

If Tourney..horrrible pf call, unless you have HUGE stack, imo.

Etiquette wise: bad for them to participate. You were right to "let them have it" from a poker point of view. You were playing for $$ right? Now from a social point of view, it depends on how they take it and how much you could give a damn.

why is everyone giving the OP so much shit about the way he played the hand?

we don't even know chipstacks for crying out loud. we don't know how deep or shallow the stacks were, and whether this was even a cash game or a tournament (if so, we don't know the payouts, what the bubble was, etc.). we have no idea what his table image was, etc. how can you even BEGIN to analyze a hand without all of this information??

and fwiw, since when is it terrible to semi-bluff in his spot?? if it has a significant chance of making him fold a pair < JJ (which it apparently almost did), it's way good.

it's like people look for reasons to flame. sad.

aseem

you beat me to it... i was typing a reply before you typed this. i agree, how can everyone give so much advice without knowing such basic essentials as this?




i agree.


aseem

I'm in the club!

Small homegame. 20 dollar buy-in. 2nd place gets their money back, 1st takes the rest.

There were 5 people left out of 7 or 8, maybe.

I wasn't the short stack, but I was down about 1/3rd of my stack, because I called someone's all-in and they drew out. This might have been 5 or 7 hands before.

Not sure about my table image. I usually always raised from late position and took down the pot with a continuation bet, so I never really had to show a hand down.

I had good reads on everyone at the table except one person. He was all over the place on my radar, so I tried to stay out of pots with him. I saw him raise 2x the big blind with q/4 offsuit and was fortunate enough to flop two pair. I saw him slowplay pocket queens at the beginning of the game (he let 5 people see the flop with his queens). Like I said, he was just everywhere..

Well, he said that it was "a huge pot", so since it is a 14bb pot, I can only assume it was a tourney, unless they were both super shortstacked to begin with. Also, this would imply that he called off a large proportion of his chips preflop with 6 high. That's never good. I would want to be deep stacked here to have some kind of implied odds if I hit. If he was exaggerating and the pot really wasn't big, a semi bluff isn't the best idea, since our opponent is passive and likely to let us see the river for cheap (he bet what, 1 bb on the flop?).

So, there's 2 options.
1) He called off a decent number of chips pf with 6 high: bad
2) He semi bluffed into a small pot against an opponent that would likely let him see if he completes his draw before getting a lot of chips in: bad

Either way, he played it poorly.

I do agree that people often look for reasons to flame, and it is quite sad. Some just lack confidence and have the need to bully/ridicule others for ego purposes.

where are you getting this figure...?


but calling means we lose the pot a high % of the time. semi-bluffing is easily higher EV in some situations.

(not saying that it WAS, but you can't just a) assume you can see a cheap/free river, and semi-bluffing has a lower EV than check/calling, without knowing any details.)



aseem

Right, when I said this part, I was assuming that the pot was actually small, so that his preflop call wasn't terrible. I'd want at least about a 70bb stack to consider calling a 7xbb raise pf with 56s, and even then, our opponent is passive, so our implied odds aren't real great. Anyway, if we have a stack large enough to make calling preflop with 6 high a "non-bad" play, pushing here would be like a 4-5x pot size bet at least, which is pretty gross spewage for a semibluff imo.

My point was that either a) the pot is small enough in relation to stacks that it's not worth fighting over with someone who just gave you a chance at essentially a free turn or the pot is big, which implies that the preflop call was terrible.

okay.

your (a) isn't *always* true, but i definitely understand where you're coming from.

aseem

Yeah, I can agree that semibluffing could possibly be more profitable than just calling, if our opponent has the tendency to bet big on the turn after a weak flop bet like this, or will fold any mid pp or J, but an all in for like 4-5x the pot for a semibluff? There's gotta be a more profitable way to play that flop than that.

most likely, his flop play was completely fine, but his preflop play was quite lacking. i don't think many players would overbet all-in as a semi-bluff unless they are good/tricky LAGs and exploit this sort of behavior for later hands when they flop monsters (this is a REALLY strong move when the stacks are deep). so, you're right that most likely, the stacks were shallow and his preflop call was far from optimal.

aseem

so kcb, i'm about to burst from the anticipation. What kind of stack size did you have in relation to the blinds?

The blinds were like 100/200

I think I had about 7 thousand at the time..

Everyone started with like 11 or 12 thousand in chips, I think.

yeah, bad pf call.

But I"m with you on the main point in your post!
Give'em hell!

Ok, bad call pf, good semibluff on flop, and as far as the point of this post, did villian show anyone his cards?

In a homegame, I have no problem with people talking back and forth, as long as they don't show their cards. The rules will vary from place to place, and if you don't like the rules, don't play there. But remember most home games are for fun, but if they allow to show their cards to others before deciding, it's kinda retarded. I sure wouldn't play somewhere where I have to play against a committee.

No, not this particular time, but I have seen that done before.. It also really pisses me off..