Game #1521749374: Hold'em NL ($0.25/$0.50) - 2006/01/25 - 19:27:34 (ET)
Table "Pantomime" Seat 4 is the button.
Seat 1: Hero($49.50 in chips)
Seat 2: BFAbe ($18.95 in chips)
Seat 3: AbeButik ($49.50 in chips)
Seat 4: Drexel ($18.40 in chips)
Seat 5: z-stardst ($35.25 in chips)
Seat 6: aaron8854 ($72.80 in chips)
Seat 7: jumbo ($53.75 in chips)
Seat 8: stevezr7 ($52.25 in chips)
Seat 9: polite ($40.75 in chips)
Seat 10: ganggreen ($19.50 in chips)
z-stardst: posts small blind $0.25
aaron8854: posts big blind $0.50
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Hero [Ac Js]
jumbo: folds
stevezr7: folds
polite: folds
ganggreen: folds
hero: raises to $2 (first to enter..making move?)
BFAbe: folds
AbeButik: calls $2
Drexel: calls $2
z-stardst: folds
aaron8854: calls $1.50
----- FLOP ----- [Ks 5c Ah]
aaron8854: checks
hero: bets $5.50 (Great flop, bet close to pot)
AbeButik: folds
Drexel: folds
aaron8854: calls $5.50
----- TURN ----- [Ks 5c Ah][7c]
aaron8854: checks
hero: bets $14.50
aaron8854: calls $14.50 (trouble placing a hand...)
----- RIVER ----- [Ks 5c Ah 7c][4c]
aaron8854: checks
hero: checks


Is the river check to weak.. Any pointers on the hand? 2nd hand at the table..

SunPoker doesn't seem to convert ..

it's fine. people will say to fold preflop... i don't think that's necessary. I'm comfortable raising with AJ in MP3. Sucks we got called so much. Flop... you have to bet. Turn, i likely bet about 2/3 the pot just in case i'm getting set up for a C/R. River, no reason to bet. even if you had the best hand the entire way, you get caught up to a lot here.

Looks good to me, I wouldn't bet the river. The only thing I would change is maybe throttle down on the turn. I would probably throw out about $12.

No problem with open raising from the spot with those cards.

I would bet. If you were beat you probably would have heard from a set or two-pair on the turn.

This guy has shown no aggression. We are missing a prime value bet opportunity.

This is 0.25-0.50, villain's will often play Kx this way.

No real reason to go crazy with it but I think you can at least bet what you did on the turn. Betting the river also serves metagame purposes because your image will change towards an aggressor, and people will be less willing to get in your way.

My approach on the river has always been to rarely value bet a top pair that you've been representing the entire way. Villains' will finally believ eyou most times and fold. If they've caught up with two pair, they will call or possibly check raise. Betting isn't bad, but I don't think it's optimal.



This is simply not true IMO, and IF it were, he's finally believing your river bet unless the x is 4 or a 7.



I like this part though. I think you need to have a certain style for this type of agression to be effective.

NL has many different ways to be played. Unlike limit, you will often find that many plays are not "standard" one way or another, but can be played a variety of ways to accompany a particular table image, opponent tendency, or just general affinity for the game at that particular moment.

But checking behind your marginal hands (like TPGK) on a consistent basis on the river at these limits is just straight up missing you value. From a pure math standpoint, you could play an entire session at 1/2, come out even, but have missed on maybe 2-3 straight up clear cut value bets on the rivers that would show you profit on the day. This doesn't fall into that grey area of NL where we can discuss TAG tendencies, LAG tendencies, etc.

You should strive to maximize your value, and betting the river against an opponent with a likely inferior hand is one of the easiest ways to do this.

We aren't risking much by betting the river. Nobody says we have to bet the pot. Generally, betting the river is based on your impression of your opponent's hand's relative strength against your hand. If it is somewhat marginal, nothing is wrong with betting another turn-sized bet.

The next time you play a session of NL, try and take a moment on every river to discern what I stated above. Having a ready made plan on every river with top pair is impossible, and having a ready made plan to check behind when you are likely ahead can be a big problem. I'm not saying that there aren't situations where you should check behind, but there are a lot of situations where you can value bet, this hand including.

As I stated earlier, just from a metagame standpoint, it helps to bet the river with some consistency in these situations, even if it is marginal.

- If villain folds, you don't reveal your hand, which is pretty important.

-You prevent your more aggressive, knowledgable opponents from betting your stack on the river OOP when they know that you really want to check behind.

- You'll discourage your opponents from taking marginal made hands far against you because they know that you are going to keep making them pay.

Overall, you'll just be in better control of the game if you're betting, instead of checking behind when likely ahead.

If you bet the river he could check raise, and then you have to decide whether or not he has it. On the flop, there is a straight draw, and then a club draw on the turn that gets there on the river. He probably had a straight draw, but could have had a suited ace in clubs. good check

My next question was going to be what do I do if he check raises? There are numerous hands that beat my TPGK here, and how many hands that don't beat me are going to call the river??

Results below, Just highlight the open area:

Hero shows AJ
Villian shows A2o

Hero wins pot

I agree and there are some circumstances that would make me bet this river. However, we don't have any indication that this player is not standard. I do not think kq is going to call the river and I honestly do not believe ax UI will call very often as well. This is my experience talking more than anything. If you really believed that worse hands are calling you here a lot, then a river value bet is in order. I do not feel the same.




See above. I think this is just wrong. We open ourselves up for C/Res here quite often to two pair.




I agree w/ this except for the river. People make river folds after some one has represented a hand the entire way and finally throws out the third bullet.




This is not a ready made plan for every situation. This is a standard response to a perceived standard player.


.

I really like most of this. This is the way I play. I'll fire three bullets at this board jq and probably get a fold on the river. What I think this accomplishes is that you are never really value betting the river though. People who decide to stand up to you will be trying to define their hand on the flop and turn before an expensive river.

Scott,

I agree with your anaysis, and we could probably argue back on forth on how often we are ahead/behind here or how much value a bet really has on the river, etc.

I think it's important to consider the limits, and how often we are getting called by a worse hand, though. Obviously as the limits go up and our opponents become less loose, a river bet has less value because we expect to get called by less marginal hands. This is one of the limits where we still can get value from a ton of weak hands, IMO.

I was more or less responding to when you said you check behind top pairs when you represented it the whole way, and that was what I disagreed with. It's possible that I misunderstood your post, but that idea is more or less wrong, as each situation should be analyzed differently, without ready made plans to check when we could likely get value.


Rhinestone Cowboy,

If he check/raises, it would of course depend on your read of the opponent and how much the pot would be laying you after his raise. Without this information, it's hard to determine which decision would be correct.

Generally, at these limits, it's almost never a mistake to take TPGK to showdown, but if we are raised the value of our hand goes down tremendously. Not so much that we can't call with odds, but definitely to the point where we should consider folding.

Maybe if he min raises. If he puts a real raise out, it's a clear fold and it's not even close unless you can tell he's drunk.

I think this is putting too much value into the "math", which is particularly the case with a lot of online players and why variance happens to them ("us" once in a while) more dramatically. We don't find that the villan was a good player, and I agree that it may be a mistake to figure them to be good at .25-.50 NL (although I know some good players who play these limits just to make a ridiculous profit), but a $14.50 cold call here on the turn is very scary, and the pot size would dictate a forced call by either player if the other bet or raised. Of course you would have bet if you knew about the poor holdings of the villain, but not knowing this ahead of time, it looks very much like the villain is expecting a bet to either call or reraise, forcing our glorious hero to call.

Nice play Rhinestone.