I was gonna say the same thing, I like the flop bet because it will make k9 and K10 fold just in case it gets checked around and no one has an ace you earn yourself more outs. Im always a fan of buying more outs at the cost of a couple small bets

Ok, this is post number one for me on 2+2, so forgive my ignorance if this sounds completely lame...but how do you expect to get two folds in this spot? Even if the first limper concedes that his frequent river bluffing just got punished, the second player has already hemmed and hawwed himself into calling one bet. Wouldn't he take an "in for a penny, in for a pound" approach to the c/r and make a crying call expecting to lose or are you relying on his weak/tight image to lay down enough times to make this play + EV? Just trying to understand a little better.

This is true, but this is highly player dependent. True, PJ is hoping for a perfect storm of crappiness, but combined with a bluffy first guy and a tight-passive guy calling, I think this is the place for a play like this.

This is the kind of thing you do every once in a while, and as long as it remains as such, I really like this play.

I can see the logic in his thinking, and I also see the light in your reference to how player dependent this occassional move must be. I think when I read the original post, it just conjured up so many memories of making a similar attempt against what I thought was a player with a capacity to fold only to find out that they were just feeling sucked into the pot by the time they'd already called for one bet on the river. I usually get shown some top pair/weak kicker or middle pair here.

I really would like to get to a level where I can be as confident in the players CURRENT state as PJ was to make this play at the RIGHT time.

Yeah I wasn't sure the second guy would fold, but the pot is offering me odds for this bluff (11:2 I think) so that he only needs to fold x% of the time (factor in the small % of the time the first guy also happens to have a hand, like 98) and to me that made it worth the shot.

RESULTS: Limper 1 turbo-mucked to my raise, and Limper 2 seemed even more disgusted than before and shrugged and picked up his cards, flashed one to his neighbor, shook his head and threw them in the muck.

I'm proud that I resisted the urge to show my cards, because this was one of the better "moves" I've pulled at a LHE game in my career, and I quickly put a blue chip on the cards and slid them to the dealer before I was really tempted to show. One guy at the table asked if I had a set, to which I just nodded. I was glad to be in a game where people are bad at hand reading and just factor in their own cards and the likelihood those cards are good given a river checkraise.

Of course, I ended the session stuck 20 bets because in some form of weird karma I could barely win a hand after this.

This strikes me as really bad, despite reads.

this hand makes me fall in love with live poker all over again

well played pj

I really wish you hadn't posted the results before I got to climb on the NH you kick ass bus, but trust me I had already paid the fare and was working my way to a comfy seat.

There are not that many times where the protected pot bluff is going to work but this spot with your image looks really nice. The laggier guys don't get away with this but one of the perks of being nitty is that you get to pull occasional big moves. Very nice. I suspect your NL game may actually be making you a better limit player since spots like this come up much more often.

I don't do stuff like this anymore. I've gotten worse at poker, something that having a full-time job has done to me. Sadface.

I have the same problem. Since getting a real full-time job, I don't have the mental capacity to play at any sort of reasonable high level.

Either that, or we're getting old.

i don't do this anymore because nobody would ever fold anything in this spot these days.

I also realized today that it doesn't even matter if I suck or not anymore. It doesn't matter if anyone sucks or is good or what. Poker is a joke because variance is so ridiculous that it would take several lifetimes for the long run to get there. All we have in between is luck. "Winning players" will just lose less money and lose it slower if they run bad, and crappy players will just win less money when they run great. But we're all at the mercy of variance so all of this talk of winning and losing is pointless.

(And I say this after both sucking out on people and getting sucked out).

Well put.

A reminder that the only thing we can do is try to make what we think are the best possible decisions is always welcome.

Oh, and having fun is probably important too.

Fold pre.