1/2 Hollywood St Louis Full Ring

V has around $350 and is 60ish WG who has been overvaluing weak aces, top pair, etc, but winning big (100 buy in) from a couple coolers.

H is 21yr old TAG around $500 who has shown down some good hands in the previous hour.

OTTH

V in BB announces this is his last hand and puts out $10. Dealer informs him he is in the BB and he goes "oh you are right" and puts out another $5. Dealer says "ok itll be $15 when action gets back to him".

Preflop: H raises $35 UTG+1 w/ AK and folds to old man who calls dark.

Flop($71): 345 V checks, H bets $40, V calls dark again

Turn($151): 345J V checks, H checks

River($151): 345J6 V says "I hope I have a deuce" and laughs then bets $50 dark. H sighs and tries to do quick math. H calls

V shows A8 , H wins

-Interesting hand to say the least. Should I even be betting this flop? I was fully expecting him to look at his hand after I bet but he didnt. On the river I am fairly sure I am getting correct odds to call on the board vs two random cards(actually only have 18.4% equity vs random two). Does a bluff shove on river ever work here? Surely he would have to look at his cards then? Does he fold everything except straight or flush? Is that Burning money? Thanks for reading, never played a hand like this before.

It seems you should fold or raise the river, although in real-time I wouldn't have realized we don't have enough equity to call.

This hand is a fine bluffing candidate since you can't call. If you raise to $200 it needs to work half the time. He has 2P+ about half the time with random cards. If he folds all one pair hands a bluff to this size is slightly profitable.

The problem is that your line looks bluffy. 7x is the weakest hand you can raise for value. How much 7x do you have in your UTG+1 range? 77 Only? Why would you check a flush on the turn? I know V is not thinking so deeply, but in his shoes I would strongly consider calling you with one pair. This guy may not be a thinking player, but he's also clearly got little regard for money and I wouldn't count on him folding one pair either.

100 buyins?! [EDIT: Oh, you mean he bought in $100. Not sure I'd call +$250 "winning big" in a $1-2 game but the BB thought he was winning big so that's what matters.]

Why on God's green earth would you put in the first raise preflop? You know there will be at least one raise behind you! And maybe someone else will do what you did to try to isolate the random hand, in which case you can give them a nasty surprise. Regardless, you should just limp and then reraise if it's limped to the BB and he puts in the forced raise. Reraise as much as you think he'll call blind, including a shove if he'll call it.

250 BB deep you do have to think seriously about running into AA or KK from an overlimper, so it would be helpful to know the other stack sizes. I will make up other stack sizes since you didn't give them and they matter a lot: $200, $100, $200, $55, $1000, $200, $300. There is only one as deep as you, so it's unlikely you'll get coolered by KK+ for more than $300. Limp/reraising (up to a shove if it will get called) is clearly the best preflop play unless the stack that covers you limps, then you might play more carefully.

As played, OTF you're a slight underdog but the money in the pot makes it OK to shove if you trust him to continue playing blind. The nonzero chance that he'll change his mind, look at his cards, and call any pair or draw makes a shove bad though. I'd check and fold any turn except an A, K, or 2, which I'd shove-raise if needed, assuming he bets in the dark. (A third club shouldn't bother us.)

But you should never reach this point with $70 in the pot and ~$265 in the stack because much more money should have gone in preflop.

It seems extremely bad to try bluffing someone who's been content to play his hand blind to this point. (EDIT: Previously I misunderstood the OP to say that he had announced he was playing blind.) In addition to the usual math for bluffing, you have to account for the chance that he calls blind. On this board, we're worse than 4:1 against a random hand, so our equity on a blind call is horrible.

Oh, and as played, you have to fold the river. You're 18% against a completely random hand. Terrible board. nh sir.

Dealer misplayed preflop slightly. Should announce a raise out of turn, but not offer an opinion on what the action will be when it gets back to him. (If there has been a raise then his action shouldn't be binding, so the ruling was correct, but the announcement was wrong.)

I said it's a good candidate, not that bluffing is a good idea. In fact I explained that I think bluffing is a pretty bad idea.

Technically the best bluffing candidates are hands that have clubs in them that are too weak to call. They are only slightly better than this hand, though, so that distinction makes no practical difference against an opponent who's obviously not remotely close to balanced.

AKQJ

I mean I do not think it is fair to call it horrible getting 4:1 with 18% equity. And yes he never prefaced he was going to play blind. So i dont think I should ever limp AKo and try to maximize equity w/ a strong looking 35$ raise utg+1. But yes looking back i guess I should either shove or fold. Guy would not have really considered ranges and how many deuces and sevens I have or whatever. And I mean he bought in for 100 lol.

But at your first preflop decision point, whether or not you think he's going to play the rest of the hand blind, he's already committed himself blind to a raise to $15 if action doesn't change to him. Even if he now looks following his forced $15 raise and now wants to fold to a reraise, he's still contributed $15 blind. That's much better than collecting the $2 as you played it if he decides to fold.

(In a poorly run room they'd say "You can fold but you have to leave $15 in the pot." That's a quite common ruling here in WA. If you know that's the house rule, I guess your preflop is fine although I'd rather L/RR if it's binding.)

I don't understand how open-raising to 17.5x UTG+1 lets you "try to maximize equity" when the alternative is to make an equally oversized raise (i.e. to something like 5-10 times the raise) with $15 blind money now in the pot plus whatever people behind do. The only really bad spot would be if, in response to this huge reraise, he might look and fold everything except big pairs and AK. But having an opponent play blind is an immensely profitable situation, well worth fading the risk of someone waking up with KK+ (unless there are multiple limpers who cover you, which is why we need the stack sizes).

The way I understood it from the dealer, was that the $15 was there to stay no matter what. So that is why I made it $35.

I play in this room every week for years. You’re $35 raised changed the action which means V could have pulled the $15 back and only had $2 committed. If you flat the $2 and every one else flats or folds then the $15 blind bet is binding and reopens the action. Am 100% certain on this. I would have no open raising range in this scenario.

Checking back the turn is absolutely terrible.

sentences like this are so annoying.

math says otherwise. check it yourself.

We have 40% equity against random hands OTT. V has no idea that his random hand has 60% equity in the pot, and will likely make a mistake here if we put him to a decision.

We can bet OTT, and get V to fold a sufficient % of time and protect our equity.

Additionally, sometimes V calls OTT and decides to check the river when Hero's equity is very small, and we get to showdown for free.

Further, sometimes V will actually look at his hand OTT as a result of our bet ("let me see if I have ") and we'll get more information that will help us decide what to do OTR. E.g. We may decide to bluff at the river if V checks to us after he looks at his hand and we decide he likely has a small PP or 1P type hand.

I agree that there's a substantial chance he looks at his hand but there's also a substantial chance he doesn't. Your post ("will likely make a mistake here if we put him to a decision....") sounds as though you expect him to look at his cards.

If he does look, I wouldn't plan on him folding many better hands. Players who play two streets blind aren't at the cardroom to make folds. He might look and call with a worse ace I suppose but I don't see enough value for a bet. Clearly we disagree there.

So IMO the bet seems like a loser conditional upon him looking and a loser conditional upon him not looking. IYO the value of the bet (bluff + vbet) is enough to offset the loss when he calls blind. I think you're overestimating our ability to outplay someone who probably calls a lot with a weaker range.

Good to know. Thanks for the info, the way the dealer made it seem like his 15$ was essentially a straddle. I suppose I should have asked for clarification.

Yeah, like I said, the ruling in twitcheroo's description is standard. However often you'll hear "That money has to stay in the pot" because of house rules or just a floorperson making **** up on the fly. That's silly because calling a portion of the bet you're facing and then mucking is not an actual thing in poker. This rule is in place to protect other players, not to punish inattention.

More extensive threads:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...ay-pot-815696/

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...ve-pot-951268/

OP, based on your understanding of the rules it's more understandable why you would make the first raise. Still, unless you have multiple deep stacks limping behind, I maintain it's far better to limp/reraise.

lol had this happen to me before at a home game. Old man just didnt like me, wasnt even at his seat and he called from the kitchen when he heard I raised. Called flop/turn before he even sat down and then just shipped the river. I had like 10 high and sigh folded, he never showed obviously.

I'm confused, you're checking behind all non AK2 turns... And folding all non AK2 turns to a blind bet?

So turns a 10h and this clown blind bets $50-$100, you're folding?

The hypothetical was checking the flop so the pot is $71, but I'm guessing you meant 1/3 or 2/3 pot. Let's focus on the 2/3 pot bet. We'd be an underdog against a random hand:

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

45,540 trials (Exhaustive)

board: 345T

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AhKs	44.75%	19,975	812
100%	55.25%	24,753	812

But getting 5:2 immediate odds, we'd only need 28% equity to call. So all-in, we should call.

The problem is reverse implied odds. We're an underdog to improve and our RIO (even vs. a blind hand) are horrible on the river. E.g. Q , a neutral river, we're 35% and have to pay off anything but an overbet at a big disadvantage. Any 6 (20%) or 7 (28%) is really bad; a club (Q - 32%) is slightly bad. A board pair is one of the best unmentioned outcomes leaving us with 47%. Obvious an AK2 makes us a huge favorite.

So you'd have to average the RIO on the river over that distribution to get the overall RIO conditional on him not looking.

If he looks it's even worse. He's pretty wild, so there's a good chance that he'll bluff us off AK, but there's also a chance that he'll decide to value bet most hands that beat us. Do you feel confident recommending a river line if he fires for 2/3 pot after looking on a 345-T-Q offsuit board? (I actually like bluffing many rivers with AK if he's looked, there's money behind, and there's a plausible hand for us to represent like a Q overcard.)

Summary for 2/3 pot: It may be marginal either way (my estimate of our turn equity based was too pessimistic when I posted) but when RIO are considered, folding the median turn (say T) can't be a big mistake.


Against a blind turn 1/3 pot bet obviously we can call a lot wider. I'd call on all turns except the really bad stuff like sixes, maybe sevens, and a few more if he looks and then bets 1/3 p.

There does seem to be some RIO, so we don't fully realize our equity, but it's not much. Let's say we're facing a 2/3 pot bet on the turn, and expect a full pot blind bet on any river.

Our river pot share the times we call is (12*.348+2*.4364+10*.4692+1*.6828+2*.7121+.7369+3* .7692+.8162+2*.8576)/34*3-1 = 53.7%.

Our overall river pot share is then 53.7*34/46 = 39.7%, which is far greater than the 28% equity we need to call.

Someone else can double check if I did this right. I used equilab's scenario analyzer to figure out our equity on each river card.

Lot of math went into this hand. I suppose I need to get better at doing this sort of thing in my head in real time, but next time I play a hand like this I plan on hitting top two pair

Glad to see two plus two has STL posters.

There is a 99% chance we have played against each other before.

Oh, and you are 100% correct about these rules.

I'm not doing any math on the fly in this hand. It's an old man playing blind. You have the best hand you can have without a pair.

Snap call river and laugh with the table even if you lose.

Pretty much this

I stopped reading when H raised pre, thus deciding he didn’t like free money.

i see this exact situation happen constantly at 1/3 from ABC type uncreative players. Funniest table I was ever at, one dude was straddling from every spot and just blind shipping and max rebuyung whenever he busts for a few hours. 3 different players just kept playing their normal range for a raise, and then folding to an all in.

OP, turn your damn brain on. Thats the best advice you can get. You cant read enough on these forums, you cant do enough math to counteract you not putting in the appropriate level of critical thinking at the table.