Hand 1: You 8x'd pre?

Hand 2: Fold pre. His postflop play is actually not horrible, especially on that river card.

I assumed straddle in this case meant 2/3/5/10.

I hate "pop" and "re-pop" as poker terminology.

Edit: I also hate the term "big slick". And just hand names in general.
Except for "The doctor", which is named after a certain 40/80 mix player that coldcalled a raise with something like K8752 in Big-O and made quad 8's.

I hate the expression "limping." It's an example of what those crazy kids nowadays call "able-ist language," stigmatizing physical disability. And there is no good substitute for it. The best I can come up with is "open-call," and no one knows what the **** that means when I've used it.

I don't think the word "limp" necessarily implies permanent disability.

Open call does sound weird, but just call seems fine to me also.

Softplaying is bad for the game right?

Has Mason, Sklansky, or other notable professionals ever published an essay on why & how it hurts the game?

Do low limit games suck more during aces cracked?

Collusion is bad for the game. Letting some amateur and his wife sit down at the same table is good for the game. Letting good guy Steve check down the nuts against some stranger is good for the game.

fine line. fine line.

brick new to game, new city, tables seems normal.


after 45 min mp3 raises, co 3-bets.

they check it down, CO A4s. (he had been playing tight all night)

it changes the game when you know you won't have to face further bets.

since I don't know the players who check down with each others I'm at a disadvantage. I decide to find another game.

I've been playing long time. since 2001. seen it all. never liked softplaying much, but it is much easier to deal with when you are a reg at a casino!

This has to qualify for a Cool story bro.

they had an agreement to check it down that I didn't know about.

but whatever.

cool south park episode last week.

FWIW, I agree with you. Although I think a a lot of things are scummy that many poker players think are just fine.

There's fishy softplaying and then there's ram and jam stealing the blinds. Like if two old guys just stop betting once HU, and mostly they're calling stations who bet with sets or better, it isn't that horrible. Still wrong, but w/e. Guys who 3 bet or 4 bet light to get HU and then check down, they're card cheats. If they are willing to whipsaw some tourist to really make this profitable, hangin is too good for 'em.



You might make the point that they could just play normal after the pot is HU and chop up cash in the parking garage to hide this, but being more obvious as cheats doesn't make it not cheating. I wouldn't be bashful about IWTSTH in this game. I've played in rooms where this happened and the cheaters were bad enough that the game could be beaten. As you say, knowing that 2 or 3 people are jamming up pots at random is a big deal vs. "man, that 4 bet must mean something, guess I have to sadface fold AJo".

It's a complicated issue. You own a poker room, do you prefer to make sure the random guy who visits didn't feel cheated cuz the husband and wife checked down a hand against him? Or do you prefer the husband and wife who play every day and help get your game started and pay a lot of rake are happy? There are competing interests

One can imagine that there is some sort of optimal weighting of the interests of the regulars and the random drop-in players, related to what percentage of the room's business is daily or weekly regulars as opposed to drop-ins.

Aside from rules and their enforcement, what interventions are available to the room management?

The regular player culture is going to matter a lot. One way management can influence player culture, if they hire props, is to encourage the props to say something if they see something sketchy. And by "saying something" I don't mean calling the floor but instead talking at the table about the problems around softplaying.

Honestly, if I saw someone three bet A4s and check it down on a board not containing an Ace or 4, I'd just figure that's how that guy plays weak Ax.

This would obviously change w/ more information, but still.

Kinda agree

Not much difference between them checking down, or one folding, then settling up later.

If anything, checking down is less likely outward premeditated collusion as bet/folding is. Usually just old guy friends who don't want to take money from each other when no others are in the pot. if a 3rd person was in, they wouldn't be doing anything that would make it HU between them on purpose.

I don't think many people would waste time to "settle up" for one or two bets in the parking lot.

Maybe some players go 50/50 in a game but honestly I wasn't worried about that at all.

I was just mad because I folded the best hand!

Once upon a time at a small stakes table:

limper, I raise, lady calls, limper calls, 3 way:

flop comes xxx gives me middle pair.

check, I bet, lady raises, limper 3 bets, I fold, she calls.

turn comes x

limper checks, lady bets, limper folds immediately without really considering calling.

I didn't like that one bit.

Many years ago in Atlantic City I played semi-regularly with 2 brothers and a good friend who would come to town every once in awhile and play in the 10/20 LHE at Taj Majal. They were bad players and were the type who liked to analyze their own play out loud after the hand, sometimes even arguing with each other, which was kind of funny. I wasn't buddies with them, but they were generally good for the game and their presence was amusing.

However, they did always (or usually) check it down when it was just them in the pot. I really didn't mind until this happened. On a hand where I was on the button with a medium suited ace or something, one of them open raised and the other reraised. Everyone else folded and they checked it down. They both opened their hands at the end and the second guy had something which seemed rather weak for a 3-bet, especially by his rather passive usual play.

He then went on to explain (to his brother / friend, but loud enough for everyone to hear) that he usually would have just called the 2 bets with that hand, but figured if it was headsup he could check it down post flop.

I then tried to nicely explain to them that this was basically the definition of collusion and was cheating. I said that I had a hand I would have called 2 bets with but not 3, so his actions unfairly harmed me. I tried to explain it in as kind a manner as possible but letting them know that it wasn't fair. He basically apologized, although I don't remember his exact words, and I don't remember them doing anything like that again.

Just thought it was funny that the guy basically announced the the table "I just cheated" and explained exactly how. But the fact that he didn't try to hide it at all showed that he really had no ill intent and wasn't meaning to cheat. Some people, even those who play a lot of poker, just don't really understand that if something helps them it must hurt someone else, don't know the generally accepted rules / etiquette, and can't figure out these things on their own without some assistance.

I couldn't have invented a better story. Matches my situation, even the part about how I usually don't mind it, and don't think they were trying to cheat. Thanks for sharing.

While I'm telling stories, here is one that happened just a few weeks ago that I had been meaning to post but have been travelling a lot and was too much to do from my phone.

I spent most of the summer in Portland, and playing a few times a week at a small cardroom in nearby Washington state. Mostly 20/40 and got to know most of the regulars at least a little bit and was friendly with them. This happened on the last day I played before leaving town.

A loose player directly to my right limped in. I have AdJd and raise. Surprisingly, everyone else folds, so we go to the flop heads up. The flop comes down, he apparently doesn't like his hand and decides to give up.

It's not that unusual for someone to just open muck in that situation, but this guy didn't just open muck, he decides to be playful or dramatic or something and starts to muck his hand into mine. I have seen players do that a few times before as well, and I found out later that this guy does it semi-regularly. I would have normally not thought his actions were a great idea, but not resisted, figuring he was just conceding the pot.

There was only one problem; the flop was KdQdTd. I had just flopped a royal flush for the first time ever. And there is currently a high hand promotion worth $300. My cards were sitting in from of me with a chip on top and he is pushing his hand towards mine. I put my hand over my cards, desperately trying to protect it from being mucked, while everyone else at the table is wondering why I'm being so dramatic about it and not just letting the hand be over and taking the pot.

At this point I'm really only about 95% sure I had the royal because my brain is trying to process everything going on, but I decide to blurt out "I have a royal flush". It's still kind of a blur what happened at that point, but I did get upset and told the other guy he may have just cost me $300. Somehow his cards went into the general muck, but my hands also ended face down quite a ways from me, because when I went to turn them up, somehow the first card I turned was the Jh, making me think for a second I had misread my hand. But then I turned over 2 other cards which did make the royal, and the dealer said the Jh was the burn card.

I really thought I was f'ed at this point, as the dealer called the floor over. An older guy started saying that he thought I had a dead hand, and most of the other players weren't really saying anything either way. When the dealer explained the situation to the floor person, he was probably overly generous about the situation, stating that my hand was protected with a chip (that part was accurate) and that he was sure the AdJd were my hole cards (I don't think he could not have actually been sure about this).

The floor decided my hand qualified for the bonus and went off to put it on the board, and to start the minor paperwork, as there was only 5 minutes left in the bonus period and the worst that could happen was that I would be tied and have to split the bonus.

The old man was still shocked that my hand wasn't considered dead, but didn't really argue about it. Another player pointed out I was lucky that the previous high hand on the board hadn't been owned by anyone at my table, because the guy could have contested it which would have required going to the cameras. And a third player mentioned another cardroom in WA which gives a $5000 bonus for a flopped royal and wonders what would have been the decision if the situation had happened there. I can only imagine that I would have totally lost my cool if that had been the case.

But anyway, I was happy to get the bonus, I apologized for losing my temper a bit, and the other guy agreed to no hard feelings between us. He said that he did that lots of times and the other guy was always happy because that meant he won the hand. The other players then seemed to understand why I reacted as I did and hopefully didn't think less of me for it. I left soon afterward and told everyone that I was about to leave town and wouldn't likely be back for a long time but I really enjoyed playing in the room and being friendly with everyone.

I'm pretty sure that was the craziest poker hand I have ever been involved in, or at least right up there near the top.