Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Contemplating A Move...

Two spots where I was tempted to make a move...how do you follow through here?

Hand 1)
Villain is 31/21/2.7 over 282 hands.

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
UTG: $20.71
MP: $21.76
CO: $32.57
Hero (BTN): $25
SB: $28.05
BB: $19.45
Pre-Flop: A Q dealt to Hero (BTN)
3 folds, Hero raises to $0.75, SB calls $0.65, BB folds

Flop: ($1.75) 3 7 4 (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1.25, SB calls $1.25

Turn: ($4.25) Q (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $2.75, SB calls $2.75

River: ($9.75) 3 (2 Players)
SB bets $4,
Hero?

No, I'm not even close to considering a fold here. Weird spot for villain to lead...maybe a blocking bet? Raise or call? If raising, how much, and what action if villain comes back over top?

Hand 2)
Villain is 35/12/2.2 over 76 hands

Full Tilt Poker, $0.10/$0.25 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter
SB: $26.32
BB: $38.33
UTG: $9.38
Hero (MP): $41.05
CO: $25
BTN: $23.24
Pre-Flop: 8 8 dealt to Hero (MP)
UTG calls $0.25, Hero raises to $1.10, 3 folds, BB calls $0.85, UTG folds

Flop: ($2.55) 6 K 7 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1.75, BB calls $1.75

Turn: ($6.05) 2 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $3.25, BB raises to $15.80,
Hero?

I guess this might seem like a pretty straightforward fold, but it's pretty intriguing to consider. Given the highly polarized range, does that lead you to lean towards folding or calling (or shoving)?

1 comment:

noldmax said...

Those I discussed this with recommended a call on the river in H1. I thought the hand was really odd. Check-call, check-call, then lead small on the river? I think we can mostly rule out any sort of monster (set/2 pair/straight) before the river, since any of those hands are raising by now to build a pot and extract value. So to me, it's either a hand with a 3, probably A3s, or a 7 or Q that is wanting to set the price on the river (blocking bet). But if you have a 3, don't you try to get more value than that? If someone has fired into me twice, I'm expecting them to call a bigger bet, maybe something closer to pot size.

Well, that's all just to explain the reasoning for my move...I raised to $9, villain re-raised to $23, and I folded. I still think that's a decent spot for a value raise on the river, since I highly doubt that many villains are folding any Q there. They might even call with hands like 88-99, or a 7.

In the 2nd hand, I really thought it was a strange bet, since it's a huge raise, and given that the turn card is a complete blank, it means he either flopped huge or was trying to steal it away. Wish I had the gall to make a move, but I chickened out and folded. The fact that we were relatively deep (starting with 150BBs effectively) probably gave me a scare, but it should possibly have encouraged me to shove, since he still has enough in his remaining stack to fold. I just think that if he has 2-pair or better, he is making a smaller raise to extract value and set up a river shove. I guess there's always the chance that he's just a bad player who doesn't know how to size his raises.