Friday, June 17, 2011

Can't Lay Down Kings, Can Ya?

I checked out a gym this morning on the way in. I loved the floor, location is great, price is right, but there was one problem...they don't have showers. IMR, no showers. How do you build a gym without showers? Disgruntled, I did not join and drove straight to the Bike and sat immediately in the 2/3 NL with my coffee.

As I'm sitting down I see a 3 way all in, TT v JJ v KQcc on a T94-J two club board. Lol wow, OK, that's quite a cooler. Next hand I ask to be dealt in like UTG + 2 for free and I get to folding for a bit with the pots going off like 5 ways almost no matter what. These people like to play pots, that much is clear. Then it happens.

7ish handed UTG limps, I make it $12 with black kings and immediately regret it; 3 players call behind me, the bb calls and we are 6 handed. In LHE I'd be counting the money. In this silly game I'm already trying to figure out how to avoid getting stacked. To the flip:

875cc

My limited understanding of the game rates this flop as borderline disasterous. Nonetheless after two checks I fire $35 (note how "small" I've kept the pot....I started the hand with $295) and the player on my immediate left insta-calls. One player folds and another snap calls. The rest fold and we are 3 ways with something like $170 in the middle. Let's pause and discuss the thoughts running through my feeble brain.

They have position. That is unpleasant.

Would they fast play draws? Probably.

Would they slow play sets? Probably.

Can they both have draws? Sure; that's the silver lining of a flop this wet.

Am I stacking off? Probably.

So we see a turn with smoke literally pouring out of my ears and it's...a beautiful deuce of spades, for a board of 875cc-2r. I tank for 15-20 seconds and then announce a bet of $100. This leaves me with like $140 behind or so, and was almost undoubtedly at least my second bet sizing mistake of the hand, but I couldn't check and well...whatever. My first opponent had me covered, the second was like $60 shorter than me and as I was trying to decide if I could fold if one of them shoved they both...snap called. I mean this took less than 5 seconds total and the dealer is burning and turning the river and I am completely unprepared for an extremely tough river decision but somewhere something in my brain says "they are now both polarized to big draws and sets" and then the board pairs the 5.

875cc-2r-5r

I decide to check and induce a bluff. I have no idea why I did this, other than the fact that betting seemed silly. So I checked. Opponent one checked and the second guy thought for maybe 2 seconds and declared "all in" and I said "call" before he had even broken his stack. A plan is a plan, amirite? The table laughs a bit and he says "well that's not good...could you at least let me get my chips out there before you call?" The dealer counts it down and it's $82 (into like $470) and now the other guy...tanks! He picks up his cards and looks at them in plain view, revealing T7cc for a crappy 2 pair and a busted flush draw. Surely he's going to fold....right? He says "what you have? 8s full?" and tanks some more. He must fold.

Nope. He calls. The bettor rolls A6cc for the mother of all draws. I show my kings and the caller officially tables the T7 (half the table could see it anyway) and the bettor mutters something about me calling with that. As he calls for chips he declares "Can't lay down kings, can you?"

5 comments:

that_pope said...

I have played quite a bit of low limit NL live, so I have some advice. A 4x opening raise is fine, but after a limper, I would make it 5 to 6x. Remember these games are raked heavily, so getting good money in preflop when you have a big advantage and they love to call is the name of the game.

On the flop, if you have no pair and are just making a c-bet to see what happens, your bet is fine, but I agree it should be a bit bigger, I usually go for 2/3 of the pot as a value bet. You aren't playing this game daily, so your infrequent post flop bets won't be much of a tell.

As for the river, I could see a check call or a shove. And lol @ him for expecting an $80 river shove to get someone to fold kings in a $440ish pot.

Dan said...

I know you're not a NLHE guy Jesse, but this is pretty standard. Check out 'Professional NLHE' - specifically the section on stack to pot ratios. Without knowing the other stacks, your SPR is 5 on the flop. In a multi-way pot, that's a bit high for a hand that typically flops an overpair. However, my experience is in small NLHE games like this, I'm ok with a higher SPR with a multi-way pot because your opponents will stack off a lot lighter than someone with half a functioning brain would (see T7 guy).

Dan said...

oh, and nh gg.

The blindman said...

I'm guessing it wasn't "you can't lay down kings, can you?" as in "well you obviously can't lay down kings there, can you?"

jesse8888 said...

No I'm pretty sure he legitimately thought I might lay down kings. He probably wasn't realizing that the river bet was basically exactly like a limit situation where he bets 1 unit into like 6 and I snap call because that's what you do.

Pope I agree that my bet sizing really wasn't very good throughout the hand. I should have made it 15 or even 20 pre, and as played I should have bet more like 50 on the flop and then been able to shove the turn. But it sure turned out to be a lot funnier this way.