So I'm playing 8/16 LHE in the Bellagio last night because I didn't have enough cash on hand to play a reasonable game. At that point in the night I still thought there was a decent chance I was going to meet up with a friend (who was at a bachelor party) at a club or for some gambling and drinking later. So I figured I'd set in the loose crazy game and try to win some money while enjoying a few beverages.
Started off the night fairly well, I made some good plays got some good value for several hands, but then I went totally card dead. All of my draws missed, all of their draws got there, I rarely flopped a pair etc etc etc. Before I know it I haven't won a hand in about 2 hours and I'm down to about $200 from my original $500. A few more bad flops and I'm down to $160. At this point I just feel that this game isn't working for me, and I'm going to get up and go to Caesars or something. My plan was to just play until my BB and then take a break.
Then the hand occurred that taught me a valuable LHE lesson, and maybe a little bigger lesson as well. And while it possible cost me a +$300 pot, if I correctly apply the lesson i guess it could make me money in the long run.
A little background: one of the main reasons I was staying at the table was because I easily had the best seat in the whole table. I had to two tightest players to my direct left, and I had a player to my right that while well ententioned obviously had no clue how to play poker. In fact he had to be briefed on the mechanics of play at least half a dozen times in the 2 hours he had been sitting. He had won several pots off of me by getting there every time, as well as not ever folding when I had draws that missed (to my credit I didn't waste too many bets bluffing him once he showed a willingness to call down with K-high in every HU pot no matter what the action). To his credit his biggest mistakes were betting and raising when his hand did not warrant it in the slightest as well as rarely folding if he had any SD value. While these are exploitable mistakes in LHE, and playing that way will surely cause you to go bust in the long they are mistakes that can only be exploited if people are hitting hands against you and this night he was hitting enough hands to stay afloat. There were also some other LP calling stations further to my right, so combined with this player I easily had the best seat at the table. If I could have played that seat for the rest of my life I think I'm easily a 5BB/100 winner in that game.
So back to the hand. I look down in MP and see 44. Two players have limped in front including our big fish. I limp as well and super tight player two to my left (who isn't very good but thinks he's good because he plays soooo tight and can't hand read for shit) raises. BB calls, limpers call and I call and we see a 5 way flop for 2sb. Dream flop of A84 rainbow comes down. The fish bets into me, I think about raising, but then I know that the guy behind me will raise with any Ax, and then I can trap the field for a c/r on the turn when he bets again. So I just call, tight guy raises as I thought, fish calls and I call.
Now the 6 comes on the turn. Fish leads again, I know tight player will raise all of his good Ax again, so I call playing on 3-betting the field when it comes back around. Tight guy raises (sweet), fish calls, and I 3-bet. Tight guy looks puzzled for about 3 seconds, then announces a 4-bet. Fish calls two cold (lolzers) and I realize that I'm likely now up against a set of aces. I call and we see the river.
the river is the 7 making the board A8467. Before any action the tight guy groans. I now know he has some kind of set and thinks that made someone a straight. Fish now bets into me, I decide "wtf, huge pot, I has a set, I call". Then tight guy lifts his hand off the table and shows me and other tight player to my left his AA before groaning and finally calling. Fish knuckles the table and AA scoops the pot. Now can you spot the big mistake I made that could have changed who got shipped the pot?
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If you guessed that I should have raised the river then you deserve a cookie. If I had stopped for a second and realized that fish could very easily be betting the river with any two pair and that my hand likely has decent equity against his range, and that by raising the river I could rep a straight and possibly get the tight guy to fold. Now any good player will look at my action on the turn and quickly realize that I am much more likely to have a lower set than a hand with a 5 in it since the only hand that I could have c/3bet the turn would have been 75 exactly. But this player didn't hand read will, he only board read well. When I raised the river he wouldnt have considered that my range of hands on the turn had very few 5x hands in them he just would have figured "4 to a straight on the board someone has to have it" and possibly mucked his set of aces. Considering that there was over 20BB in the pot, I was going to pay one more to see the SD, that additional BB would only have to buy me the pot about 4-5% of the time to be profitable. I think the chance that I have the fish beat, and get the tight player to fold is definitely better than 5% if I would have raised the river.
Instead of taking time to think out the situation, and make the best and most profitable decision I made the standard easy make a call and see a SD decision. Afterwards I got up and left the table as I had planned, but before I could even make it into the bathroom I realized my mistake. I was immediately very pissed at myself for not seeing such a profitable river play. Sure it is a somewhat advanced play, but I played LHE for a living exclusively for about 5 months against much tougher competition in higher stakes games and I feel like that is a play I should have seen.
So lesson learned. In LHE whether or not you should call or raise the river is not based on whether or not you think you have the best hand, it has to do with whether or not you think that you can possibly fold out better hands while still getting called by worse. In this case the small parlay that I fold out a higher set and beat the fish was definitely a profitable play. The math of the situation is undeniable, and the best play on the river was certainly a raise.
The second and maybe more important lesson is that if you are faced with an action you didnt anticipate on the river (ie fish bets after the 4th straight card comes) don't play on instinct take time to think through the situation. While we as poker players should be prepared for all possible situations (ie don't bet or raise if you don't know what to do if they reraise) obviously new facets of complex hand can certainly present new opportunities for us to make profitable plays. Ignoring those opportunities, or failing to understand them costs us money at the table and probably cost me a fairly significant portion of a very large pot last night (since my play wouldn't always work but it had enough value to work some of the time).
next post is going to be more of a summary of my trip. My thoughts on vegas (both good and bad) and the various casinos.
thanks for reading
jim
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