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May 11, 2004
Hand Du Jour
OK loyal readers, I have never done this before but I found a hand today pretty amusing so I am going to post it for you. Ready?
I am on the big blind with A(d)7(d) in $10/$20 6 max on Party Poker. There are 3 limpers and the SB raises so I call, all call behind me. The flop comes 2(d)3(d)4(d) giving me an ace high flush and the SB leads into me. Now generally I don’t slow play flushes on the flop, even ace high ones, but this time I felt it was a good idea since I had 3 people behind me, none of whom were probably drawing to anything that could beat me other than maybe a runner runner full house. If one of them had a set or something they would probably raise the flop, at which point I would just go nuts with the hand. So I figured that it would be best to just let them draw at their hands and hopefully hit a straight or 2 pair.
Anyway 2 people called behind me and the turn was something like the 8(s) that made no real difference. The SB led out again and since I felt both of the players behind me were likely drawing dead to me (and if they weren’t they would certainly raise allowing me to re-raise) I just smooth called again. Slow playing the turn is even rarer than slow playing the flop for me but again I felt it was the play to make.
The river was what I thought was the worst card I could see, the Q(d). The SB checked and I bet out, thinking that it was unfortunate that I didn’t just pop the turn before this action killer came off the deck. That is one reason why I almost never slow play flushes, because if you have the nut flush another one of the suit will often kill your action, and if your flush is not the nuts it will often kill your hand. I was rather surprised when the fish to my left raised the flop, the button folded, and the SB thought for a while and cold called $40. I of course re-raised and the fish capped it. The button folded and I now knew what I was up against. This guy was not aggressive enough to be capping a K(d) here. Even though I was very sure I was up against the straight flush, on Party Poker you have to account for what I called the “random idiot surprise factor” or RISF for short. What this means is that since most people on that site are atrocious at poker they often have no clue how strong there hand is, and even when they do they often don’t play it accordingly. They aren’t doing it to trick you either, they really just have no idea what to do.
Let’s put it this way. Suppose you were playing poker against someone who didn’t know what cards they held. You could never get a reliable read on them. They might play a hand as if they had AA, but since they don’t know what they have your read of AA would be wrong. On Party people know what 2 cards they have, but they often don’t know the strength of their hand. When you read people what you are really doing is figuring out how strong their hand is. Sometimes when you deduce that you can determine exactly what they have (sometimes even the specific 2 cards) because only one hand could be of that particular strength. These times are rare, but normally against weak opponents you can determine a range of hands, use your intuitive knowledge of math to determine the chance that your hand is better than theirs if it falls within the range of hands that they could be holding, compare that to the odds the pot is laying you, and play accordingly.
Now suppose someone greatly overvalues their hand and plays it as if it were much better than it really is. You would then read them for a much better hand and possibly be wrong. This doesn’t mean that you should call necessarily, just that you should factor the chances of your being wrong into your decision.
Since the pot was laying me over 20-1 (and the RISF means that even your best reads will often be off as much as 25% of the time against people as bad as the ones at this table) I had to call even though I was virtually certain I was beat. Where as losing $20 here is not good, giving away the 400 and some dollars in the pot is a catastrophe. So I called and was unsurprised to see the straight flush take the pot from me.
To be honest I was almost lucky in a way. Had the guy with the straight flush raised on the flop (as he should have) I would have capped every street and been very surprised when he beat me. So it would have cost me $90 more. I am also certain that the SB would never have folded (I think he may have had QQ or JJ with the J(d)) on the flop or turn so it would have cost him quite a bit more and possibly been the biggest pot I have ever seen at one of those games.
I really don’t like his slow play, especially on the turn. In his situation nobody could have beaten him no matter what came. The odds of somebody hitting something on the river that they would go nuts with are slim. The only way that happens is if somebody has the A(d), and they weren’t going to fold that for $40 anyway. Also there is the chance that the SB or I flopped a flush and are slow playing it. That is a slim chance, but definitely something to account for. I really just can’t think of any situation where slow playing would net him more than playing it fast, and is it turned out it cost him somewhere between $90 and $150 dollars to do so. With a bettor and a caller (and 2 people behind you) you should open up there. If he were in my position with just a bettor and 3 people left to act behind him I don’t think it would have been fine to slow play the flop.
So there you have the hand of the day. It is the most interesting one I have seen in a while, so enjoy.
Posted by themaroon at May 11, 2004 12:48 PM
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