Early in STT

[ImBetterDude]

The guy to my right has been sparring with me all tournament. I've picked up a few big hands early but haven't really cashed in on them, and once the guy actually showed a bluff and out played me. I'm sitting on 1,900 chips, and the enemy has roughly the same.

Folds to the SB (enemy) who doubles my blind, making it 80. I call the extra 40 with

FLOP:

Pot is 160, he bets pot. I call.

TURN:

He bets 350.

I think and think, and am not sure what to do. I'm feeling he could be strong but I'm playing well, have position, and decide to call and see what the river brings. I feel a club will scare him if nothing else.

RIVER:

He now goes into the tank. He and I both have like 1250 left behind, and there's like 1,000 in the middle. He bets 700.

I don't understand this bet. I have a hard time seeing this guy firing on the flop and turn with a flush draw, and unless he WAS firing with a flush draw, my CALLING should scare him of the flush draw hitting. So why bet so much on the river?

I shove, raising less than double his bet, and he folds.

I feel this was one of my best reads in a long while, but maybe I was just playing wreckless. Tell me what you all think.

[taz115]

You played it pretty badly in my opinion... if you want to find out where your at you could raise the flop reasonably cheaply but I just fold, fold and fold every street here.

If I'm playing hammered I'd raise the flop and fold to any further interest from my opponent (including a flop call).

[taz115]

I often play badly so don't worry about it too much but by playing over aggressively you will make awesome reads like this simply because if you were playing well you would never find yourself in this spot.

It's like if someone never folds he will occasionally make some pretty awesome call downs. So it was an awesome read but your going to get beat down long term taking lines like this.

[ImBetterDude]

Understood. Mostly I was just head up against this guy every other hand for like five minutes, and I knew his doubling my blind was personal and not a sign of strength.

But point taken, I should have probably raised the flop.

[jmbreslin]

Save this kind of fancy stuff for MTTs, there's no room for it in STTs.

[ciaran]

Your line is insane, don't over value it just because his is worse.

You're effectively paying to draw to the flush on the turn, and paying more than it would be worth if you had it. If you hit your bluff you also won't know if you're just repping the hand he has, which makes it worth even less.

[ImBetterDude]

I wasn't playing after the turn for any reason besides that I thought I was best, and put him on air. Due to our brief history against each other, I felt confident that he was going to keep betting at me in hope that I went away, and in this case I gambled that my humble pair of 6's were strong enough to slow play.

But how about his river bet...what would he bet that much with after betting the flop and turn? The only conceivable thing I could think of was he was betting a flush draw the whole way...that was the only way I thought he could have my 6's beat. I think any big pair check/calls here. Maybe a set...but again, my read was strong the whole way...from preflop to river...that this guy was just trying to outplay me, as we had been going back and forth for like 10 minutes.

[ciaran]

If your sixes are best, he's bluffing the river when he bets, and raising him is pointless. If they're best on the flop/turn, then calling in both spots is bad because you let him set the price to draw to whatever he's drawing to (and he must, obviously, have outs). If you're raising the river, it must be to bluff, or because you think he'll call with a worse hand, and there just aren't any worse hands that will call for most people (though if he's really insane enough to triple-barrel off 75% of his stack, I guess he might call with A-high).

From his POV, if he has nothing, betting the flop is marginal but fairly standard. Betting the turn unimproved is similarly marginal, but perhaps arguable if he has reason to think you'll fold a 6/flush draw/88/99 type hand to a second barrel. Betting the river unimproved is downright retarded, unless he has a Q or better and thinks you'll call with a worse Q or J and are also smart enough to not draw to a flush when he's priced you out (a lot to ask a random to put together in making this decision). So, as a rule he should only be value-betting on the river, and he should never be intending to fold after having done so. Check-folding makes much more sense with air/marginal hands, check-calling (mixed with check-shoving sometimes) probably makes more sense with big hands (including flushes), and open-shoving is probably best with air (mixing in doing it with made flushes enough to keep you from calling to snap off a bluff). Bet-folding only makes sense with medium to strong hands when he thinks you're a complete nit (and can thus only have the flush when you shove), or, if he bets smaller (and I don't think stack sizes really allow for this, but he might do it anyway) as a bluff that looks like a value-bet.

He's almost certainly an idiot, given the bet-fold, but I would suspect he had the best hand more often than not, and as a rule I think you'll do better in the long run folding 3rd pair on the river when bet into for the third time for ~half pot/~half remaining stacks.

[ImBetterDude]

I'm pretty much always folding by the turn, but against this specific opponent I had a pretty dead on read that he was messing with me. I'm not a fool who calls three barrels with 3rd pair without a very, very, very good reason to do so. I think my ROI would be significantly in the red if this was a standard line of mine.

The only reason I pushed the river instead of call is I didn'f feel like being humiliated at the table by showing 6's with my enemy taking 90% of my chips. I had no interest of calling that big bet and losing. Raising all in for less than his bet is obviously a bad bet, but it was for $5 and I didn't really feel like being scrappy with a couple hundred chips and going for the miracle come back.

The truth is I felt pretty confident I had the best hand all the way, and his big bet on the river solidified that feeling. But you're right, he may have had a bigger pair and wasn't bluffing with nothing, so perhaps the all in by me scared away a better hand and wasn't so bad after all.