Building on my new years resolution to play more live poker, I actually ventured out to Biloxi twice last week to play in the cash games at the Beau Rivage. The 2/5NL games were unbelievably excellent. Gulf Coast legend and November Niner John Dolan was there, along with fellow Gulf Coast Poker Blogger Kai Landry. The games played much bigger than a standard 2/5NL game considering there is no max buy in and everyone for the most part was very deep.
Literally a few hands into my session I got involved in a big pot which I'm honestly not sure if I played right or not. Let me preface this statement by saying that I am very comfortable in most of my decisions when playing 100-200 big blinds deep (as most games online are played with these stacks), but in this case we were 450 big blinds deep effective. Here is the hand setup:
It was a 10 handed table. My starting stack was $2200 and I was in middle position.
Under the gun player raised to 30, there was 1 caller to me, I called for 30 w/ 22, and the button called for 30.
There was 120 in the pot and the flop came Q72r. The preflop raiser led for 80, the middle player folded, I called, and the button folded.
The pot now had about 280 in it and the turn came the 3c putting 2 clubs on the board. Now the preflop raiser overbets the pot slightly and bets 300. Our stacks are deep and I really felt like this bet made him pretty polarized to monster hands or air where he's trying to get me to fold a mid pocket pair like 55-TT. I ponder for a while and decided to call to induce him to make a bet on the river if he is bluffing.
Now the pot contains 880 and the river comes off a 9 which is a total brick. He now leads for 800. I'm left in a weird spot here where I'm not sure if I played it right. If I were to move in, it would cost him another 1k or so to call. After thinking about it for a while, it seemed to me once again by his sizing that he either had QQQ, a small chance of 333, or nothing. I really thought if he had AA or KK he would value bet in the 400-600 range to make sure to not let me get away from a Queen. Also, in case my read was wrong, I thought that he was good enough to fold AA or KK if I shove the river knowing that its rarely a bluff and that I normally always beat 1 pair hands.
So, eventually after deciding that he would fold worse hands if I raised and only call me with sets since 2 pair hands are pretty much obsolete on this board, I decided to call the river rather than putting in a raise for my last 1k.
Results wise it didnt really matter because he turned over King high and couldn't call a penny more, and it turned out my call on the turn was good because it induced an $800 bluff from him on the river.
Regardless of the great outcome, I still question whether I should have raised the river. Looking back, I think I may have given him too much credit for being able to fold AA or KK, or even a hand as weak as AQ. If he was stacking off with these, then I made a HUGE mistake by not shoving the river for 1k more. Some may say that I should have raised the turn, but I disagree as my hand looks so much like a slowplayed set when I raise the turn, giving him a chance to correctly fold his overpairs and not allowing him a chance to bluff the river with his air. If I had to chose between raising the flop or turn, I would rather raising this super dry flop as he may construe this as me polarizing and then I can just bet 3 streets for value. Overall though, on this board, I really think calling the flop and turn are best, and then making a decent river bet if he checks or raising his river bet (or possibly erroneously calling as I did) if he bets the 3rd time. I'm definitely open to suggestions here from any other players who play deep stacked live poker.
I wanted to bring up this hand because even though I won the pot, it is a great example of thinking back over a session and analyzing your hands, both winners and losers, to see if you cost yourself more than necessary, or if you missed value in hands that you won.
Other than that I've just been grinding a decent bit in the 2/4NL 6max games on FeltStars. The game are good as always and they have some awesome promotions running right now. Click on any banner on my blog to redirect to the FeltStars website where you can create an account and join in the fun. Oh, and make sure to enter bonus code BootnTee and email me your screename to bootnteepoker@yahoo.com if you want rakeback.
The last collaborative heads up training video between myself and JK (Nicolak) was released Friday on CardRunners. Hopefully everyone enjoys them as much as they did the first 2 parts. Also, I was recently a guest on the poker podcast "The FeltStars with Dr. CheckRaise and the Bear." This podcast is hosted on Rounders Radio and DrCheckRaise.com. Below is a link to listen directly (Just press the play button and give it a minute or so to load. I come in about mid way through the show). We mostly talk about live cash games, playing medium stakes online, and how I got my start in poker. Also, there is info about the current FeltStars promotion where you can play me heads up in a $500 freeroll. Check it out and hope you enjoy.
Til Next Time....
