Hand Discussion #5: My Thoughts
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“When in doubt, bet.” That’s my philosophy when it comes to playing against bad players. It’s a philosophy that was born in limit hold’em, but it’s one that I think carries over to small stakes no-limit surprisingly often. Bad players are bad in various ways. Some call too often. Some fold too often. Some telegraph their hands and play too predictably. The thing is, the best way to exploit almost all of these errors is to start betting more often.
Indeed, while bad players are bad in many different ways, you can boil many of their problems down to one, “They don’t punish aggression enough.” That’s why “aggression” is cited so often as the key to good play. It’s possible to be over-aggressive, for sure, and the higher you play, the more you have to balance your strategy. But the way to beat many bad players is to bet, bet, bet.
Let’s take a look at this week’s hand up for discussion. From cpk, we get a flopped flush draw which turns into a weak top pair.
OK, here’s an NL one where I make a thin value bet. Keep in mind that I really suck at NL and my thought processes may be totally wrong.
The game is 1/2 NL at Bally’s LV about 1 AM on a Tuesday and I’m at a table full of gambl0rs.
Stacks– I gots about $300, the main villain has about $200. Most everyone else has at least $150. But it’s hard to tell–you know how gambl0rs are with their chips.
I have the button with J
T
Flop is 9
. Checks to the villain. He bets $30. Of course, I didn’t think about this problem when I decided to call preflop. Here he is giving me over 3-1 immediate odds on a decent draw, but I have 6 people behind me. Hm. Oh, well, I call anyway. Oddly enough, everyone else folds. What a strange game. The pot is now $135.
Now we have to put Villain on a range of hands. Trouble is, he has been raising a lot preflop, and with all kinds of utter garbage. His bet could’ve been a c-bet. It could be top pair. It could be a medium PP. His underbet is perplexing, because he usually bets more.
Turn is T
River is 4
. Villain checks again. That confirms my suspicion that he could have a 9, a medium pocket pair like 88 or 77, or nothing. I figure if he has anything else he’ll bet. He declined to bluff, though. So now we have to wonder–will he call a small value bet? I decide he will and bet $40.
My question is mostly about the value bet on the end, but feel free to tell me how I screwed up at all points in the hand.
Here’s what I think.
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Tags: absolute-position, bluffing, drawing-hands, flush-draw, hand-discussion, las-vegas, no-limit-holdem, relative-position, thin-value-bet, value-bet
Thanks for your remarks, Ed. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t totally on crack.
I think my crucial error was that I didn’t think of my hand as strong on the turn. I felt I had a mediocre hand. If I made a decent bet, I’m now playing for a big pot on the river if I miss. It didn’t occur to me that my hand was actually pretty strong and I could avoid the issue of having to play a big pot on the river by moving in on the turn. It makes sense now that you’ve explained it.
As it turns out, opponent called and had ATo, so I lost. The opponent played this hand very strangely–making a very dangerous PFR, betting into seven players when he had nothing, checking when he hit his best possible card, and then check-calling on the river. The only thing I could think of is that he must’ve thought I was sandbagging an overpair–like Jacks or Queens. He didn’t seem savvy enough to induce a bluff, but he very well could’ve been trying for that. Otherwise, his play of this hand made no sense to me at all.
Thanks for your help.