Q&A #86: Weak Means Strong… Sometimes

Agreed … like the fellow who gave the big speech … then raised. ( in your examples Ed ). You were behind almost for sure … even given your characterization of him. I am sure you though OK, I have him now … I get to beat the tough guy at the table. That’s what I’d be thinking anyway. Not “Oops, drawing dead”.

I couldn’t have got away from it either.

Is he really faking weak here? It is actually a scary board for top set. Against k-10 spades or 10-9 spades, he is only 3 to 2 to win, where most times he would be a big favorite against all hands with top set.

He bets only about half pot on a very draw heavy flop. That tells more about his hand than his mumble I think. He wants action! Top pair only would bet pot or more to protect against all the draws.

I believe this situation should have never occurred…..

The reason I dont like the overcall is because the BB is a good aggressive player. This then becomes a perfect opportunity for him to squeeze this pot, and difficult for you to continue in the hand. Also an overcall prevents you from having the betting lead in a 3 way pot. If the early position raiser is a donk we can just argue for a call, as we maybe able to take the pot later on.

Preflop:
If he is tight then this is an ovious preflop fold. QJ has reverse implied odds against a tight range. Instead I would prefer to have 98s or 22 where we can use our implied odds.

If he is loose opener and not a tight 3bet caller then I prefer a raise. This is a good spot to take down the pot preflop, and even if called we have the position, the betting lead and we can represent a lot of strength. Also if we get 4betted we can instamuck this.

Ok, in some circumstances I can justify a preflop call but most of the time I think this is the worst play.

On Flop:
BB villain donk leads into a 4 way pot into the PFR who is next after him!!
This suggest a LOT of strength. Noone ever bluffs here. The worse hand I can see is the nut flush draw and even then I dont see how they donk bet into 3 players OOP when he wasnt even the PFR, and the PFR was in early position! This suggests a v strong hand!!

By raising the flop what worse hands are calling…… AQ is. KQ isnt. Thats really the only hand I can see that we beat.

This means calling on flop probably has the higher EV. I would strongly think that if he bets the turn we are behind. AA/KK/ and AQ(possible) we are ahead of, but everything else we are behind.
I call flop to see what he does on turn and make my decision then and fold to another bet.

You have to remember, though, he did not reraise the flop, and only called the raise from the BB after 4 other callers. He could have easily had a hand like Q7 or J7 or even QJo and just called the $10 pre-flop because he had a MOSTER stack and got a lucky 2-pair on the flop. He had made calls like that many times in the past during the course of the session, and the post-flop had played aggressively to bully people out of the pot.

Pre-flop, more likely in my mind than QQ, he could have even had KsTs or AsKs or Ts9s or any other AsXs combination and may have elected to go all-in after the re-raise to $75 on a semibluff. He had already shown he was capable of moving all-in on a player with $400, on a bluff with a board of 3-spades, where he forced the opponent folded the ace-high straight. Certainly, moving in on me on a semibluff was possible.

But when you consider his comment, and the small $25 bet, it is certainly a cause for concern. This is why I thought he had 77, but was not able to get away from the hand. The chance for AQ or a 2-spade bluff was too high for me to justify laying it down. But should I have been able to get away? If I folded that hand in every situation, would I, on average, be better off?

Craig suggests I could have raised pre-flop as an alternative, or laid it down. Sorry, I will not lay down QJ-suited on the button with 3 callers in front of me to a $10 raise, which was typical of our game. So what if I raise? Let’s say I make it $40-50. Does he just call with QQ from the BB? Maybe. Or maybe he raises. He didn’t raise pre-flop, though, so who knows whether or not it would have made any difference. I put in a good raise after the flop that might get a call from AQ and a fold from a flush draw. Plus, any of the other 3 players could have called his pre-flop raise as well, making me committed once the QJ shows up on the flop. No one would fold that.

Two pair is a good hand not a great hand. I would have min-raised him to find out where he was at on the flop, then would have folded to his all-in raise. If he just smoothed called your min raise I would then check down turn and river to avoid conflict.

he called a preflop raise out of position (sign of strength), he bet into you out of position (another sign of strength), he then re-raised you all-in (another sign of strength) on top of it he is a good player which quantifies his strength even more. He gave you 3 signs of his strength!

His muttering under his breath may have not been a ploy but might have been legitimate. He had the nuts on the flop, but he knew he was playing at a table of donks, and feared getting drawn out on with the flush draw.

I probably would have also folded the QJ suited even before the flop.

…snip…
To my surprise, the BB player goes all-in.
…snip…

Why were you surprised? You knew he was aggressive. You didn’t follow Ed’s cardinal rule… PLAN YOUR HAND!!! The fact that you were surprised tells me that you didn’t plan your hand, cause if you did this action would not have surprised you. You would have been prepared.

Often when playing you will experience mixed information. The weak mumble, and the stronge bet. Someone hits the nuts on the river with a flush draw “what a rotten card” soon followed by an all in. IN GENERAL, in that range of situations, I put much more weight in the ACTION, over the words or act. The chips are more likely to convey hand strength than the player is. He is trying to both sound weak, and get as many chips as he/she can when you call down the monster.

My main man DonkStar where have you been!

The biggest pimp I know comes out of retirement!

I agree with DonkStar… as usual!

Trying my hand at Keno… Didn’t take me long to come back.

Good player from BB bets-3bets out into 4 players on a drawy board. He wasn’t preflop raiser but takes the lead on the flop. He’s got to have a huge hand.

Also, when people talk about scary board when there’s a bunch of players in (while actually putting money in), they’re not bluffing but are concerned that they will get bad beat or coolered later in the hand.

But laying down top 2 against an aggressive player? That’s pretty tough. The only thing is that there isn’t any rational other 2 pair combo he could have… J7 or Q7 is not so likely. I don’t think I’m good enough to fold.