April 16, 2009

THIN! (Part 14)

I managed to score a seat two to the left of a 40/20/3 LAGtard last night. It took a while, but I eventually won a big pot off of him with some razor thin value:

MP: $10.00
Hero (CO): $72.45
BTN: $15.40
SB: $9.50
BB: $33.90
UTG: $141.55

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is CO with Ks Qd
UTG calls $0.50, MP calls $0.50, Hero raises to $2.75, 3 folds, UTG calls $2.25, 1 fold (Standard rimper punishment)

Flop: ($6.75) 9d Qh 6s (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $4.25, UTG raises to $8.50, Hero calls $4.25 (It's tempting to check behind here and control pot size with a good-but-not-great hand, but against an overly aggressive player, this hand is good enough to go to the felt with, and I want to give him an opportunity to make a big mistake. Against a tight player, getting check/raised here would mean 99, 66, maybe even QQ. The other hands you might expect check/raises from - JTs, 87s - wouldn't be limped UTG. But with this guy, I think he'd raise QQ/99/66/AQ preflop, and he'd definitely be limping all sorts of hands that hit this frop in a marginal way: any 9, any Q, A6o, 78, JT, KJ, KT...so let's start getting some money in. Once he raises, I could re-raise, but I think even he would figure out that I'm committed to the hand, JT has no fold equity, and second pair is probably no good. I'd rather call and give him an opportunity to commit himself on the turn.)

Turn: ($23.75) 2s (2 players)
UTG bets $23.75, Hero raises to $61.20 all in, UTG requests TIME, UTG calls $37.45
(2s is the blankiest blank in the blank. He full pots it, which probably means he wants me to fold, and I shove. He tanks for a while before finally deciding QJo should be gold for 140bbs. Turns out it's not. But KQo is! Ship it!)


River: ($146.15) 3h (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $146.15
Hero shows Ks Qd (a pair of Queens)
UTG shows Qc Jh (a pair of Queens)
Hero wins $143.15

One more note: to encourage more commenting, we will be linking anyone who's in our top 5 commenters (see widget on right sidebar). Thanks to all who comment on our brog!

-BRUECHIPS

13 comments:

Gnome said...

I want to be a comment whore. Sign me up!
Nice hand. You ever think about getting it in on the flop against such a LAGtard? I mean, he may stack off almost as easily on the flop with top pair. I like your line, I'm just asking the question.

WillWonka said...

These type guys are crazy; but no need to push the action too early as they will fold. Let them do the damage and then push where they almost have to call.

I say almost; because they will fold if they were just pushing with total air.

I like the gadget, I added it a little while back myself.

spritpot said...

Gnome, you're already our #3 comment whore, with Pinky right at your heels (now that we're counting comments, he will probably shoot up to 100+ in no time. He'll go back and comment on all our old posts. Just watch.).

I think he'd have an easier time getting away from QJ on the flop for ~65 more than on the turn for ~38 more. And also, like wonka said, I may lose value from air/draws. The only ghey part is if he has KJ or QT and a T peels off...but that's just a risk you take. I'm certainly not folding on the frop under any circumstances. If it were NL and he raised some committing amount on the frop, I'd go ahead and shove.

Gnome said...

Would you be more or less likely to 3-bet the flop if there were a flush draw out there?

spritpot said...

Good question...I can't really say for sure. Probably more because 1) there are more draws I have to protect against relative to made hands I am trying to get more value from, and 2) he's less likely to give me credit for having him beat if he has a made hand since I could be semi-bluffing with a flush draw.

Fuel55 said...

Lame attempt Brue

spritpot said...

Attempt at what? Lame for what reason? Care to elaborate?

spritpot said...

Oh you're talking about the comments thing, not the hand...well it seems to be working so far!

Wilson said...

Hi,
I am sort of new to online poker and definitely new to this blog but I love it. I really like the commentary on HSP because I get confused on what the players lines are. Some are a few levels than I can even think seeing the whole cards. Anyways, I want have a little more clarification on thin value. Does it mean when KQ vs Q10 cause u are getting paid by a slightly weaker hand? Or is it more a like a bluff catcher, in this case possible MP? What is the overall use of thin value betting?

spritpot said...

Welcome, Magnet. A thin value bet is when you get value from a hand that's not very much worse than yours (In this particular hand, for instance, it's about as thin as you can get because QJ is the best hand that's worse than my KQ).

It's important because winning money (in expectation) playing poker necessarily means 1) making the pot bigger when you have the best hand than when you have the worst hand, i.e., making good value bets when you have the best hand or forcing your opponent to bet himself (slowplaying) and folding or checking when you have the worst hand, and/or 2) winning pots by forcing your opponent to fold when you have the worst hand (bluffing). If you don't do enough good value betting (the first part of (1), not the slowplaying part), then your bets won't be credible. I.e., if you bet the river a lot, but you check down top pair on a dry board, a very large % of your bets will be bluffs, since hands better than top pair are pretty rare on a dry board. Good opponents can exploit that by calling you down a lot lighter.

-bruechips

Wilson said...

Thanks man. That makes sense, I am starting to get the terminology. Thin = close ranking hands, call down lighter = calling with mediocre hand. But dood, is your "l" key is broken?

"Donk method berrs going off in my head. Recentry I have seen a rot more"

spritpot said...

Magnet - we primariry speak "engrish" on this brog - thus the rack of "l's" in our posts. ROR

spritpot said...

Magnet - one other thing...there are VERY few things we rove in poker other than some tasty THIN value...thus the series dedicated to it.

Getting thin value requires a very solid understanding of hand reading skills - which takes into account a multitude of things - villain's style of play, tendencies, position, your own image, and the types of lines they take postfrop with their range of hands. Because of the revel of sophistication, we take great joy when we can extract super thin value.

Btw - this post has set the record in comments for spritpot, score!