Tuesday, December 8, 2009

You Make The Call (Or Fold (Or Raise)) II

Here's a somewhat similar situation to the last You Make The Call post. Still pretty early in a No-Limit Hold'em Tourney at Phil's (blinds are 20/40), I find myself in mid-position with 7h 8h. Sean, one to my right, limped in and I followed behind him. Action folded around to the blinds, SB calls and BB checks.

Flop is 8d Th 3c. Everyone checks to me, and I make it $100 to go. Both blinds fold, and Sean calls.

Turn is 8s (sweet). Sean checks, I bet $300. Sean calls. Hmmm..... two check-calls.

River is Td, the worst card that could have come. The board is now 8d Th 3c 8s Td. Sean bets $300. I have about $2,300 left, and Sean has about $2,000 left.

So the question is, do you call, fold or raise?

14 comments:

Coovo said...

Roller, I'm not bluffing here. What does "T" mean for the cards I first thought 2 but you could just type 2. Maybe ten? Why wouldn't you jusy write 10h. I'm confused.

Roller said...

Sorry Coovo! Yes, T is for 10. People usually write it that way I guess because it follows the single character pattern that every other card follows (2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,T,J,Q,K,A).

Anonymous said...
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Unknown said...

I think you got to go with Anonymous on this one. Why gamble or play poker at all when you could just put your money with AimTrust and commense (yup, thats how its spelled) earning with a small sum of money....Roller I think you probably just call at that point, especially early on, def. don't fold, but if you're going to raise it seems like you'd be risking a negligible amount of money just to find out if he has the 10, which if he does, hes just going to call you anyway...just reread that and what i was trying to communicate makes no sense, but I was just repeating what Gabe Kaplan and Norman Chad taught me

Roller said...

Marty, I think what you said makes perfect sense, and your logic is pretty much spot on.


So I have to call $300 to win $1,260, giving me a little better than 4:1 odds. I have to have the best hand only about 20% of the time for this to be a profitable call. With the hand I have (three 8's), this is a no-brainer call in a cash game. In a tourney, chips are a little more precious, so it's good to see if there's more info other than the pot odds that push you one way or the other.

The key reason to call (besides pot odds) are that it's really hard to give Sean credit for a 10 since he didn't bet the flop. If you have a 10 on that flop (8d Th 3c), I think most people would bet it, because you probably have the best hand now, but that could easily change if you let another card come for free.

Given that info and the odds, I called, and was incredibly surprised when Sean turned over KK! He limped in, then check-called the flop and turn, then finally bet the river when the board was paired twice. I definitely hadn't put him on any over pair, but was happy enough to rake the pot.

And as Marty astutely pointed out, there was no point in raising (in a tourney or cash game), as you'd only get called by a better hand or another 8.

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Unknown said...

maybe just by writing an article about spam roller, you've now invited all the spammers to the loop and the lou

kevin said...

i like these posts rollo - keep em up. i would have posted earlier, but i've been away from TLATL for no real reason.

i predicted a pocket pair actually for sean, as i didn't think he got that first 10, but definitely had something to call all those raises.

(i haven't won a poker game in years btw - so i'm not expert).

is this spam commonplace on blogger.com or other blog sites like this?

Anonymous said...
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Roller said...

I think you're right, Marty...

There's nothing stopping the spambots from doing this with our current configuration. We wanted to make it as easy as possible to comment, so we removed the need to log in, and we have to captcha's either. We may have to revisit this as the spam is a bit annoying.

Hope everyone is enjoying the break and TLATL will be back in full force in 2010.

Ryan said...

Roller, I agree, great posts, fun to follow, and if you actually stop and think about it for a second, it's hard to decide. These are all interesting hands, which is where the game is won or lost, before it comes down to a showdown.

I would have called. Marty spelled it out well. But I haven't won a poker tournament in days, so I'm no expert either.