Texas hold 'em question (Now WSOP 2005 - Spoilers!) (1 Viewer)

[Sami Kallio]

My best game was against an ace high flush. I had straigth flush.

 

[RichP]

Players like you pay my mortgage for me every month

In all seriousness, new players play far too many hands and subsequently lose most of their chips pretty steadily.

If the amount of flops you're seeing is > 20% and you're not getting high pocket pairs, then you're playing too many hands.

Remember in No-Limit, all it takes is one hand to render you completely broke, but you can also slowly bleed to death by throwing away calls hand after hand because you played poor hands and hoped.

 

[RichP]

Did you have Pocket Aces or just one Ace and the board paired Aces & Tens?

If you had just one Ace, you should have been out of that hand in a heartbeat after the double pairing. If you had pocket Aces to start, could you have pushed him off his hand pre-flop?

 

[Jack Fanning]

Just last night playing in a one table sit n go.

I was heads up with a guy that had me 3 to 1 in chips and I flopped a set of 4's. I slowed played it and he bet into me, I smooth called and the board paired aces giving me a full house-4's full of aces. He bet into me again and I went over the top and raised all-in thinking I'd reeled him in. He turned over A-10, which gave him aces full of tens....doh!

 

[Sami Kallio]

I guess I said it wrong, I should have said if the bet is very low. Say the minimum raise. If the blinds are already high then I flop rather than play the blind, even if I have paid the small blind. How much depends all on the cards. But I agree people stay on their cards way too often, especially when the flop is A and a pair, and they have A on pocket.

 

[RichP]

Jack,

This is similar to the advice I just gave above...

When there's a higher pair than the one you are holding on the board, you always have to assume that the other player has the set,or in your case a boat.

It hurts sometimes to make laydowns like that, but that's all part of being a winning player. Your choices were either not to slowplay, check and call him down, or fold.

2nd place in a SNG though is a nice accomplishment!

 

[RichP]

I understand, but I still think that's a poor play. Putting any amount of $ in the pot to see a flop with poor cards "just because I might hit something" will never pay off in the long run, and will grind you down during the session.

Like Kenny said, "You gotta know when to fold 'em!"

 

[Sami Kallio]

If it's cheap, I will take it and it has paid off many times (long run considered). The money you lose is very little and you can't play if save all the time, that just makes you too easy to read...

 

[RichP]

Let me know where you play, I'd love to sit in sometime.

 

[Jack Fanning]

Rich,

Yep, that was a laydown that I was not gonna make, ESPECIALLY heads-up! As a matter of fact, I was giddy to get all my money in with that hand :b

I guess that's the diff between a pro and an amateur....though I bet a good % of pros would've made the same play I made with a full house in a heads-up match.

 

[Sami Kallio]

DFW. I have to warn you though that the game is played differently when someone who knows how to play is there. With a good hand you would not let me stay like some of these guys do. When the tourney is started with 1000 chips and the blinds are 1/2 I will call the big blind with bad cards as it is basicly free. It's your job to get me out.

It all depends on who you are playing with (how they play) and how much is at stake. If I have 7/2 off suite and I get a pair of 7's on the flop I will stay in with very low bets as that 3rd 7 would give me a good pay-off. A good player would not let you stay for (practically) free and fish for that 3rd card or a straight. 2 pairs is a kiss off death in many cases, even if the other pair is not on the table.

 

[Jim_F]

I've had the pleasure of busting both the A-high flush and quads with SFs.

At the other extreme:

Bet the last of my chips on A's full of K's in 7 Card vs. a guy with no pair showing. He had quad 9's.

At a daily tourney at Harrah's last winter, I caught a flop of 9-5-5 while holding 9-9. The fellow next to me bet into me 5x the BB, and I'm thinking "overpair" and decide to be coy and just call. The turn comes "4", no possibility for SF and he bets into me 10x BB. I put the guy on A-5 at this point. I figure I'll shut this thing down now, and maybe cut the guy a tiny break by my moving all-in. He calls. I proudly turn over my 9-9. He turns over 5-5. Needless to say, my only out did not come on the river. It was funny (in retrospect) 'cause he had just complained about how many small pocket pairs he was folding due to big preflop bets.

 

[george kaplan]

I think you're missing the point. Unless you're the big blind, you shouldn't be staying in for the flop with a 7/2 off suit, no matter how cheap. Yeah, you'd be SOL the one time a pair of 7s flopped, and much richer the 99% of the rest of the time when they didn't.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

What was that you said earlier Rich? Oh yeah... Players like you (Rich) pay my mortgage for me every month.

I am always happy to have players at my table who can easily talk themselves out of the statistically better hand simply because they do not have the 'nuts'. Very few winning hands ever have the nuts even with 8-10 players.

Obviously one cannot make judgments about a hand without knowing all the details - like how many players, table positions, chip stacks, pre-flop betting, number of remaining players post-flop, order of the community cars, etc. In addition, one has to consider outs, pot odds, bet odds and implied odds.

That said, if someone is holding an ace and the board flops 2-tens and an ace, the odds of another player holding one of the only two remaining tens is only about 1% depending on the number of post-flop players. Unless the player with trips laid a huge bet down such that it drastically affected the pot and betting odds, it would be foolish to give up the hand. Even with a large post-flop bet, there is a greater chance that the other player has an ace with a high kicker than the third ten.

In the scenario that Travale alluded to, at best the player with the tens would have flopped the nuts, Quad 10's and would have at most laid a marginal bet in order to keep the action going.

If the second ace came up on the turn, now the only way the ace-10 boat would lose would be if the other player had both tens, which the odds against are enormous (about 10,000 to 1).

No experienced poker player would ever fold a hand when they held the high pair aces on the flop or held the nut house as Travale did - its not going to happen unless the player holding the nut quads 'revealed' his hand from poor play. The odds of a player being dealt a pair is about 2%, but the odds of getting quads after the flop is about .01% - I'd bet AGAINST those odds any day, especially if I was holding the second best hand as Travale was. Obviously if the player with the quads was a weak player and you were able to get a read on them, then laying that hand down would make sense.

Of course Rich, you are free to prove me wrong if you would like to make a trip down to Austin. I can arrange a seat for you in a high enough stakes game to make it worth the effort, assuming you play well.

 

[Sami Kallio]

Then again, the odds are against you on the roulette table but that's where I usually get most of my money. You have to weight in the reward versus the cost. Sometimes the cost is very low and worth it but I guess that also depends on the games you play (rules and other players).

 

[AjayM]

You're beating the odds then, do you track your winnings/losses?

Here's a good percentage chart on hand strength before the flop;

http://www.texasholdempoker-stats.com/thp_ranks.html (might be a pop-up or two, the blocker got them, but YMMV)

7/2 at a 10 person table = sub 5% chance of winning.
A/A at that same table = 31% chance of winning.

Andrew

 

[AjayM]

That's called pot odds in poker, but basically as you said it's a risk/reward analysis. Playing 7/2 before the flop has pretty poor pot odds as well

Andrew

 

[RichP]

I love breaking cocky players.

You on PokerStars? PM me and I'll set up a $1k heads up match.

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

Hmmm.. does this mean you like to play with yourself? (poker that is)

You may want to re-read your posts in this thread...

My response was addressing your 'cocky' attitude towards a scenario without knowing the finer details, which any experienced poker player would have to know to determine if Travale made the right decision. Furthermore, your analysis of the hand even in a worst/best case scenario ignored the probabilities of the hands - which is a major no-no in poker.

If you are so anxious to give away your money I'm sure we can arrange something. I will send you details.

 

[Jeff Blair]

Ok now Big Dawg.... Play nice. I know I have had my share of runs as well...as Nils can tell you. One night I might be hitting everything, even with 72 off. And, another night I couldn't win a pot to save my life even with high pairs. It all depends on the cards that you can get, and how you play them. I know Nils has gotten his fair share of chips from me, but then some nights it is the other way around.

Jeff "The Boat" Blair