Getting bets when you flop the penultimate nuts?

Not sure how I could have gotten more value out of this hand… Could I have gotten the 2nd player to put more chips in before he folded by raising or would that have just cooled everything down?

https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/483278974

I doubt you could have gotten more out of him.

One thing though, your call on the flop was too fast. I would have taken maybe 1/3 of the clock so it looked like I had to go through some sort of thought process. Waiting until the last second to bet or raise usually means strength, but 1/3 usually doesn’t.

Remember, the amount of time you take is information.Try to control what information you are giving out.

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I don’t really worry about the clock. Lag, or inattention explains a lot of “thinking time” and ultimately I don’t think it really means anything. When people deliberately wait to the last second, I kinda roll my eyes. I tend to look at the cards for at least a second or two to double check that I read them right before acting, but sometimes I snap call. I try to be courteous with not taking too much time, and let the game move at a good clip. Most of my decisions don’t require a great deal of time to make.

I don’t think raising on the flop or river would have been a good idea. I think there’s a saying: “When you know you’re ahead, and they’re betting, let them.” But the min-betting was making me worried that I’d end up taking a tiny pot. Still, no way I could be beaten on the hand – only a Royal Flush could have beaten me, and I blocked it by holding the Tc. So I could just call any bet and let someone make what they thought was a really strong hand, hopefully. At least I got it all-in by the river.

Everything means something. The clock is one of the few sources of information we have. Ignore it if you want, I don’t.

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It’s information, and it can mislead as much as it leads.

I try to get cute with the timing of my bet, I risk mucking on a timeout.

I can watch what other people do with the clock. A-holes take all of it up every decision. I’ll tolerate it for about 1 orbit an then report it.

Some people play it out for suspense like I’m sure they’re spending the whole time thinking about it. That’s for show; they want me to think they’re really thinking about it.

Do they want me to think they want me to think they have a marginal hand and should call, when they really have a nutty hand?

Or do are they really trying to sell a bluff, fake-agonizing over the bet so that I “know” they’re on a monster, and don’t call when they’re just bluffing?

But clearly I cannot choose the cup in front of me. Wait! What on earth is THAT? Oh, must be nothing.

But wait, I’m just getting started. Never get into a land war in Asia.

So what would a lengthy hesitation on a min bet tell my opponent? How much information does that convey, more than what calling a min bet conveys? Am I signaling I have a pair of Queens and hope I’m not dominated by Kings, but figure calling a min-bet isn’t going to hurt very much? That I’m on a Broadway draw, and my pot odds are good? What pot odds would I have to have to fold here? Near 0, right? A lot of hands muck with QKJ on the board. TX, JX, QX, KX, AX should all call. 99 and under should probably lay down, but even they can stay in for a min bet.

It’s information that needs to be taken in context. What did that bet timing mean in previous hands?

Is his timing plus the fact that he called more informative than the fact he called in isolation? Yes, actually, it is… sometimes.

Like most tells, bet timing is easy to fake.

Anyway, if you think it’s meaningless, I’m OK with that.

You report people who use the amount of time given by the software? Who made you the God of Time? Egad.

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I don’t think observing clock use it’s meaningless; I think it’s low-reliability intelligence, and mostly discount it. It’s ambiguous at best. In a crucial hand, where the pot is big enough and you know your opponent is paying attention, and not inattentive, it might mean something. So I observe and take note, but I don’t try to bank on it too much.

As for how I use the clock, I don’t try to manipulate it too much. For one, I don’t even know if anyone’s paying attention to my action. For two, I really don’t want to get timed out accidentally. For three, maybe it’s best to not vary the amount of time your decisions take, the way maybe it’s best not to vary your betting structure lest you give away information about your hand. For four, it’s just nicer to have the game move at a nice clip. I take as much time as I need to, and try not to take more than that.

I’ve done it once or twice, yeah. I’ve tolerated it a few times more than that.

If you read the rules for the site, it says that using the entire clock every decision is not allowed, and if someone does, you’re allowed to report it as abuse. If that’s playing God, then the admins have decided that we’re all gods.

It really is a detriment to the game when someone does this. Consider a MTT. Playing through hands slowly means you play fewer hands per hour, which means fewer pots per hour, which means other players are winning more hands in the same amount of time, which means they end up with dominant stacks that you can’t hope to match.

I don’t mind it if a player takes the entire clock to make a decision, but when they do it every single street, and never act until the last possible second to check or call, or let the clock fold them, it’s aggravating. Doubly so for each additional player who tires of the delay and decides to retaliate by doing it also. Or by shoving every hand.

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Tolerated it, OK. Nuff said.

Just for the record, I don’t abuse the clock, I use it as a tool. I usually act pretty fast.

So you know the site rules? How do you feel about someone saying in chat, “I have 37o, call me!” Should I report that kind of collusion when I see it?

Anyway, you seemed to be asking for opinions on how you could have gotten more money out of that hand. I gave my opinion. If you don’t agree, that’s cool with me. :slight_smile:

I do value your opinion, whether I agree with it or not. I can’t say for sure whether hesitating before calling might have induced the player who folded to bet harder on the next street or not; I just very much doubt that it would have.

I personally choose not to read a lot into how people use the clock, because it’s easy to fake and there’s so many factors that can’t be known as to why that particular action took that much time.

I never accused you of abusing the clock; I’m sure you don’t. But if you or anyone did use every second of it on every street, every hand, that meets the site’s definition of clock abuse. I’ve been in tournaments with players who did that, and it’s not a common thing at all, thankfully, but it’s happened a few times. After the 5th or 6th time, I looked into it and found it was reportable, so I reported it after waiting an orbit or two – that’s 18 hands x at least 4 decisions per hand.

Imagine 18 hands in a Turbo game taking 36 minutes for one player, not counting the other 8 at the table. That’s why they have this rule:

Slow Play

A time clock is provided for every player on every hand of poker. At Replay Poker, we believe each player should have adequate time to make a play based on their personal strategy. Some players need more time than others. We ask that all players be patient and not make rude comments or post a series of “z”s in the chat line to express their impatience. We also ask players not to use the time clock as a method to retaliate against or provoke others. Intentionally running out the clock slows the game and makes the experience unpleasant and painfully boring for all players.

And yeah, if someone breaks the rules of the site, me or anyone, someone else may report it, and the site should do what they feel is right and necessary to address the situation. Even pros break the rules and get issued warnings and other discipline if they persist in violating rules.

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I’ve also reported people for abusing their clock in a tournament setting - always after verbally, nicely, asking them to speed up their action. In a ring game, it’s easier to just jump to a different table.

Given that you block the royal flush, you can actually amend the post to say that you have the nuts in this situation, since nobody can have you beat. Further, since your hand cannot improve, and nobody else can possibly end up with a better hand than you after the flop (say, by pairing the board and turning a set into a boat, which could make nut flushes vulnerable), I really like the decision to work this into your call range.

If you’re looking for a way to chew up a few seconds on the clock, it helps to think through what value hands and bluffs you could bet in a given situation. For example: you probably won’t have any nut flushes or sets here, since you didn’t raise preflop - but then again, the same can be said for many of your opponents. If you have T8s in your flat range preflop, you could have the second nut flush with a redraw to a royal/straight flush. Ditto 98s and the third nut flush with a redraw to the straight flush. Not sure you should flat much weaker hands than that, so maybe work KJ into your value range. For bluffs, I like the T8s and 98s hands that don’t have clubs, and any hands with the ace of clubs and an offsuit 2-9 that could turn into the highest non-straight flush.

Get into the practice of doing this while your clock is running on a decision. That would be a really smart use of your time, and help make your clock management seem a bit more balanced.

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True; and I knew that at the time. I put “penultimate” in the title because the hand was the 2nd best possible hand in all of poker, not the 2nd best possible hand in this particular pot. I knew I had won as soon as I read the flop, and just had to figure out how to get anyone else to call me by the time all my chips were in the middle.

Of course; that’s an easy, easy decision. This is a true “call any” situation.

Occasionally I will watch poker on TV, or on Youtube, and most of the top players seem to run the clock down to give the impression that they are deep in thought.

I do think that you can give away information to an opponent sometimes by betting too quickly, like instantly check-raising, however I do agree that information gathered from timing is not always reliable. It is just one tool that can sometimes be useful.

Live poker is pretty different from online. I would pay more attention to time taken in a live game, but also be trying to read their body language, their facial expression, their eyes, their hands, etc. That’s a whole lot of extra stuff to pay attention to, and it makes sense to use more time in order to do that observing, and to factor it into your decision making.

Instant calling is a bit of an information giveaway, which is why I don’t check those boxes unless it’s to fold, and even then I usually wait a few seconds and fold manually. I try to make my decisions take the same amount of time, and usually know what I’m doing before the action reaches me, so it doesn’t take that long. Once in a while, I’m distracted and it’ll take a few seconds to hit whatever button. If that makes people think I’m up to something, lol, I’ll take it.

What information are you giving away? Most of your range should be check-call or check-fold in a given street, except preflop when checking isn’t an option unless you’re the big blind and everyone is flatting. Particularly facing the min-bets that are prevalent at lower stakes, you’ll have way more check-call in your range than check-fold or check-raise.

Also, just because your hand is only good enough to check-call on one street doesn’t mean it will stay that way. Take my recent hand review, where the turn gave me top two pair on a draw-heavy board. My flop-call, turn-raise range looks very different (and often stronger) than my flop-raise range.

Instant action conveys that you have a hand that you can make your decision without need to consider the action of the player immediately preceeding you. Which, contrary to what I’ve been saying above, can be significant. I might not take much time with my decisions, but I like them to appear to be “hand made” rather than locked in and automatic. But I just don’t go in for the dramatics of drawing out a decision for most of the clock, as a fake-out, either.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. tdsun was super-aggro. The slower than usual call on the river was to entice the other guy to stick around, but he could only play there with a flush, which I’m guessing he didn’t have.

I think a snap call on the turn would have killed the action.

https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/487189467

When I flop the nuts i do two things you are not likely to find in poker books so I will share them here:

First I check, then I cross my fingers…

I concur…

Maybe. It certainly is possible to read into the timing with which a bet is placed some degree of confidence or strength. I just don’t find it to be all that reliable, for all the reasons I’ve given above. So I pay less attention to that, and more to the cards I have, the board, my position, my stack, my opponent’s stack. Timing is not entirely negligible, but I tend to not put as much weight on it as compared to the other factors that tell me so much more.

What I see, replaying the hand, is that you smoothly called with 3 of a Kind Kings on the flop, rather than raised. Lots of players would try raising here, and that would have ended the hand quickly, getting any non-King to fold, and anyone holding a King to call, but the you have to worry if your Ten kicker is good enough.

When you fill out your boat on the Turn, again you could have raised… but why? All that does is make your opponent scared, and as long as they’re betting, you might as well let them. You do give a little extra time to call, but you’re not obnoxious about it, you don’t take up every last second on the clock. But again, this is a min bet from @tdsun, which is a pretty easy call regardless – if you hit the flop enough to call the first min bet at the flop. So, without knowing your cards, it’s pretty easy to put you on KX or maybe 33, or even 3X at this point. If you don’t have that, and called both bets, then the only other thing I could see you having would be QJ, drawing to a straight, a pair 44+, or possibly a spades draw. AK is ahead of most of those hands, here, but not you.

On the river, your opponent is overconfident because he has top kicker, doesn’t figure you would have went for a hearts draw, although you could have hit one if you had, and knows you wouldn’t have hit a spades draw if you were on it, and he bets the pot, to put you all in.

Probably he puts you on a KX and is hoping you’ll call – he’s certainly not going to get you to fold a full house if you have KT, K3 or K9, 33, TT, or 99. If you don’t have 3 Kings, there’s virtually no chance you call here, except with QJ, which would have filled out a straight, which beats him. Maybe he’s representing Flush to scare QJ from calling with a straight, but that would be a pretty unlikely fold even with 3 hearts on the board.

There’s no point in waiting here to make the call, you can’t raise him and you can’t extract any more value out of him. The only thing it might accomplish would be to get the third player to call, too, but that’s highly unlikely in any case. You didn’t take a lot of time to call on the river, but if you had, your timing wouldn’t have told @GUNSLINGER12 anything more important about his chances of having the best hand than the 2200 chips put in front of him by the lead player, or your willingness to call his bet, and his own two cards, regardless of how much time it took you to decide.

I guess maybe if he had a KX, too, but with a low kicker, a snap call here might have got him to think a little harder about not folding, but pretty few players are folding trip Kings after slow playing them like this – if he had a King, which, it’s pretty clear, he didn’t. The whole point of the slow play is to get your opponent to bet into you, so you can take them. But if he did have KX, he made a great fold.

If the third guy had KX, there would be 5 kings in the deck, which would be unlikely. I’m guessing he had a spades draw.

There aren’t many hands he could have had that would call the river after the pot-sized bet and my call, but given that tdsun was playing so many hands and being so aggressive, I thought it worth trying to entice him to call or raise too.

I think bet timing is something most people don’t really notice, but it does register on some level. It is a piece of information, even if mot 100% reliable.