Post Hands to Review

[Comicguy]

@JoeDirk

The rationale you gave for not raising preflop (the limper is a station) is exactly the reason you need to raise. 99 is one of the strongest starting hands, and if he is going to call with a wide range, then you are going to be extremely profitable and more easily double up. Limping behind with smaller pairs can be ok if you aren’t getting enough folds, but 99 is too strong.

All good points and would be good advice if the game being played was poker. It isn’t, its something called “Whack-a-Flop”. In a somewhat normal game, I just fire my stack in from the SB and either steal or am flipping to more than double. Then again, you wouldn’t see anyone limping in as 1st to act with 96o so there’s that.

Did you ever watch Road Runner cartoons? If you did, you’ll remember that the coyote was constantly trying to create overly complicated schemes to catch/kill the Road Runner. Wile E. Coyote, super genius. Needless to say, his complex plans always failed while people like me were sitting there wondering why he didn’t just go out and buy a 12-gague. I see a lot of the same thing here - overly complicated schemes being concocted to get chips that are just as easily won with the simple approach.

@JoeDirk

As played, I don’t think betting 1 bb is the right choice in any situation. You get no value when you are ahead, don’t get any folds to deny equity, and have no information about whether your hand is good.

My play was terrible poker. It was ugly and absurd and simplistic. Its also effective. The 1bb bet did in fact get a fold from the BB and told me everything about the initial limpers hand I needed to know. That 1BB donk-bet was called by the limper, not raised. That told me he had a little something but didn’t have top pair or better. People are deathly afraid of flush draws and will shove to protect their Top pair+ hands on that board. They also shove their nut flush draws so I know he didn’t have that. So, I found out that he either had a pair under the 10 or some Ax hands, with or without the Ad for a backdoor flush draw. When the 2nd 10 came out, I was almost certain where I was in the hand and that I was best. His call meant he had a pair under top pair and that’s all. The river was perfect to get my stack in and he was always going to call with a full house, which I was ahead of.

I like good poker. When required, I even try to play it. Most of the time I have found it to be totally unnecessary here. When you can play the player, all the finer points of poker are completely useless. I heard someone once say that chips don’t come with a story of how they were won. Sometimes you just need to get out the 12-gague and keep it simple.