Awful bluffs r us

Another truly awful bluff. Villain is 50/17/4 preflop (which means that he puts money into the pot with 50% of his hands, which is extremely loose; raises with 17% of them, which is a lot--he's raising with nearly twice as many hands as I'm even playing; and has an "aggression factor" of 4: this is the ratio of his bets and raises to his checks and calls postflop--it's relative, so if you play 8/4/4, you are fairly aggressive postflop, but at 50/17/4, you are using a machine gun to "fire your bullets"--make bets).

's a
PokerStars Game #17208815955: Tournament #87214767, $10+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level ItII (15/30) - 2008/05/04 - 22:00:03 (ET)
Table '87214767 1' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: FR Vessant (1670 in chips)
Seat 2: RANDY1726 (1715 in chips)
Seat 3: Ko112233 (2735 in chips)
Seat 4: kcgregg (1155 in chips)
Seat 5: al2401 (1780 in chips)
Seat 7: SCRAAPNBY (1425 in chips)
Seat 8: KAP300 (1205 in chips)
Seat 9: Monteroy (1815 in chips)
RANDY1726: posts small blind 15
Ko112233: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FR Vessant [Td As]
kcgregg: folds
al2401: folds
SCRAAPNBY: folds
KAP300: folds
Monteroy: folds
FR Vessant: raises 60 to 90

Folded to me on the button, I'll raise this. If there had been a couple of callers, maybe I'd call behind, but I wouldn't call a raise with it. I'll play with caution postflop.

RANDY1726: calls 75
Ko112233: calls 60

I'd have been perfectly happy to win the blinds, but I'm in position with a decent hand.

*** FLOP *** [Th 4c 9c]

That's a decent flop for me, obv. I have TPTK. However, the board is "wet" (has draws available--a player with two clubs has a flush draw, and QJ, for instance, has a straight draw).

RANDY1726: bets 60

Given his aggro factor, this bet can mean anything from "I have a draw", through "I have a T" to "I have nothing but I think I can get you to fold" and a lot of stops in between. We're not folding top pair here and on this drawy board, we want to make him pay if he's drawing. What you might discount here are hands that actually beat you. He isn't likely to bet them so light, if at all. If he had a set of 4s, he's likely to check it and hope I bet for him.

Ko112233: folds
FR Vessant: raises 150 to 210

So we put in a raise. This is actually a bit light but at the time I was thinking that this would be enough to have him push over anything that was crushing me. I tend to steer clear of getting "committed" (putting in so many chips that I will find it hard to fold) with hands that can easily be beaten. Here, it's largely the possibility of T9 that is giving me pause. That's a hand this guy will certainly call a raise with and while he's more likely to have checked it than bet, it can be in there.

RANDY1726: calls 150

When he calls, I'm pretty sure he has something I beat. I'd consider his likeliest hand a draw, but he could have Tx, 9x or even a 4. A small pair is also an outside possibility.

*** TURN *** [Th 4c 9c] [3h]
RANDY1726: checks
FR Vessant: bets 300

This hand is almost an object lesson in how to bet badly! But I think this is enough to make draws make a mistake and get called by the worse hands that I mostly think he has. With a less drawy board, or a slightly better hand, you might sometimes check behind to keep the pot small, and call a bet on the river or make one if you think your hand is still good. But here I don't mind folding out the draws if he has the sense to muck them.

RANDY1726: calls 300

*** RIVER *** [Th 4c 9c 3h] [7d]
RANDY1726: bets 1115 and is all-in

Whack! Okay. What's his story? It's pretty much "I have J8". It's possible but three things mitigate against it. One, it's one of the less likely hands preflop. He's loose but J8, even suited, doesn't hold a great deal of promise. Two, he's very aggro, so he will be more likely to bluff than most players. Three, and this is the key to this hand, retarded bad players do not often push here, even if their draw comes in, particularly when the straight is somewhat hidden, as it would be here. They are too afraid that you will just fold.

When a bet looks like it wants a fold, it often does.

FR Vessant: calls 1070 and is all-in

I wasn't certain I would win the hand. But I am going to win it a lot more often than not. He won't often have J8, and frankly, if he has two pair on the river, that's just unlucky for me, but I'm never crediting him for one earlier. I think he will put in more money earlier in the hand with two pair, probably on the turn.

*** SHOW DOWN ***
RANDY1726: shows [8s 8d] (a pair of Eights)

So there it is. His play is indefensible on all streets bar preflop.

Sadly, all the great postflop play in the world can be undone in an instant. I lost 1500 of the chips when I raised TT from the button and called a shove from a guy with ATs. His shove was a bit meh given my tightness but whatever. And ultimately I didn't make any money. A couple of times, a bad player rivered me and the second of them I pushed over his bet a bit intemperately. He'd sucked out to a straight unfortunately.