Calling station

Here's some high-variance play that I don't recommend.

I have a strong read on jawilmes. He's a LAGgy, not very smart player, and I've picked a few things up while watching this tourney.

Full Tilt Poker Game #6244268587: $6 + $0.50 Sit & Go (Turbo) (47526848), Table 1 - 150/300 - No Limit Hold'em - 2:39:27 ET - 2008/05/01
Seat 1: basatagirl (3,000)
Seat 4: Jamarekk (1,566)
Seat 7: PisquitoSour (4,676)
Seat 8: jawilmes (4,258)
jawilmes posts the small blind of 150
basatagirl posts the big blind of 300
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to basatagirl [Jh Ts]
Jamarekk folds
PisquitoSour folds
jawilmes raises to 600
basatagirl calls 300

I call because his minraise means one of two things: he's "trapping" with what he thinks is a decent hand, or he's noticed I'm playing tight and wants to win the blinds cheaply.

Mostly, it's the second. So I call the minraise. I'll fold if I don't like the action on the flop. Against a more straightforward player, the call is much tougher.

*** FLOP *** [5s Qd Th]
jawilmes bets 600
basatagirl calls 600

I'm pretty sure my hand is good here. When he has something, he's been betting decent amounts. This smells a lot like a bluff. I'm certainly not folding middle pair without strong reason to think I'm losing.


*** TURN *** [5s Qd Th] [Ac]
jawilmes checks
basatagirl checks

He confirms he was bluffing by checking the turn. I still want to check it down though, because my hand has value at showdown that can be lost if he pushes and bluffs me off it. On many river cards, I'm going to be happy to call a bet.

*** RIVER *** [5s Qd Th Ac] [Ad]
jawilmes bets 900
basatagirl calls 900

That's a terrible card to bluff with. If he wasn't confident on the turn, he can't be now. It's conceivable that he has Qx and was scared by the ace on the turn, but it's much more likely he had nothing. He thinks I don't have an ace (didn't bet turn) and could have paired the flop or begun with a small pair. This is not a good spot for a bluff though, because his story is just not credible for his kind of player.

This is why. If he was a tight player who I thought had a clue, his bet would look like a value bet. IOW, I'd likely read it as a smallish bet from a player with a decent queen, who figured that I might have that pair or a weak queen, and would possibly pay off a small bet. It's called a "value" bet because you attempt to get value for your hand the times it is better than your opponent's, which you figure it will often be. What you don't want to happen is to let me show down cheaply if I would pay for the privilege. But you don't put in too large a bet, because you want to be called.

But this guy has no concept of a value bet. If he has it, he bets it hard. He doesn't think what I might have. All he can see is his own hands. He is trying to steal the pot cheaply.

You should often play very weakly postflop in STTs, but here I had a clear read and the betting indicated a bluff very strongly. So I snapped it off:

*** SHOW DOWN ***
jawilmes shows [8d 4d] a pair of Aces

I don't recommend that a beginner plays this way. In an STT, you need to play tightly because of ICM and I often fold when I'm reasonably sure the other guy is bluffing because the chips will really hurt to lose. But when your experience allows you to read a player well, sometimes you need to call it down when you know you're good.