Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t seen the initial post, please go here: Battle of the Big Stack Regulars then come back for the results!
Here is the initial post with results:
1-2 no limit, live cash game. Villain is well known to me; he’s a very good aggressive player with a large preflop playing range…any suited ace, connector, big cards type. We each have a lot of respect for the other and generally avoid being in a hand together. Both players are cautious around the other cuz the styles are similar, and both are the table big stacks, about 400-500 each 1 hour into a new table with 200 max buy in.
Villain BB, Hero seat 7 after button. Hero has 8d9d and raises to 15$. Fold around to Villain who calls, plus chronic calling station in seat 5 after button. Flop 7c8h9h. Villain bets 20 into 47$ pot, calling station folds. Hero tanks then reraises to 60. Villain tanks then calls. Turn is Qs. Villain check hero check. River As. Villain bets $40 into $162 (after rake) pot.
I called and lost to 10J offsuit; I put him on ace low heart, and I believe that he either knew I put him on that, or he put me on the heart draw. I don’t believe he put me on 2 pr; or he may have expected a chop.
Now what do you think?
On the original post there was a few comments about raising the guy. I think a point lost is that he’s a regular in the game hero plays. You don’t make an enemy or adversary of the guys you play regularly. Sure you don’t let them walk over you but if its understood you’ll be playing them often, no need in generating any ill will. That’s another reason for the call and not a raise. Don’t let him steal, keep him honest and continue to learn about his style of play so you can judge better when you might tangle again in future.
This was my hand, and I wanted it posted here because I wasn’t sure that calling an underbet was a smart move here, in all honesty; it should have raised some flags for me. One comment I had about reraising is that reraising on the button after the river card with over cards and a str draw on board is a bad idea any time. If you reraise one of three things will happen: he’ll call, he’ll fold or he’ll reraise back. None of these are particularly good ideas. The only positive result you get is if he folds; if he calls or raises you’ve already lost. As one poster put it “Reraising gives you lots of information”. How so? Doing nothing gives you as much information cuz the hand is done, and doesn’t cost you as much if your read is wrong. Any pro will tell you to never raise a hand from last position after the river if you think there’s the slightest chance you’ll get beat. It just costs you money more than it makes you. Someone with a losing hand will fold to that reraise every time, and a winner will smooth call if he’s not 100% sure and reraise if he had the nuts (as Sun did in this case).
No, he played the hand absolutely perfectly. When he called my 3 bet I was done betting because the chance of him having a straight was there, and very real. He checked the turn because he wants to be able to extract a bluff out of me on the river, or maybe wants to reraise the turn. He bet 40 on the river hoping that i’d reraise with a set or try to bluff him off. If I do neither of these, he knows I have to at least call unless I was making a stone cold bluff, cuz i’m priced in and pot committed. If he bets any more, he knows he probably wont get paid unless we have a chop, in which case he still doesn’t get paid. If he mass overbets it and goes all in, he may make me think he’s overbetting cuz he has a bluff, but again, I believe he knows me well enough to know that I would think that a bit suspicious from him. Also, I’ll never call off my whole stack without the nuts bigstack to bigstack…over the long run that just beats up your roll. Plus the board made that a bad move for him anyways…if he had say AQ and the board was 689 instead of 789 that becomes a better move for him. Having said all that, one more thing about him is I didn’t put him on AQ cuz I suspect he would reraise me preflop with aq, just to see how strong his ace is.
As the villain is a known aggressive player, I’m surprised he didn’t bet (at least) the pot when he flopped the nuts straight, OR check it to set a trap. This is especially true with the call station there who might of been looking to draw. Since he put $20 into a $40+ pot, I would think he had a pair and/or a flush/straight draw. I guess he wasn’t as aggressive as I thought (not knowing him or you).
The important thing is that I was right to fold!
I think, even though you lost, the call was the right option. You payed an additional $40 to gather worlds of information. You know he is willing to call a raise with JT. It was a great flop for him and an good one for you. I think your reraise on the flop was a great way to gather information. His call should of raised a lot of red flags. You gathered a lot of information that you wouldn’t of gotten if you folded.
Good luck in the future.