Sorry for the lack of updates, I was at a BDL tournament on Friday then a wedding reception in New York yesterday. The good news I’m staying in New York with a friend from the old Harvard Law School game I used to play in, so we got in some friendly 3-handed action with another of the guys yesterday. We played a .25/.50 NLHE game with a $100 buyin. I found myself rebuying a few times but somehow managed to avoid playing too many interesting hands.
Probably the most interesting was when I was in the BB with Q8s. Joe opened for $2 on the button, Darren folded in the SB, and I raised to $7.50. I knew Joe was opening up his raising range quite a bit from the button, but he’s fundamentally a tight player, so I thought putting some pressure on him would be effective if I kept it up on future streets.
However, I flopped middle pair on an AQ7 flop. So, I checked and called a bet. We both checked a J on the turn, then I checked a 5 river. Joe bet, and while I figured my Q could be good a decent amont of the time, I also felt that he was pretty much never checking the turn with a hand that would call a shove on the river. So I moved all in, and he quickly folded. I showed my Q8, to which Joe replied, “You could have just called” so I guess I was good anyway. I still think it’s a good spot to turn the hand into a bluff, though, just because even if a call is profitable a shove is going to win the pot nearly every time.
Also by showing you might be able to get more action later with a big hand, or deter some thin value betting when you check the river OOP…by calling you might deter some bluffing against you later on, but encourage some thin value betting, which is probably not you want OOP.
-bruechips