What’s Your Play? Live at the Hollywood Casino Results

To understand this week’s hand, you have to understand the psychology of a certain type of live player. I’m not the most experienced live player myself, but I do think I’m quite good at understanding what and how my opponents think, and I’ve encountered more than a few of these guys in my time.

They don’t appreciate the variance in poker, and their first goal is to not lose, even if it means a lower overall win rate (not that they think about it in exactly those terms). They hate losing big pots and assume that if they do they must have done something wrong. Usually that something was, in their minds, either overvaluing or failing to protect a good hand. They’ll attribute both of these supposed mistakes to “getting greedy”.

The objective of these players is really to make big hands more than induce to mistakes, balance their play, or anything like that. Some commenters  question whether Villain would limp-call 87s. This may be questionable strategically, but I think you will see it quite a bit from live nits, especially when deep. They aren’t going to raise with it because they want to see the flop cheaply, but they don’t consider it a trouble hand the way they might ATo or KJo or something.

In their minds, big hands win big pots, and questions like “how big?” and “how often?” don’t really come up. If it can make a big hand, which 87s can, then it’s worth seeing a flop. Most of them don’t appreciate the extent to which being out of position is a problem for them even if they don’t intend to take something marginal to showdown or run a big semi-bluff. If they are used to playing with very weak players, which in smaller stakes live games they will be, being out of position probably doesn’t hurt them as much and their strategy isn’t as bad as it sounds.

We’ve already established that this guy is more than pushing the limits of his bankroll, so even moreso than usual he is going to be averse to losing a big pot. That means he’s not slowplaying a set on the flop when straight and flush draws are possible, and he’s not overvaluing his hand by putting in 200 BBs with the third nuts on the turn when the hands that beat him are easily in Hero’s range. Remember, these are the two cardinal sins of the live nit, and you can bet that when one of these guys is playing twice his usual stakes, he’s not committing them.

I’m also not seeing semi-bluffs in his turn range. Regardless of whether you think it’s correct strategically, it’s not how nits play.

Then there’s the matter of the involuntary shaking. As others have said, this is a very reliable sign of strength. Specifically, it tends to indicate that a draw has come in. Mike Caro, in his Book of Tells, attributes it to a sudden release of the tension that built up while waiting to see whether the next card will complete the draw.

This is corroborated by the fact that the shaking doesn’t start until the turn. Something about the T has Villain suddenly feeling good, and Hero holds the only other hand that might be cause for such excitement. As Nate says, “a really important piece of information is how Villain behaved _on the flop_. With an OESD, and playing bigger than usual, this is a trivial check-call in the eyes of many opponents, and I would expect much less indecision/hesitation than if he flopped a set. There are many places to look for physical information, but the flop is maybe better than the turn in this situation.”

Watching this hand, I was very sure that Villain had the nuts when he check-raised. The Hero was a student of mine and told me after the fact that he had TT. With that hand, it’s awfully close between folding and calling with the intention of putting no more money in on blank rivers.

We don’t know for sure whether Villain will pay off on paired rivers, so let’s say that he pays off on non-club pairs but not clubs. In this case it actually matters whether Hero had the Tc, which I don’t know, but let’s pretend he doesn’t. That means there are 8 river cards where Hero can win the pot plus Villain’s stack. If he otherwise folds, then calling is slightly -EV: 0.16 ($2275) -0 .84 ($500) = -$56.

A few factors make me want to call anyway. One is that bluffing clubs could be profitable. Seven non-board-pairing clubs give Hero a 14% chance of winning the $1175 already in the pot on the turn, which translates to $164.50.

There’s also some chance that our read is wrong and we’re able to check it back or call a very small bet (I’d fold to half pot) and showdown the winner. It won’t happen much, but it doesn’t have to.

If you believe that you can’t profitably bluff clubs or get paid off on paired rivers, then you have to fold. Many people have said that you have to be pretty damn sure to get away from this. I agree, and there’s enough information here that you can be.

In the actual hand, Hero called the turn. The river was a blank, and Villain, still radiating strength, bet $800. Hero folded.