Joined: Jan '12
Location: Australia
Age: 30 (M)
Posts: 155
Here it goes. Say you have a full boat on the river and bet out for the 3rd street and and your raised on the river. You know this player would never be doing this with worse and likely has a full house or quads but you call anyway because you have a boat. What it is you consciously make plays that you know that are not profitable but you do it anyway because your hand is to strong to fold because your to stubborn to do so.
I find myself doing this quiet a bit and even the great players do this frequently. You see this time and time again and i think that all good players are guilty of it. Some players can never trust their initial reads even though their right 90% of the time. A player holding pocket AAs in the WSOP knew the other player was chasing a gutshot and got there but this player decided to call regardless because they had pocket AAs. It happens a lot and im sure most people here have done it more than once before.
What i belive is that is stems down to the fact that humans are curious people and the agony you get from folding these hand along with the feeling of not knowing if your read was correct is enough to entice a call. Just my 2 cents what do you think?
Joined: Feb '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 1886
Yeah I have made a call like this before and I think you are right it's just the fact that you can't face not knowing or just in case the villain has made this obvious move as a bluff that you should fold.
For instance you have an over-pair and the flop is J high. They call you all the way and then when the river turns a second jack it's reasonable to expect trips. But you are so angry that you have been out-drawn you don't want to believe. The bet is only a third of the pot but it's pretty obvious they have some J with a weak kicker. You could raise and turn your over pair into a bluff of AJ but you know they are going to call you with trips. Maybe though, you convince yourself, they are betting out with a missed draw cos they don't put you on having the J either. Why would you call with anything worse than trips? The villain knows that. So you feel you have to call just on the off chance they are trying a fast one. They usually aren't.
Joined: Aug '11
Location: Portugal
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 232
When i do that is :
A. I don't care about the game. B. For some reason i am bored/not playing my A game and i just call knowing im probably beat.
I think most of us do that kind of mistake when we are not really focused in what we are doing. The fact that (unless you hit a crazy run) we don't get pretty strong cards very often and we have to be very patient helps alot. When i really want to win a tournament or whatever and i'm really focused in that goal, i don't remember making that kind of calls tho.
I'm asuming that your talking about hands where you know you are beaten based on the opponent info that you have, because yes, i've made a few calls aswell just to check on what he has, but 99% of the times when paying what he bets doesn't hurt my game. Usually early in the game searching for some info. If i'm getting good enough pot odds i'll make the call.
Joined: Mar '11
Location: Germany
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 1242
You are absulutely right. I do this still much to often, just to see if I my reads are correct. I have to try minimize this leak in my game, because its costing money. But occultum is also right: It happens most in games where I don´t care about it or I am bored and not paying attention.
Joined: Feb '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 59 (M)
Posts: 5712
Yep. Its a tempting old situation isnt it. You always want to make sure (at any apparent cost) that you were beat after all....but what a stupid thing to do! unless of course you are being bluffed if someone has sensed a little weakness tendency in your earlier plays.
Joined: Jan '11
Location: United States
Age: 60 (M)
Posts: 3361
That's it exactly! Everyone's reply to this post and the post itself is an excellent statement about how we humans are. I've done this so many times and 90% of the time my initial read is correct and that 10% is hoping the other player is bluffing or isn't holding what I think their holding.
I also believe sometime's I don't care and wonder why I'm playing or even get bored with the pace of the game just as MIG014 stated.
Well, good players usually think about maths a lot... To me, some full houses just can't be folded because it would be the best hand more often than not. Losing to a cooler doesn't bother me, but sometimes even coolers are avoidable.
For example when you have the weakest possible full house and a tight player shoves the river, you really should think twice before you act. But it depends on the board and stack sizes a lot. If the river makes a possible flush or straight, then it makes folding even harder because he could be shoving a ace high flush or a good straight even on a paired board, trying to extract more value from a set or weaker flush/straight. On a K8494 rainbow board, folding 84, 94, 88 and even 99 is definetly a possibility against a very passive player who 3-bet pre flop and is obviously holding kings... But personally I don't think I would be able to fold this kind of hand, unless we're both very deep stacked and it would make no sense for the other guy to risk his whole stack.
Still, some nits rely on their table image to make big bluffs once in a while, but it's pretty rare. Barry Greenstein does that a lot in cash games.
Edited by TheMachineQC (28 September 2012 @ 07:42 GMT)
this happens to me when I lose set over set and or boat over boat or when drawing to a boat also gives quads to an opponent. At first when I look at the implied pot odds I've made the right call. Then I go back and do the reverse implied pots odds and found in most cases I made a bad call and should have folded. If I had the time to do the reverse I P O at the table that would confirm my intuitive insight and fold. There has been afew times where my made hand has turned out to be 2nd nuts by the river. Understand now that what I used to consider a bad beat really wasn't...just wasn't looking far enough into the bigger picture. There really isn't alot of time to do all the calculations at the table online....think it's set up this way so more mistakes are made and as they say hindsight is 20/20. More often that not I'm on a cooler, no hands, missing flops, bad boards for quite some time...then wake up with a hand and feel like we're good to go...only to find out not. Strong hands are very good hands...just maybe not the best hand.
Edited by rbdflyboy (28 September 2012 @ 07:42 GMT)
Joined: May '08
Location: Lithuania
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 10090
well folding a full house might not be the greatest idea- even if you think you have a read on your opponent, in reality you just THINK, you don't see his hole cards (unless you're Hellmouth on UB) so you have a very strong hand, and your opponent might have a weaker one- it's not like you're thinking about folding a pair...tough decision, depends on many factors, so no one answer to solve it
