A Good Case of the Mondays

post from Counting My Outs on 11 April 2006 08:54:00 AM. © Counting My Outs

© COPYRIGHT 2006 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
If yesterday was a case of the Mondays, sign me up every Monday. I finished the day with an overall profit of $86 over 431 hands at the $2/4 LHE tables at Poker Syndicate/Imperial ($70 profit, 278 hands) and World Poker Exchange ($16 profit, 153 hands).

I am still waiting for my $47 rakeback payment from WPE for my play last week, which was due yesterday. I'm guessing that the small site wasn't exactly prepared for the number of players who came on board last week and is having a problem keeping up and getting the rake payments made on time. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and keep playing there for now. If they don't get the rakeback payments worked out, I'm sure their penalty will be the exodus of players from the site.

WPE has a couple of other good things going besides the 100% rakeback. They recently added 5-max short-handed tables for the SH folks and I have seen a few of those tables going. Also, if you are a tournament player, their tournaments have very nice overlays right now with the guaranteed prize pools they are offering. For example, they will have a $5 +$1 NLHE tournament (and the $1 fee is refunded 100%) with a $500 guaranteed prize pool and only 50 players signup. I am going to have to play a few of those.

To Slowplay, Or Not To Slowplay, That Is The Question
Yesterday's hand:

Here is my favorite question once again, slowplaying. Here is a hand I played over the weekend. It was a tight and aggressive game with a lot of blind defense. I had been at the table for 25 hands or so and all I can read about my opponent so far in the hand is that he appears to be selective when playing hands:

World Poker Exchange
Limit Holdem Ring game
Limit: $2/$4
8 players

Pre-flop: (8 players) Michael is EP1 with [K? K?]
2 folds, Michael raises, 4 folds, BB calls.

Flop: [K? T? T?] (4.5SB, 2 players)
BB checks, Michael ???

Do you (1) check behind and slowplay or (2) bet here hoping that the BB has caught enough of the flop to proceed and what are your reason(s)?

The comments yesterday on this hand were universal, in that actually betting here would be a better way of concealing the strength of my hand than checking behind because checking would set of warning bells as to the strength of my hand. It is certainly hard to argue that logic.

However, I did decide to slowplay here. For me to consider a slowplay, four things have to be present to do it:

The pot must be small. Not protecting my hand by betting with a large hand is a mistake.
It is likely that if I bet that my opponent(s) may fold.
Giving a free card will give my opponent (s) a chance to make a good hand, but not one that can beat me.
My opponent(s) in the hand is (are) not a poor player. It always makes sense to bet against a poor opponent because they will call bets with hands like Ace-high.

With a Kings full of Tens hand, I have basically crippled the deck here. There is only one King and two Tens that my opponent could have, so it's not very likely that he has caught anything other than a draw here at best, so if I bet odds are that he will fold. Now, if I check and he actually does have a draw and hits it, then he will likely stay in until the end. Or he could have a pocket pair (e.g., 88) and hit a set on the turn or think his pair is good if I check. Finally, my opponent is not a poor player, so he is very unlikely to call a flop bet with a hand like Ace-high. It looks like all of the conditions are right for a slowplay here heads-up.

Here's how the rest of the hand played out:

Flop: [K? T? T?] (4.5SB, 2 players)
BB checks, Michael checks

Turn: [2?] (2.25 BB, 2 players)
BB bets, Michael calls

River: [4?] (4.25 BB, 2 players)
BB bets, Michael raises, BB reraises, Michael caps

BB showed [4? 4?] for Fours full of Tens.

I think by slowplaying and letting the BB hang around and make a second best hand, I was able to maximize the value of my hand here. If I bet the flop, he may have called, but folded to a turn bet (unless he was a "set farmer"). Also, if I raised his bet on the turn, he likely would have folded.

Bloggers Championship