The Endeavour or the Titanic?
Nothing quite like trying to complete a grant application under time pressure to sharpen up ones skills at procrastination ...
There's been a bit of recent talk in the poker blogiverse about "floating" (and I'm sorry, I neither have, nor can find the links). Like a lot of poker terms there seems to be some debate (not always civilised) over the precise meaning of the verb "to float", but certainly one of the accepted senses is a call made with the intention of bluffing on a later round.
Defending against a possible float is tough, particularly without reads. The difficulty comes from trying to distinguish between a float, a slow play, and sometimes a draw that has hit. That's precisely why the float, used judiciously, is such an effective move of course.
Here's an illustrative hand that happened in my first return to the hold'em world after the holiday season. First hand of a two table turbo SNG. Buy in small enough that you won't be short of money for the groceries if you bust out, and indeed the cost of your two minutes of entertainment won't be far above that of playing on an unfamiliar arcade game (speaking of which, does anybody actually play arcade games anymore?)
Anyhow, blinds are 10/20, and UTG you get T♦T♠. For no particularly good, nor particularly bad, reason, you open with a raise to 80. All fold, except the SB who calls.
The flop is a very ragged J♠7♦3♠. The SB checks, you bet 120 into the 180 pot, and the SB calls. This seems like a good point to formulate a plan for the rest of the hand. Whatever plan you might have formulated though will probably require some reconsideration, because the turn is 10♣ giving you a set.
Again the SB checks, and, despite the straight possibilities, you bet 200 into the 420 pot, and, to nobodies great surprise, the SB simply calls.
The river is the 8♦, putting J♠10♣8♦7♦3♠ on the board, and this time the SB varies his play by going all in for his last 1100 chips. Of course, calling this will put you all in too. Do you?
At the table, I thought it a tight decision between calling or folding. I folded, in order to maximise my "entertainment value", possibly at the cost of more traditional EV. The SB didn't do me the favour of showing his hand, so I can't tell you whether or not my decision was correct. But, as I did go on to second place, it wasn't too bad!
There's been a bit of recent talk in the poker blogiverse about "floating" (and I'm sorry, I neither have, nor can find the links). Like a lot of poker terms there seems to be some debate (not always civilised) over the precise meaning of the verb "to float", but certainly one of the accepted senses is a call made with the intention of bluffing on a later round.
Defending against a possible float is tough, particularly without reads. The difficulty comes from trying to distinguish between a float, a slow play, and sometimes a draw that has hit. That's precisely why the float, used judiciously, is such an effective move of course.
Here's an illustrative hand that happened in my first return to the hold'em world after the holiday season. First hand of a two table turbo SNG. Buy in small enough that you won't be short of money for the groceries if you bust out, and indeed the cost of your two minutes of entertainment won't be far above that of playing on an unfamiliar arcade game (speaking of which, does anybody actually play arcade games anymore?)
Anyhow, blinds are 10/20, and UTG you get T♦T♠. For no particularly good, nor particularly bad, reason, you open with a raise to 80. All fold, except the SB who calls.
The flop is a very ragged J♠7♦3♠. The SB checks, you bet 120 into the 180 pot, and the SB calls. This seems like a good point to formulate a plan for the rest of the hand. Whatever plan you might have formulated though will probably require some reconsideration, because the turn is 10♣ giving you a set.
Again the SB checks, and, despite the straight possibilities, you bet 200 into the 420 pot, and, to nobodies great surprise, the SB simply calls.
The river is the 8♦, putting J♠10♣8♦7♦3♠ on the board, and this time the SB varies his play by going all in for his last 1100 chips. Of course, calling this will put you all in too. Do you?
At the table, I thought it a tight decision between calling or folding. I folded, in order to maximise my "entertainment value", possibly at the cost of more traditional EV. The SB didn't do me the favour of showing his hand, so I can't tell you whether or not my decision was correct. But, as I did go on to second place, it wasn't too bad!
Labels: sng
posted by Michael Albert at 8:10 am
2 Comments:
Good to see you back.
It's definately a fold that nobody likes to make since a set is hard to come by, but it does look like he went for the overbet for value in the river, so the fold is pretty much ok. You still had plenty of time
to find a better opportunity in which to put your chips in (as you probably did in order to come 2nd), so: good fold!
Tough decision --- the chances are he had the set, but which one? I don't put him on the straight draw unless he's shown a previous level of donkitude, but in an SNG, it does come with the territory. He's almost certainly put you on an overpair or a hand like A-J, so he'll bet anything that beats a single pair. He's not putting you on a nine, that's for sure.
The only two hands that beat you that he was likely to make it to the river with are JJ and (less likely) 99. And, JJ he might have re-raised with, pre-flop. I think you made the safe play, but you probably laid down the winner. I really think he had pocket sevens.
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