Was I too weak?

[GaF]

I'm interested in views here - especially from the more established cash game players. In a tourney, I'd probably have gambled (depending on what stage we were at!!), however I'm becoming a bit more risk averse in cash games, where I'm struggling again (after some hope expressed in another thread yeaterday!!)

** Game ID 395349936 starting - 2006-01-04 13:58:34 ** Meteor [Hold 'em] (0.10|0.20 No Limit - Cash Game) Real Money - red_rockets sitting in seat 1 with $39.05 - aaaak sitting in seat 2 with $22.74 [Dealer] - Psymorph sitting in seat 3 with $31.41 [sitting out] - AAkekAA sitting in seat 4 with $20.00 [sitting out] - moggyman sitting in seat 5 with $16.83 - jarlov sitting in seat 6 with $28.43 - Telepe sitting in seat 7 with $31.41 - Redhomer sitting in seat 8 with $30.47 - greenster2 sitting in seat 9 with $31.33 - GerrardNo8 sitting in seat 10 with $18.00 moggyman posted the small blind - $0.10 jarlov posted the big blind - $0.20 ** Dealing card to Telepe: Ace of Diamonds, King of Clubs Telepe called - $0.20 Redhomer folded greenster2 folded GerrardNo8 folded red_rockets folded aaaak folded moggyman folded jarlov checked ** Dealing the flop: Ace of Clubs, 3 of Spades, 2 of Diamonds jarlov bet - $0.60 Telepe raised - $1.80 jarlov raised - $7.80 Telepe folded jarlov mucks: jarlov wins $9.90 from the main pot End of game 395349936

What do I know about my opponent? Well I had quite a bit of history on him - Poker Tracker had seen 468 hands that he played. He had voluntarily added money to the pot on 29.7% of these hands. His Post Flop aggression factor is 1.37 which is not that high and doesn't account for the aggression he showed here. He'd hit something!! His category is "Vanilla/ABC" - that is

Very slightly loose, neutral, neutral. Vanilla/ABC This is a solid strategy at low stake NL tables. They tend to play more or less ABC poker, though some of the better ones may be capable of deceptive play. Their drop out rate is low, although they become slightly less effective as the hand count climbs, perhaps as they often aren’t too hard for the rest of the table to read. As they are winning players I prefer not to have them on my table although one or two isn’t going to put me off. Left or right of me doesn’t make much difference.

Worth also adding that over the 468 hands I've seen, he is a losing player, a net $24.78 down. Obviously there is a lot more info available on him to me in Poker Tracker, but the information above was all I had to make my decision within the time allowed.

[georgej]

Re: Was I too weak? Tough one GaF. I'd have folded too - possibly he had a straight or flopped 2 pair. Don't think you had put enough into the pot that it was worth the gamble. A raise after a raise is not usually a bluff. Interested as you to see what the "pro's" think.

[brael]

Re: Was I too weak? Regardless of what type of game you were playing, I think you did the right thing in folding. His raise was way too big. He could have been bluffing with 72o so imagine how you'd have felt if you had called and the flop left him holding the nuts. Having read some of Brunson's 'Super System 2', I've developed the attitude of mucking hands like KA if they don't develop on the flop and there's a bet pre-turn. You could have dropped yourself right in it so a good fold in my mind! :ok Just noticed the raise was post-flop but I still reckon you did the right thing in folding.

[guesswest]

Re: Was I too weak? Agree with all of that, I'd have layed it too. The only hand you can really put him on that you aren't losing to is AK, which is unlikely both statistically and knowing that he checked his BB, and is split anyway. You already put in an aggressive reraise, and his raise tells you he's going to make you play for your whole stack. You asked the right question and got an answer, you only have a pair, so you made a good fold. Whether you should have raised preflop is more interesting. I don't mind the limp so long as it's a play you mix up. If your table is tight I'd definitely have raised the AK because of the likelihood of a continuation bet taking the pot even if you miss, if your table is loose/passive, the limp is fine. And you're definitely right to be more risk averse in a cash game!

[GaF]

Re: Was I too weak? I tend to limp with AK, laying it down if I don't hit, but playing it aggressively if I do. The thought is that I'm happy preflop letting people limp with AQ, AJ, AT, KQ, KJ, KT and the like, in the hope of getting a nice payout if an A or K hits.

[guesswest]

Re: Was I too weak?

I tend to limp with AK' date=' laying it down if I don't hit, but playing it aggressively if I do. The thought is that I'm happy preflop letting people limp with AQ, AJ, AT, KQ, KJ, KT and the like, in the hope of getting a nice payout if an A or K hits.[/quote'] IMO, for what it's worth (probably not much :)), that's a bad way to play AK on most tables, the exception being extremely loose passive tables where your opponents will call anything but rarely raise. I think a lot of people overplay AK, but assuming you're a good enough player to get away from a hand, which you certainly are, I'm convinced there's more equity in raising AK in most situations. For one, you should be mixing up the way you play a hand anyway just so people can't put you on cards, about 80-20 is the general rule, so even if you choose to favour the limp you should be raising about 20% of the time. But setting that aside, a few advantages or raising AK the come to mind: 1. In a cash game, the blinds are always worth winning, if you win 5 BB an hour you're a good player, raising AK means you have a good chance of just taking the blinds, which is always worth doing. 2. The obvious, you can put the blinds on cards, in the hand above he could have flopped a straight, bottom 2 pair etc, all hands you can more or less rule out if you'd raised. 3. If you're playing AK to hit you're playing it to pair up, if you pair up in a pot you haven't raised you're going to have more players in it, 3+ players and odds on your single pair being in front become negative. 4. A big cash cow in ring games - you've raised so your continuation bet will be respected. You're 2-1 to hit the flop so even if only a small percentage of these continuation bets work when you miss you're in a +EV situation, plus you're drawing to two overcards if you get an unwanted call. 5. People see you making continuation bets, so when you do hit you'll get called with worse hands. 6. At those stakes, aq, aj, kq etc will call anyway. Now, because of your raise, they're more likely to play against you because they're somewhat pot committed. Probably a bunch of reasons against also, but I'm convinced on balance you should be building the pot and thinning the field at the same time with a hand which is made as only a pair.

[GaF]

Re: Was I too weak? Guesswest and I have exchanged a few PM's on the merits of aggressive preflop play with AK v passive pre flop play with AK, when he correctly pointed out I use Poker Tracker so can compare the different results in my play ..... so here goes (and I'm looking at this as I type, so at the moment don't know which way it will go) Poker Tracker has seen me play 9,445 hands, and I have been dealt AKs 25 times and AKo 77 times. So first thing to note is that this isn't a huge sample. Given the small numbers, I have made no attempt to split this up into different limits and am treating all the same. AKs has resulted in a net profit of $20.89 for me (5.36 times BB) AKo has resulted in a net loss for me of $6.02 ( 0.51 times BB) - not very good!!! AKs I have raised pre flop 21 times, for a profit of $16.17 (5.82 times BB) AKs I called pre flop 4 times for a net profit of $4.72 (2.92 times BB) AKo I have raised pre flop 53 times, for a profit of $5.56 (0.3 times BB) AKo I called Pre flop 24 times for a loss of $11.58 (2.3 times BB) This is NOT conclusive, or statistically valid, because of the small numbers, however there is a clear indication here that aggression pre flop with AK is better for me than being passive for a look at the flop. I think I need to revise my thoughts and go back to more frequent pre flop aggression with AK (which is the way I used to play!!)